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Home , Applied science, Positivism, Prehistory

" C HAPTE R 1

The Prehistory of and Studies

A View of Science

Let us start with a snapshot of a common view of science. It is a view that coincides more or less with where studies of science stood some 50 years ago, that still dominates popular understandings of science, and even serves as something like a mythic framework for themselves. Snapshots always lack nuance, but they are useful nonetheless: this one includes a of distinct elements and some healthy debates. It can, however, serve as an excellent foil for the discussions that fo llow. At the edges of this picture of science, and discussed in the next section, is technology, seen as simply the application of science. In the common view, science is a fo rmal activity that accumulates by directly confronting the natural world. T hat is, science makes because of its method, and because that method allows the natural world to playa role in the evaluation of . Science's method is a of procedures and approaches that makes sys­ tematic, and tends toward the discovery of . While the may be somewhat loose and large, and therefore may not level all differences, it creates a certain consistency: different scientists sh ould perform an similarl y; scientists sho uld be able to agree on important questions and considerations; and most importantly, di ffe r­ ent scientists considering the same should accept and reject the same hypotheses. T he result is th at scientists can agree on truths about the natural world. Exactly how science is a formal activity is open to some question. It is worth taking a closer look at some oftl1e prominent views. Two important philosophical approaches within the study of science are logical , initially associated witl1 the , and falsificationism, associated with . T he Vienn a Circle was a group of phil osophers and sci­ entists who met in the early 1930s. T he project of the Vienna Circle was to 2 Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies Preh istory of Science and Technology Studies 3 develop a phil osophi cal understanding of science that would allow fo r an ex pansion of the scientifi c worl dview - particularly into the social Box 1.1 The an d into itself. T he project was immensely successful, in the sense that positivism was widely absorbed by scientists and non-scientists Among the asides inserted into the next few chapters are a number of interested in increasing the rigor of their work. Interesting pro blems in the versions of the" problem of induction." These are valuable background view, however, meant that positivism became increasingly focused on is­ for a number of issues in Science and Technology Studies (S&TS) . At sues within the , losing sight of the more general least as stated here these are theoretical problems, that only occa­ sionally become practical ones in scientific and technical contexts. While project with which the movement began (see Friedman 1999; Richardson they could be paralyzing in principle, in practice they do not come up. 1998). One aspect of their importance, then, is in finding out how scientists Logical positivists maintain that the meaning of a scientific (and and contain these problems, and when they fail at that, anything else ) is exhausted by considerations, logical and empirical, of how they deal with them. what would ve ri fY or fa lsifY it. A , then, is in some sense a The problem of induction arose with 's general ques­ mere summary of possible , in a logically structured . tions about evidence in the eighteenth century. Unlike classical skeptics, T his is one way in which science can be seen as a fo rmal activity: scientific Hume was interested not in challenging particular patterns of argu­ theories are built up by the logical manipulatio n of o bservations (e.g. ment, but in showing the fallibility of from in Ayer 1952 [1936 ]; Carnap 1952 [1928]), and scientifi c progress consists general. In the sense of Hume's problem, induction is the extension of in in creasing the number and range of potential o bservations that its theo­ data to cover new cases. To take a standard example, "the rises ri es indicate. every twenty-four hours" is a claim supposedly established by induc­ T heories develop through a method that transforms in dividual data points tion over many instances, as each passing day has added another data point to the overwhelming' evidence for it. Inductive arguments take into general statements. T he process of creating scientific theories is there­ n cases, and extend the pattern to the n+ 1st. But, says Hume, why fore an inductive o ne. As a result, positivists tried to develop a of should we believe this pattern? Could the n+ 1st case be different, no science that would make solid the inductive process of moving from indi­ matter how large n is? It does no good to appeal to the regularity of vidual fac ts to general claims. For example, scientists might be seen as cre­ , because the regularity of nature is one of the things at issue. ating frameworks in which it is possible to uneq uivocally generali ze from And as (1958) and (1983 [1954]) data (see box 1.1). show, nature could be perfectly regular and we would still have a Positivism has immediate problems. First , if meanings are reduced to problem of induction. This is because our ideas of what it means for o bservati o ns, there are many synonyms, theories o r statements that look the n+ 1st case to be