WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Discovery as invention: a constructivist alternative to the classic science documentary. Robert J. Sternberg School of Media, Arts and Design This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2010. This is an exact reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] Discovery as Invention: A constructivist alternative to the classic science documentary Robert J. Sternberg School of Media, Art and Design, University of Westminster Oct 2010 Thesis submitted to the University of Westminster in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of doctor of philosophy. i ABSTRACT This thesis is a practice-led exploration of how science is represented in the documentary film. The practice part is a science documentary that deliberately eschews a number of key stylistic elements common to what may be called the ‘classic’ science documentary. The aim is not to arbitrarily restrict the filmmaker but rather to explore what sort of a documentary of science might be possible in the absence of certain features that, on the face of it at least, appear to be predicated on an out-dated positivism. The film, Hopeful Monsters: An Experiment, is not in itself an argument for these post-positivist ideas but an experiment that implicitly critiques the philosophical underpinning of the classic science programme. This written dissertation is designed, therefore, to make that critique explicit. It demonstrates, first, how the classic science documentary is indeed informed by an outdated view of the nature of science —the so-called ‘received view’—and second, it develops an alternative, ‘constructivist’ view of science in light of which the film, Hopeful Monsters is evaluated. The dissertation concludes that in its combination of documentary modes and its inconclusive narrative structure, Hopeful Monsters , succeeds in representing science and the scientific-self as distinctly different from the representation of science in the classic science documentary. Furthermore, this alternative representation is indeed consonant with a post-positivist, ‘constructivist’ view of the nature of scientific practice and of the experience of the scientist in carrying out his or her work. ii CONTENTS Abstract ii Contents page iii Acknowledgments vi A: Hopeful Monsters: An Experiment (Digital Video, 90 mins, 2010) B: The Dissertation Introduction 1 Background to the issues 1 The Received View 5 Constructivism 7 The Science 9 Context 14 Pre-Production 16 Making the film 18 Structure of the dissertation 20 Part One: The Received View 1. The Received View 22 Scientific practice 26 Scientific discourse 28 Conclusion 35 2. The Classic Science Documentary 37 Narrative and Myth 43 Formalism 46 Structuralism 49 Analysis of The Ghost in Your Genes 52 The argument 61 The mythic narrative 70 iii Structuralist analysis 73 Conclusion 77 Part Two: Constructivism 3. Developments in the Philosophy of Science 81 Deduction and Induction 83 Causality 86 Popper’s epistemology 88 The Problem of Demarcation 92 Observation is theory-dependent 93 Underdetermination 97 Radical Constructivism 100 Tradition 106 Summary 112 4. The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 115 The Strong Programme 121 Controversy and Fact 123 Conclusion 126 5. Scientific Discourse Revisited 129 Ideology: The Old Tune 129 Figuration in written discourse 135 Figuration in the science documentary 138 On Darwin—a kind of conclusion 140 6. The Style of Hopeful Monsters: An Experiment 146 Authorship and Tradition 150 The Expository mode 152 The Observational mode 155 Creativity 159 iv The Interactive mode—pseudo modelling 161 The Reflexive mode—modelling proper 165 Space and Time 167 Conclusion 174 7. Unended Quest: The Narrative of Hopeful Monsters 176 Metahistory 181 Explanation by Emplotment 182 A History of Science as Tragedy 184 A History of Science as Tragicomedy 188 Explanation by Formal Argument 192 Explanation by Ideological Implication 196 Summary and Concluding remarks 198 Bibliography 205 Films cited 245 Appendix 1. Transcript of The Ghost in Your Genes 246 Appendix 2. Transcript of Hopeful Monsters: An Experiment 292 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This entire project would have been impossible without the generous cooperation of Don Williamson. Don has been much more than the subject of a film to me. From the very beginning he invited me into his life, opening his house and his family to me and never once complained of the intrusion of my camera over the months and years we worked together. I could not have asked for a more inspiring mentor and partner. My supervisors at the University of Westminster were Professors Joram ten Brink and Jane Lewis who have, from the beginning supported me with kindliness and enthusiasm. I offer them my profound thanks. My colleagues at Imperial College London have each in their way contributed greatly to this PhD. It was Nick Russell who made me promise to do it in the first place and then guided me through the difficult initial stages, helping me to focus my thoughts, and thereafter was always on hand over the years with advice and opinion whenever I asked. Felicity Mellor and Stephen Webster took time from their busy schedules to read and make detailed comments on this manuscript, particularly in the closing stages, and their injection of rigour and energy helped me greatly to get over the finishing line. Paul Chauncy was invaluable both as a generous sounding-board and as a skilled technician while Gareth Mitchell and Rachel Souhami, my office companions, put up with my anxiety and moods and were a never-ending source of coffee and encouragement. I would like also to acknowledge my employer, Imperial College London, who sponsored my studies and provided the equipment with which I shot and edited the film. I am most grateful to Tom Wakeford who first alerted me to Don’s existence and to Professor Lynn Margulis whose confidence in me has been a great support and a great honour. My warmest thanks also to Alec Chanda whose energy and friendship buoyed me up throughout. I want to thank my father, Michael Sternberg, for his loving interest in whatever I’ve been up to and for blessing me with his intelligence and wit. Finally, my love to Cathryn, who married into this project but has never resented the demands it has made on our time together nor the effect it has occasionally had on my state of mind. vi INTRODUCTION This thesis is an exploration, both practical and theoretical, of the possibilities of the science documentary. It comprises two parts. The first is an experimental science documentary—my film, Hopeful Monsters: an Experiment —and the second is this written dissertation which explores a number of broadly philosophical issues that emerged during the making of the film. Taken together, the film and the dissertation argue two main points: (a) that the ‘classic’ science documentary represents an out-dated view of the nature of science and (b) that a more current view of that nature may only be represented by developing a different approach to the classic form. The dissertation concludes that Hopeful Monsters exhibits some important features of this alternative form. Background to the issues In 2009 a number of emails were stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. These messages supposedly revealed a scientific scandal. Climate scientists were stifling doubts and hiding inconvenient evidence that would otherwise undermine confidence in the reality of global warming. Whatever the basis of these allegations, what is illustrative from the point of view of this thesis is why this story had the potential to be scandalous in the first place. The reason, I suggest, is because good science is commonly understood as apolitical and governed by selflessness and trust and it is also considered a strictly logical process against which it is easy therefore to distinguish error and fraud. The scientists of the Climate Research Unit are villains because they have been cast, not least by their own rhetoric, in a drama governed by this particular and, I will argue, problematic view of the nature of science. The picture of science implicit in the criticisms of the Climate Research Unit is a familiar one that, as Carl Gardner and Robert M. Young write, ‘is positivist in that it privileges scientific knowledge above other forms of inquiry and in that it separates facts from their contexts of meaning and represents them 1 as above the battle of competing interest groups and classes.’ 1 Dubbed the ‘received view’ by philosophers of science, this notion of science as a method for extracting true theories from the observation of nature, unencumbered by social influences, is widely evident in the discourse of scientists and commonly repeated in the media but it has been found wanting by philosophers and sociologists for over half a century. 2 Indeed, many recent scholars of science who take issue with the received view would understand what went on at the University of East Anglia as anything but scandalous; instead they would recognize it as part of normal scientific practice.