SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE What is Sociology? What is Science?
SOCIOLOGY AS A DICIPLINE Study of Society & Culture - What makes a Society? - How is it constructed, maintained and changed? Study of Human Social Activity & Interaction - How do people behave & interact? - What external (non-cognitive) explanations can we find for this behaviour & interaction?
FAMOUS EARLY SOCIOLOGIST
DURKHEIM There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.
MARX History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.
WEBER A fully developed bureaucratic mechanism stands in the same relationship to other forms as does the machine to the non-mechanical production of goods. Precision, speed, clarity, documentary ability, continuity, discretion, unity, rigid subordination, reduction of friction and material and personal expenses are unique to bureaucratic organization.
OBJECTS OF STUDY
SOCIOLOGICAL BRANCHES
A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION Macro: Institution X is a function for society as a whole (society = organism) Ex. Science is a function for modern society in being the the objective source of answers to our challenges and questions (the new church) Micro: Ex. Science is the result of human beings trying to solve problems, earn money or trying to get attention
MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Culture studies Gender studies Post modernism Post structuralism Critical realism Discourse analysis Environmental sociology
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE Science as: - A Culture - System of norms - Discourse - Society - Community - Agency - Religion - Capitalism
QUESTION Do you believe in science?
THOMAS KUHN The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) Normal science' means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. Research under a paradigm must be a particularly effective way of inducing paradigm change... the puzzles that constitute normal science exist only because no paradigm that provides a basis for scientific research ever completely resolves all its problems.
PAUL FEYERABEND How To Defend Society Against Science (1975) I want to defend society and its inhabitants from all ideologies, science included. All ideologies must be seen in perspective. One must not take them too seriously. One must read them like fairy-tales which have lots of interesting things to say but which also contain wicked lies, or like ethical prescriptions which may be useful rules of thumb but which are deadly when followed to the letter. Most scientists today are devoid of ideas full of fear intent on producing Most scientists today are devoid of ideas, full of fear, intent on producing some paltry result so that they can add to the flood of inane papers that now constitutes "scientific progress" in many areas.
RELATIVISM & REFLEXION Sociology teach us that what we regard as natural, unavoidable, god or true are results of historical and social powers and contexts To know way we regard something as a fact we need to look in to the context that supports the truth.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT No science AND society only science IN society No science AND agency only science AS agency
THE STRONG PROGRAM As formulated by David Bloor in Knowledge and Social Imagery (1976), the strong programme has four indispensable components: Causality: it examines the conditions (psychological, social, and cultural) that bring about claims to a certain kind of knowledge. Impartiality: it examines successful as well as unsuccessful knowledge claims. Symmetry: the same types of explanations are used for successful and unsuccessful knowledge claims alike. Reflexivity: it must be applicable to sociology itself.
SOCIOLOGY OF TRANSLATIONS 1. Problematisation What is the problem that needs to be solved? Who are the relevant actors? Delegates need to be identified that will represent groups of actors. During problematisation, the primary actor tries to establish itself as an obligatory passage point (OPP) between the other actors and the network, so that it becomes indispensable. 2. Interessement Getting the actors interested and negotiating the terms of their involvement. The primary actor works to convince the other actors that the roles it has defined for them are acceptable. 3. Enrollment Actors accept the roles that have been defined for them during interessement. 4. Mobilization of allies Do the delegate actors in the network adequately represent the masses? If so, enrollment becomes active support.
ETHNOMETODOLOGY WHAT DO SCIENTIST DO WHEN THE DO SCIENCE? Woolgar & Latour - Laboratory Life They talk, write, send papers, argue, presents, defend, drinks coffee, Agency to the artefacts Computer says no
INSCRIPTIONS = DATA = AGENCY TO MACHINES
WHAT FUNCTION DOES METHOD HAVE FOR SCIENCE? Comparability Communication It's the details that sell your story!
CLAIMS OF KNOWLEDGE What about scientific truth and facts? Negotiable? Changeable? Constructed?
THE SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE - 0ut-there-ness - Neutrality/objective - Modality - Credibility - -Details
CONSTRUCTING FACTS Facts are Scientific optimism Brought in Placed out Reflexive construtivism Scientific Community
SCIENTIFIC STATEMENTS I belive X Professor Z claims X Results from test show that X X is a fact
WHY MESS THINGS UP? What holds the next paradigm back? How to argue for science? How do you construct good solid facts? There is no where to run!
QUESTION Do you believe in science?