the same as the first n cases are not the only as tho ugh they should h ave very different meanings, but do not make possible ones; sameness is not a fully defined concept. differe nt predictions. For example, Copernican as tronomy was initially It is intuitively obvious that the problem of induction is insoluble. It designed to dupli cate the more successful predictions of the earlier is more difficult to explain why, but Karl Popper, the political philoso­ pher and philosopher of science, makes a straightforward case that it Ptolemaic system ; in terms of observations, then , the two systems were is. The problem is insoluble, according to him, because there is no roughly equivalent, but they clearly meant very different things, since principle of induction that is true. That is, there is no way of assuredly o ne put the Earth in the center of the , and the had the going from a finite number of cases to a true general statement about Earth spinning around the Sun. Second , many apparently meaningful all the relevant cases. To see this, we need only look at examples. cl aims are not systematically related to o bservatio ns, because theories are "The sun rises every twenty-four hours" is false, says Popper, as for­ often too abstract to be im mediately cashed out in terms of data. Ab­ mulated and normally understood, because in Polar regions, there stractio n should not render a theory meaningless. Despi te these prob­ are days in the year when the sun never rises, and days in the year lems and o thers, the positivist view of meaning taps into deep , when it never sets. Even cases taken as examples of straightforward and cannot be entirely dismissed . and solid inductive can be shown to be wrong, so why should we be at all confident of more complex cases? 4 Prehistory of Sci ence and Tec hnology Studies Prehistory of Sc ience and Tech nology Studies 5

Even if one does not believe positivism's central ideas, many people are attracted to the strict relationship that it posits between theories and obser­ Box 1.2 The Duhem-Quine thesis vations. Even if theories are not mere summaries of o bservations, they should be absolutely supported by them. T he justification we have for believing a The l)uhem- Quine thesis is the elaim that a theory can never be con:­ scien tific theory is based on that theory's solid connection with data. An ­ elusively tested in isolation: what is tested is an entire f ramework or a other view, then, that is more loosely positivist, is that one can by purely web of beliefs. This means that in principle any scientific hypothesis logical means make predictions of observations from scientific theories, can be held in the face of apparently contrary evidence. Though and that the best theories are ones that malce all the right predictions. This neither of them put the issue quite this baldly, and W. v. o. Quine, writing in the beginning and middle of the twentieth view is perhaps best articulated as falsificationism, a position developed by century respectively, showed us Why. (Sir) Karl Popper (e.g. 1963), a philosopher who was once on the edges of Let us imagine we have some theory that makes a number of pre­ the Vienna Circle. dictions. How should we react if some of its predictions turn out to be For Popper, the key task of philosophy of science is to provide a demar­ false? The answer looks straightforward: the theory has been falsi­ cation criterion, a rule that would allow a lin e to be drawn between science fied, and should be abandoned. This is the basis of Popper's ra~ional­ and non-science. This he fi nds in a simple idea: genuine scientific theories ist philosophy of science. But this answer is too easy, because theories are falsifiable, making predictions that are open to question. The scientific never make predictions in a vacuum. Instead, they are used, along attitude demands that if a theOlY's prediction is falsified the theOlY itself is with many other resources, to make predictions. When a prediction is to be treated as false . Pseudo-sciences, among which Popper includes Marx­ wrong, the culprit might be the theory. Alternatively, it might be the ism and Freudianism, are insulated from criticism, able to explain and in­ data that set the stage for the prediction, or additional hypotheses corporate any . They do not make any firm predictions, but are capable that were brought into play, or measuring equipment that was used of explaining or explaining away anything that comes up. to verify the prediction. The culprit might even lie entirely outside this of resources: some unknown object or process that This is a second way in which science might be seen as a formal activity. interferes with observations or affects the prediction. According to Popper, scientific theories are imaginative creations, and there To put the matter in Quine's terms, theories are parts of webs of is no method for creating them. As such, they are free-floating, their mean ­ . When a prediction is w rong, one of the beliefs no longer f its ing not tied to observations as for the positivists. However, there is a strict neatly into the web. To smooth things out - to maintain a consist ent method for evaluating them. Any theOlY that fails to make risky predictions structure - one can adjust any number of the web's parts. Provided is ruled unscientific , and any theOlY that m akes failed predictions is ruled one is willing to redesign the web radically enough, any part of it can false. A theOlY that makes good