Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars (Postmodern Encounters) - Softcover

What is at stake in the science wars? Is it simply the destructive influence on science of ‘postmodernists’ and other scholars of science studies as suggested by Sokal and Bricmont? Is it about errors and mathematical howlers made by constructivists? Or is it about the power and prestige of science?

Science wars clearly amount to much more than an academic hoax and the exposure of the mathematical ignorance of social scientists and cultural theorists. Skoal’s hoax proves what many scholars already suspected: cultural studies has become quite meaningless and anyone can get away with anything in the name of postmodern criticism. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that these scholars have had any real effect on the financial establishment and the public support enjoyed by science. But if science war is about anything, it is largely about the power and authority of science. The fury of the scientific community stems from its recognition that the traditional legitimacy of science is eroding; and the authority of science has haemorrhaged beyond repair. But science war tells us little why this is happening. For that, we have to look at science itself and how it has changed since the First World War. To a very large extent, science war has become irrelevant – discussion has now moved on to detailed critique of case studies as can be witnessed from post-Sokal debates. It will, no doubt, continue to generate debate and controversy. But the fate of science lies elsewhere.

Science is simply not what realists and idealists claim it to be. Its ideological and value laden character has been exposed beyond doubt. But it is not simply a question of how political realities of power, sources of funding, the choice of problems, the criteria through which problems are chosen, as well as prejudice and value systems, influence even the ‘purest’ science. Or that value-commitments, realised in the choice of ‘confident limits’ of statistical inference, can be found at the heart of scientific method. Or that most of the assumptions of science are those of the European civilisation. It is more an issue of how science is now associated with uncertainties and risks. A great deal of contemporary science is no longer normal science in Kuhnian terms. As can be seen from a string of recent controversies from the BSE affair in Britain to the issues of genetically modified foods, science cannot deliver hard and fast answers to a host of contemporary issues. The old paradigm of science which provided certainty and assurance is no longer valid. Science has moved into a post-normal phase where, to use the words of Ravetz and Funtowicz, ‘facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent’. The conventional, old-paradigm normal science may still be valid in situations with low levels of uncertainty and risk, but it is not suitable when either decision stakes or system uncertainties – as, for example, in the case of genetic engineering or human cloning - are high. The moral panic of scientists is rooted in this reality – the shifting paradigm that has changed the context of science and brought the uncertainties inherent in complex systems to the fore.

There is no get-out clause here: scientists have to confront this new reality. They may deny that blind faith in science, and the trust and confidence it enjoyed with the public, have now gone forever; but this would not change the public’s perception of science. Post-normal science requires science to expand its boundaries to include different validation processes, perspectives, and types of knowledge. In particular, it requires the gap between scientific expertise and public concerns to be bridged. Thus, post-normal science becomes a dialogue among all the stakeholders in a problem, from scientists themselves to social scientists, journalists, activists and housewives, regardless of their formal qualifications or affiliations. In post-normal science, the qualitative assessment of scientific work cannot be left to scientists alone – for in the face of acute uncertainties and unfathomable risks, they are amateurs too. Hence ‘there must be an extended peer community, and they will use extended facts, which include even anecdotal evidence and statistics gathered by a community. Thus the extension of the traditional elements of scientific practice, facts, and participants creates the element of a new sort of practice. This is the essential novelty in post-normal science’. It inevitably leads to a democratization of science: it doesn’t hand over research work to untrained personnel, rather it brings science out of the laboratory and into public debate where all can take part in discussing its social, political and cultural ramifications.

‘Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that this new sort of practice is science. But science has continuously evolved in the past, and it will evolve further in responding to the changing needs of humanity ... The traditional problem-solving strategies of science, the philosophical reflections on them, and the institutional, social, and educational contexts need to be enriched to solve the problems that our science-based industrial civilisation has created. To experience discomfort at the discovery of the uncertainties inherent in science is a mark of nostalgia for a secure and simple world that will never return.’
(S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, 1992)