{"id":790,"date":"2008-09-29T13:40:56","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T13:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=790"},"modified":"2008-09-29T13:40:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-29T13:40:56","slug":"see-qa-2-expertise-and-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2008\/09\/29\/see-qa-2-expertise-and-authority\/","title":{"rendered":"SEE Q&A (2): Expertise and Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"

We continue our 8-part Q&A with Harry Collins and Rob Evans concerning their Sociology of Expertise and Experience project.\u00a0 Once again, we note that Collins and Evans crafted their answers jointly.\u00a0 This is not a spontaneous exchange.<\/em><\/p>\n

Will Thomas<\/strong>: Your main concern in moving in the direction of SEE relates to a long-standing concern with the authority that knowledge bestows, and particularly Wave Two\u2019s concern with dismantling the notion that scientific knowledge possesses an authority inherent to itself.\u00a0 Would you say that the problem of authority has been the central motivation behind the sociology of science?\u00a0 Is the unlimited extension of expertise to \u201cfolk knowledge\u201d<\/span> “folk wisdom” , which you criticize, a logical consequence of the Wave Two approach?<\/p>\n

Rob Evans and Harry Collins<\/strong>: Chacun a son gout<\/em>.\u00a0 We can\u2019t speak for others, but for us the problem has never been one of authority.\u00a0 Instead, what is at the centre are the questions posed by the philosophy and the sociology of knowledge:\u00a0 How do we have knowledge and is there any way of making it secure?\u00a0 Understanding how science works is essential for understanding these more fundamental questions. It is true that the motivations of some of those who came into science studies was more directly connected with ideas of socially responsible science—the Society for Social Studies of Science\u2019s most prestigious award is named after J.D. Bernal after all—but for us any changes to the idea of science have emerged as a consequence of the uncovering of the social nature of knowledge not the other way round.<\/p>\n

For Collins, the discovery, in the early 1970s, that science could not have the authority and certainty that the old models of Wave One suggested, because replication by itself could not settle disputes, was just that—a discovery (albeit an exciting one given the dominance of Wave One thinking at the time).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In some ways, it is a shame that science cannot live up to the old model—life would be so much simpler.\u00a0 Of course, those whose critique is driven by discomfort with the authority of science are likely to be delighted with the complete collapse of scientific authority that appears to be attainable by rigorous application of the philosophical scepticism of Wave Two.\u00a0 For example, it can be used to justify what we term the `folk wisdom view\u2019—which romanticises the lay citizen and assumes that a robust common sense can solve all problems.\u00a0 But drawing on the `common sense of the people\u2019 is not something to be done lightly: the phrase was used to terrible effect in Nazi Germany (e.g. see Richard Evans, 2005, The Third Reich in Power<\/em> London: Alan Lane, p. 444).\u00a0 In any case, it is hard to see how one can make out that ordinary folk are wise in the ways of technology if experts aren\u2019t.\u00a0 Our position is that we want the best of both worlds—democratic accountability and scrutiny but in a world where science and expertise retain significant cultural authority.\u00a0 Both extremes—unlimited technocracy on the one hand and technological populism on the other, are too appalling to contemplate.<\/p>\n

In stating these preferences, it is important to separate `science and technology\u2019 from `scientists and technologists.\u2019\u00a0 The argument is that science, technology, and expert knowledge more generally, ought to retain a substantial degree of cultural authority in a good society.\u00a0 Science should seen as the best way of making knowledge about the natural world even though it cannot and should not ever regain the pinnacle it occupied under Wave One.\u00a0 This means that scientists and technologists should be recognised as experts but that they should not be granted political power by that fact.\u00a0 Democracy always has the last word: under Wave Three, it would be a democracy in which science and technology continue to be dominant elements in our culture.<\/p>\n

The motivations here may be na\u00efve but, as we argue in the 2002 paper (1), it is intentionally so.\u00a0 The claim is that a society driven by the old fashioned values and aspirations of scientific thinking—an expanded version of the Mertonian norms—could be a good society.\u00a0 Again, this is a statement of preference: it seems to us that, even if the ANT-type Machiavellian model of science as a continuation of politics by other means works as a description, it does us all a disservice as a prescription.\u00a0 Cynicism of this kind has been used as a licence to abandon scientific aspirations and replace them with realpolitik and political posturing.\u00a0 Galileo standing up to the power of Church and State for the sake of the truth is the right justificatory myth for the good society, not the cynical, collaborationist, alliance-building-with-the-powerful, idea that many people believe follows from the Second Wave.\u00a0 Hobbes may have been right in terms of the description of science but Boyle (or the mythical Boyle) was right in terms of what we should aspire to.<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/p>\n

(1) H. M. Collins and Robert Evans, “The Third Wave of Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience” Social Studies of Science <\/em>32<\/strong> (2002): 235-296.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We continue our 8-part Q&A with Harry Collins and Rob Evans concerning their Sociology of Expertise and Experience project.\u00a0 Once again, we note that Collins and Evans crafted their answers jointly.\u00a0 This is not a spontaneous exchange. Will Thomas: Your main concern in moving in the direction of SEE relates to a long-standing concern with<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… SEE Q&A (2): Expertise and Authority<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collins-evans-qa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}