predictions is provisionally accepted - until be maintained. One can even abandon rules of logic if one needs to! new evidence comes along. Popper's is first and foremost skeptical, Here is a simple example. When Newton's predictions of the path unwilling to accept anything as proven, and willing to throw anythin g away of the moon f ailed to match the data he had, he did not abandon his that runs afoul of the evidence. O n this view, progress is probably best seen t heory of gravity, his of motion, or any of the calculating devices as the successive refinement and enlargement of theories to cover increas­ he had employed. Instead; he assumed that there was something wrong with the observations, and he fudged his data. While fudging ing data. W hile science mayor may not reach the , the process of violates the scientific ethic, we can appreciate his impulse: in his view, conjectures and refutations .a llows it to encompass increasing of the theory, the laws, and the were all stronger than the . data! Later physicists agreed. The problem lay in the opt ical ass ump­ Like the central idea of positivism, falsificationism faces some immediate tions originally used in interpreting the data, and when those were problems. Few scientific theories make hard predictions without adopting changed Newton's theory made perfect predictions. a whole host of extra assumptions (e.g. Putnam 1981); so most scientific Does the Duhem-Quine thesis give us a problem of induction? It theories are "unscientific." Also, when theories are used to malce incorrect shows t hat any number of resources are used, implicitly and explicitly, predictions, scientists often - and quite reasonably - look for to to make a prediction, and that it is impossible to isolate only one of explai n away the predictions, rather than rejecting the theories. Nonethe­ those resources as at fault when the prediction appears wrong. We less, there is something attractive about the idea that (potential) fa lsifica­ might, therefore, see the Duhem-Quine thesis as posing a problem of deduction, not induction, because it shows that when dealing with tion is the key to solid scientific standing, and so fa lsificationism, like , still has adherents today. the real world, many things can confound neat logical deductions. 6 Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies 7

For both positivism and falsificationism, the features of science dut make those norms tend to contribute more to the scientific project than scien­ it scientific are formal relations between theories and data, whether it is the tists not adhering to d1el11. We have a picture of science as a relatively ­ rational construction of theoretical edifices on top of empirical data or d1e regulated activity, steadily adding to d1e store of knowledge. Merton does rational dismissal of theories on d1e basis of empirical data. There are analo­ not describe a particular scientific , but a that gous views about mathematics; indeed, we might see formalist pictures of privileges epistemic concerns. science as depending on stereotypes of mathematics. Merton does not claim that science is pursued by particularly "scientific" But there are other features of the popular snapshot of science. These people. Rather, science's social structure rewards behavior that, in general, formal relations between theories and data can be difficult to reconcile promotes the growth of knowledge; in principle it also penalizes behavior with an even more fundamental about science: Whatever else it that retards the growth of knowledge. The need for progress, in d1e straight­ does, science progresses toward truth, and accumulates truths as it goes. forward sense of the accumulation of knowledge, shapes the social struc­ We can call d1is intuition realism, the name d1at philosophers have given to ture of science. This position is held by a number of od1er thinkers, such as the claim that many or most scientific d1eories are approximately true. Popper (1963) and (1962), who both support an indi­ First, progress. One cannot but be struck by d1e increases in precision of vidualist, republican ideal of science, for its ability to progress. Interest­ scientific predictions, the increases in scope of scientific knowledge, and ingly, the position is even echoed by writers in the "Radical Science the increases in technical ability d1at stem from scientific progress. Even in Movement," who, in d1e hopes of harnessing a fully objective science to so well-established a field as , calculations of the dates and times socialist goals, are highly critical of science's economic and social roles. of astronomical events continue to become more precise. Sometimes d1is Common to all of these views of science is d1e idea that standards or precision stems from better data, sometimes from better understandings of norms are the source of science's success and authori ty. For positivists, the the causes ofd10se events, and sometimes from connecting different pieces key is that theories can be no more or less dun d1e logical representation of ofkllowledge. And occasionally, d1e increased precision allows for increased data. For falsificationists, scientists are held to a standard on which they technical ability or new theoretical advances. have to discard theories in the face of opposing data. For realists, good Second, truths. According to realist intuitions, there is no way to under­ med10ds form d1e basis of scientific progress. For functionalists, the norms stand