The Ways of Research

This chapter explores some lessons to be drawn from the historical development of cosmology, which may illustrate the nature of the enterprise of natural science. It is obvious but must be stated that research in the natural sciences depends on technology that was developed largely for other purposes. Technology enabled far more efficient measurements of galaxy redshifts. However, the technology that made this possible was not aimed at astronomy; it was adapted, in part for the purpose of obtaining enough data on galaxy positions and motions for a meaningful determination of the cosmic mean mass density. It is also obvious that the ways of research in science are the ways people tend to operate in general. A working condition that may be particularly relevant for cosmology is the tendency to take a personal interest in the results: how did our universe begin, what is it like now, and how might it end? The chapter then considers the social construction of science.

Science and Democracy Reconsidered

To what extent is the normative commitment of STS to the democratization of science a product of the democratic contexts where it is most often produced? STS scholars have historically offered a powerful critical lens through which to understand the social construction of science, and seminal contributions in this area have outlined ways in which citizens have improved both the conduct of science and its outcomes. Yet, with few exceptions, it remains that most STS scholarship has eschewed study of more problematic cases of public engagement of science in rich, supposedly mature Western democracies, as well as examination of science-making in poorer, sometimes non-democratic contexts. How might research on problematic cases and dissimilar political contexts traditionally neglected by STS scholars push the field forward in new ways? This paper responds to themes that came out of papers from two Eastern Sociological Society Presidential Panels on Science and Technology Studies in an Era of Anti-Science. It considers implications of the normative commitment by sociologists working in the STS tradition to the democratization of science.

Science and the Religious Rhetorics of the Ineffable: A Comparison Between Two "Cosmoses"

Since Thomas Kuhn’s revolutionary look at the social construction of science, research into the rhetorics of science has shown how science is a persuasive form of discourse, rarely as transparent and self-evident as is often understood. Rhetorical studies have taken this cue to examine how science is constructed through available means beyond mere logic. Arguably, the resurgence of creationist beliefs in political discourse has brought on a new impetus in science to persuade the “hearts and minds” of the American population, inspiring Neil deGrasse Tyson’s remaking of Carl Sagan’s 1980 documentary Cosmos. Using Rudolph Otto’s, The Idea of the Holy, this article will define religion as an ineffable experience that creates “creature-consciousness,” or a sense of awe and insufficiency towards something outside the self, while also producing a sense of identification or “oneness.” The ineffable experience is core to the public making of science, just as the ineffable experience plays a defining role in religions. Though science and religion are often seen as mutually exclusively (sometimes in opposition), identifying the ineffable experience as a shared ground can provide opportunities for science and religion to dialogue in new ways.

« Cela nous a échappé… » : théorie de l’acteur-réseau et le problème des générations scientifiques

The present article reviews in detail the generational fate of Actor-Network Theory (AnT). This theory is one of the rare examples of an intellectual product that has managed to transpose into the very general terms of contemporary social theory findings initially elaborated in what is often seen as the confidential field of science and technology studies. Building in particular on MJ Nye’s work on the origins of the social construction of science in order to establish a generational approach to the study of the sciences, the article distinguishes two generations of AnT and highlights the asymmetric character of the intergenerational link between them. In looking back on the principal criticisms of AnT since its creation, the article shows how second-generation AnT – the ‘diaspora’ generation, as Law has termed it (1999) – identifies mostly with a degenerative research program (in Lakatos’ sense, 1978), built around four main types of effect: effects of repetition, of dramatization, of routinization and, finally, of invisibilization of the critical debate.