The Common Experimenter: Popular Culture and the Scientific Revolution (original) (raw)
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A Historical Perspective on Science and Its “Others”
Isis, 2009
Reflecting on the debate concerning the value to historians of the category "popular science", this paper argues that the model of legitimate science that is currently emerging, invites us to consider how the notions of science and the public have been mutually configured and reconfigured over time. First, it points to the tremendous impact of technosciences on the public sphere. The recent shift from the deficit model to the participatory model has profoundly changed the values underlying science communication. Whereas previously it was performed in the name of science, it is now performed in the name of democracy. This political turn suggests that we should consider symmetrically not only how science and its public face are socially constructed but also how the notion of a lay public has been constructed by scientific practices. Finally I suggest that historical studies should focus on the mechanisms of demarcation and discrimination between science and rival forms of knowledge. Over the past twenty years, the use of the category "science popularization" for historical studies has become a matter of debate. Cooter and Pumfrey argued that the notion was no longer relevant because it implies a demarcation between the production of science and its consumption, thus illegitimately separating history of science from the history of science popularization. 1 In the conclusion of his historiographical reflections (2004), Jim Secord argued that science popularization should no longer be a separate focus of study, and suggested using the paradigm of communication as the most relevant to deal with the history of science and its popularization. 2 More recently, Jonathan Topham also argued that studies of the two intertwined histories should be reunited, and that science should be considered as a form of communicative action. 3 Generally, two decades of intense scholarship in the history of science popularization have led to the recognition that science popularization is not a neutral entity. 4 The term science
Science Fiction and Popular Science from Ancient to Modern Times: Scientists Versus Laymen
While working on that review I tried to find out how others had found it. Despite being on the best seller list, it appeared that few people had actually read it, of whom few had read it cover to cover. Of those, even fewer had actually followed all of it. I had a head start, having been a student of Roger's. It is an odd fact fashion that has evolved to keep such books on the shelf-and even dip into it a bit-but seldom to actually try to follow it. This despite the fact that there is much more popular science available than ever before, and often written by the experts in the field. This was far from being the case earlier. There has been an increasing trend for practicing scientists to write science fiction (SF) and PS. For example, the famous astronomer and astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle, wrote some remarkable SF and the physics Nobel Laureate, Steve Weinberg, wrote a PS best seller. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is probably one of the most popular unread books. At one time such activities on the part of serious scientists would have been viewed askance. How much and why has this attitude changed over recent times? For that matter, why did they arise in the first place? I will be unable to address these questions in the depth they deserve, within the space limitations for this article, but will try to explore them somewhat. This abstractness of modern science becomes a problem for the non-scientist who wants to understand what the new theories are all about. A separate problem associated with science is that its practitioners tend to get "bogged down" with the details and lose sight of the "broad picture". The non-scientists, faced with the outpourings of such scientists, find themselves floundering in a sea of jargon whose relevance continues to elude them. Yet another problem is the tendency of some scientists to mystify their work in an attempt to make it seem more profound, rather than clarifying it to make it more intelligible. Unfortunately, many lay people like to praise such works, because they feel that they gain reflected glory by "comprehending the incomprehensible". All these problems are relevant for our later discussion of the attitude of scientists to their colleagues writing SF. Since the attitude of the practitioners of science to SF and PS depends on the nature of the scientific discussion in the work, it becomes necessary to categorise the science used in SF, or explained in PS. There can be various categorisations. I will choose only those relevant for my discussion here. 2. Categorization of Science There is the most common, currently accepted, division of sciences into natural and social. The former is what was regarded as "science" from the Renaissance to the first half of the twentieth century. (As with all historical statements of this type, it must be taken with caution. In this context dates cannot be exact and must be taken only as giving rough estimates.) It was assumed that there are "natural laws" (which can not be doubted) waiting to be "discovered". There is obviously no room in this view for social sciences. During Greek and Muslim times that was not the view of "science". Matters pertaining to human behaviour were very much part of "science". In the latter part of the twentieth century, the "science" dealing with collective human behaviour was developed along the lines of what had become accepted as "science" in modern times and again entered the purview of "science" under the title of "social sciences". Natural sciences can be further divided into the physical sciences and the life sciences. At the border between natural and social sciences lie medical science and psychology, which deal with individual human beings and groups of human beings. The former of these subjects deals with humans as biological organisms, which are studied more thoroughly because of our special interest in them. The latter is complicated by the fact that it deals with consciousness. This complication is fundamental because it changes our concept of scientific laws. The usual assumption that stating a scientific law cannot change the subject of that law, no longer applies. In this case, as with human laws, there will be changes in the behaviour of the subject of the "laws". To the extent that we deal with humans as living organisms, to be studied as such, these subjects can be regarded as branches of the natural sciences. To the extent that we have to take account of their ethical and moral aspects, they become branches of the social sciences. These aspects are obvious for psychology but are also relevant for medicine. For example, we can perform experiments on animals with only minor twinges of conscience, but would be stopped by law from doing so on human beings, even if our consciences were dormant 3. (Ethical problems can arise even with natural sciences where testing a theory may have serious consequences for people or for animals. There are some interesting SF stories that explore such possibilities.