the overall increase in predictive power of science, and the technical are the rules governing scientific behavior and attitudes. All of these stand­ ability that flows from that predictive power, except in terms of the in­ ards or norms are attempts to define what it is to be scientific. They provide crease of truth. That is, science can do more when its d1eories are better ideals dut actual scientific episodes can live up to or not, standards to judge approximations of the trud1, and when it has more approximately true theo­ between good and bad science. Therefore, d1e view of science we have seen ries. This means that science does not merely convenient d1eo­ so far is not merely an abstraction from science, but is importantly a view of retical descriptions of data, or merely discard falsified theories. When it ideal science. constructs theories or other claims, those eventually approach the truth. When it discards falsified theories, it does so in favor of theories that better approach the truth. However, realists are generally committed to something like formal rela­ Box 1.3 tions betvveen data and theories. Real progress has to be built on more or less systematic methods. Otherwise, there would only be occasional gains, Scientists choose among competing hypotheses as offering the best stemming from chance or genius. If science accumulates trud1S, it does so account of some collection of data. This choice can never be logically conclusive, because for every explanation there are in principle an on a rational basis, not d1rough luck. indefinitely large number of others that are exactly empirically equiva­ If we step away from issues of data, evidence, and truth, we see a social lent. Theories are underdetermined by the . This is aspect to d1e standard picture of science. Scientists are distinguished by easy to see through an analogy. their even-handed attitude toward d1eories, data, and each other. Thus Imagine that our set of data is the collection of points in the graph Robert Merton's functionalist view, discussed in chapter 3, dominated dis­ below. The hypothesis that we create to "explain" these data is some cussions of d1e of science through the 1960s. Merton argued line of best fit. But what line of best fit? The graph on the right shows dut science served a social function, providing certified knowledge. That two competing lines that both fit the data perfectly. function structures a number of norms of behavior: scientists adhering to 8 Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies Prehist ory of Sc ience and Technology Studies 9

"'1 portunities, and creatively combine pieces of knowledge to address them. Technology combines th e scientific method with a practically minded crea­ I.i I tivity. As sLl ch, the interesting questions about technology are about its x l xX effects: Does technology determine social relations? Is technology ­ x x r> izing or dehumanizing? Does technology promote or inhibit freedom? These x p~X \j"b,v V - I are important questions, but as they all take technology as a finished prod­ x uct they are normally pursued relatively divorced from considerations of x the creation of particular . If technology is then it is limited by the limits of scientific knowledge. On the common view, then, science plays a central role in - -~. determining the shape of technology. T here is another form of determin­ ism that often arises in discussions of technology, though one that has And clearly there are infinitely many more lines of perfect f it. We been more publicly controversial. A number of writers have argued that can do further testing and eliminate some, but there always be infinitely many more. We can apply criteria like and elegance the of technology is the most important cause of social structures, to eliminate some of them, but such criteria take us straight back to because technology enables most . People act in the context the first two problems of induction: how do we know that nature is of available technology, and therefore people's relations among themselves simple and elegant, and why should we assume that our ideas of sim­ can only be understood in the context of technology. While this sort of plicity and elegance are the same as nature's? claim is often challenged - by people who insist on the priority of the social When scientists choose the best theory, then, they choose the best world over the material one - it has helped to focus debate almost exclu­ theory from among those that have been seriously considered. There sively on the effects of technology. is little to believe that the best theory so far considered, out Lewis M umford (1934, 1967) established an influential line of thinking of the infinite numbers of empirically adequate explanations, will be about technology. According to Mumford, technology comes in two vari­ the true one. In fact, if there are an infinite number of potential eties. Polytechnics are "-oriented," integrated with broad human needs explanations, we could reasonably assign to each one a probability and potentials. Polytechnics produce small-scale and versatile , useful of zero. The status of underdetermination has been hotly debated in phi­ for pursuing many human goals. Monotechnics produce "megamachines" losophy of science. Because of the underdetermination , that can increase power dramatically, but by regimenting and dehumaniz­ many philosophers (positivists and tbeir intellectual descendants) ing. A modern factory can produce extraordinary material goods, but only argue that all scientific theories should be thought of as instruments if workers are disciplined to participate in the working of the . This for explaining and predicting, not as t rue or real istic representations distinction continues to be a valuable resource fo r analysts and critics of (e.g. van Fraassen 1980). Realist philosophers, however, argue that technology (see, e.g. Franklin 1990; Winner 1986). there is no way of understanding the successes of science without In his widely read essay "The Question concerning Technology" (1977 accepting that in at least some circumstances evaluation of the [1954]), Martin Heidegger develops a similar position. For Heidegger, evidence leads to approximately true theories (e .g. Boyd 1984; see distinctively modern technology is the application of science in the service box 6.2) . of power; this is an objectif)ring process. In contrast to the craft that produced individualized things, modern technology creates resources, objects made to be used. From the point of view of modern technology, the world consists of resources to be turned into new resources. A View of Technology For both Mumford and H eidegger modern teclm ology is shaped by its scientifi c . Even the pragmatist philosopher (e.g. 1929), Where is technology in all of this? Technology occupies a secondary role in who argues that science is simply theoretical technology, and that all rational this constellation of beliefs. T his is for a simple reason: technology is often thought is i.nstrumental, sees technology (in dle ordin31Y sense) as applied seen as the relatively straightforward application of science, in both popu­ science. The view dlat teclmology is applied science tends tow31'd a form of lar and academic accounts. Technologists identif)r needs, problems, or op- technological . For example, Jacques Ellul (1964) defines tech- 10 Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies 11 nique as "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute Almost all work in S&TS is more subtle tl1an that, exploring instead tlle efficiency (for a given stage ofdevelopment )" (quoted in Mitcham 1994: 308). ways in which tl1e material world is llsed by researchers in tl1e production A that has accepted modern technology finds itself going down a path of knowledge. S&TS pays attention to the ways in which scientists and of increasing efficiency, allowing technique to enter more and more domains. engineers attempt to conSU'uct stable structures and net\:vorks, often draw­ Thus the view that a formal relation bet\:veen theories and data lies at the ing together into one account the variety of resources llsed in making tl10se core of science informs not only our picture of science, but of technology. structures and networks. Scientists and engineers use the material world in Challenges to that view form the origins of S&TS. their work; it is not merely translated into Imowledge and objects by a mechanical process. Clearly, S&TS tends to reject many oftl1e elements of the common view A Preview of S& TS of science. How it gets to that point, and the ,"vays in which it does so are tlle topics of tl1e rest of this book. S&TS starts from an assumption that science and technology are thor­ oughly social activities. They are social in that scientists and engineers are always members of communities, trained into those communities and nec­ essarily working within them. Communities, among other things, set stand­ ards for and evaluate lmowledge claims; there is no abstract and logical scientific method apart from the actions of scientists and engineers. In addition, science and technology are arenas in which rhetorical work is crucial, because scientists and engineers are always in the position of having to convince their peers and others of the of their favorite ideas and plans - they are constantly engaged in su'uggles to gain resources and to promote their views. The actors in science and technology are also not mere logical operators, but instead have investments in skills, prestige, knowl­ edge, and specific theories and practices. Thus and values of many different types are important components of research. Even conflicts in a wider society may be mirrored by and connected to conflicts witl1in science and technology; fo r example, splits along gender, race, class, and national lines can occur both within science and in the relations bet\:veen scientists and non-scientists. S&TS takes a variety of anti-essentialist positions with respect to science and technology. Neither science nor technology is a natural kind, having simple properties that defines it once and for all . The sources of knowledge and artifacts are complex and various: there is no scientific method to U'ans­ late nature into knowledge, and no technologicalmetllod to translate knowl­ edge into artifacts. In addition, tl1e interpretations of knowledge and artifacts are complex and various: claims, theories, facts, and objects may have very different meanings to different audiences. For S&TS, then, science and technology are active processes, and should be studied as such. The field investigates how scientific knowledge and technological artifacts are constructed. Knowledge and artifacts are human products, and marked by tl1e circumstances of tl1eir production. In tl1eir most crude forms, claims about tl1e social construction of knowledge leave no role for tlle material world to play in tlle making oflmowledge about it.