The Social Role of Popularized Science
2004
In this thesis I will argue that popularized science books should adhere to normative criteria regarding the presentation, interpretation, and understanding of the natural sciences. The increasing popularity of popular science texts (PSTs)-based on sales, critical notice, and scholarly attention-indicates that they can function to interest and partially educate the lay public in scientific principals and practices. I will identify and analyze the narrative, rhetorical features of two popular science texts: Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See and Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams. These texts are selected based on a series of normative criteria, criteria constructed for the purpose of enhancing the public understanding of science. Additionally, these criteria are needed to help the lay public develop a proper appreciation of science. A proper appreciation of science, I argue, enables people to make better informed decisions regarding their own personal welfare and also that of the natural world. Finally, a proper appreciation of science, stimulated by PSTs, may help both scientists and the lay public reconceive the possibilities of narrative, public writing, and civic discourse.
Science, the Public and American Culture: A Preface to the Study of Popular Science
The Journal of American Culture, 1981
From the upheaval attendant upon the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species through the cultural aftermath of the orbiting of Sputnik, the American public has experienced nearly a century and a quarter-long relentless, sometimes ruthless, initiation into the mysteries of the scientific enterprise. Exhortations on and exhibitions of the power of a rising empire of knowledge concerning nature whose explanations of human experience historically rivalled in breadth and depth those of church and nation-state further promoted the genteel cultural myth of a n emerging New World civilization, a n Eden-become-Atlantis Arisen,' in the American public imagination of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The power politics of global warfare, techno-industrial culture shock, and the traditional ideological dialectic of manifest destiny-isolationism has established the place of science in modern American civilization and in contemporary popular consciousness. At the the core of this genteel, subsequently realpolitik, indoctrination of the public lies a n incredible variety of media and mediators dedicated to popularizing science.2 The mediators have self-consciously translated complexities of data and speculation into commonplace language and multi-media presentations, replete with symbols, graphics, even moral tags. The extra-academic, non-textbook, media have ranged from the Centennial Exhibition through a maze of science fairs to the U.S.-U.S.S.R Cultural and Technological Exchange Expositions; from zoological gardens privately controlled, city-sponsored, or affiliated with national exhibitions to federally endowed zoos, aquaria, planetaria and science centers; from "cabinets of natural curiosity" to public museums; from Popular Science News to Science News; from novelistic caricatures of science to sci-fi cosmology and mythology; from the non-fiction prose of John Fiske, Spencer F. Baird, Edward Drinker Cope, E.L. Youmans, and E.L. Godkin to that of charismatic scientists cum public pedagogues, including Linus Pauling, Isaac Asimov, Werner von Braun, Jacques Cousteau and Jacob Bronowski. In addition, over the last third of this "golden age" of popularized science, radio, television and film have become significant media forums for mass communications between science and the public. Frequently utilizing formats conceived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,s these media have contributed substantially to the general awareness of science as enterprise and social institution. For instance, under federal sponsorship, the "Science Service Radio Broadcasts" over CBS conveyed a
The Popcultural Life of Science: Back and Forth
Introduction, 2021
The article introduces the 36th (1/2021) issue of the “World and Word” semi-annual. The authors present the theme of the issue, i.e. how science is used and abused in the popular culture setting. In the second part, the main theses of articles devoted to the topic in the issue are introduced.
Vindicating Science – By Bringing It Down.
Science, in the classical view, is the epitome of a rational endeavor, untrammeled by social and cultural influences. It strives to reflect the way the world really is, and is elevated above our petty human lives. Social explanations come into view only when science goes astray – when it stops being science. In recent decades, radical sociologists and other science bashers have tried to wrestle away science from the hands of those upholding the classical view, bringing science down to the level of other human endeavors. Science, they maintain, is social to the bone, and scientific knowledge is nothing but a tissue social constructions. In turn, this radicalism has fueled suspicions among science advocates about any naturalized conception of science: science should be free from the contamination of social influences. Both parties in the dispute, as we argue in this chapter, buy into an intuitive view that characterizes much of our everyday reasoning about the causes of belief: a stark opposition between the rational and the social. Wherever social influences hold sway, reason takes the hindmost. And wherever reason reigns, there is no need for social explanations. This opposition harks back to an even more basic intuition: true and justified beliefs don’t require a causal explanation. They are just self-evident. We grapple for causal explanations (social or otherwise) only when rationality fails. This assumption, handy though it is as a heuristic and first approximation, does not survive careful scrutiny, and needs to be abandoned. A rich causal account of science, including the constitutive role of the social, in no way detracts from its epistemic credentials. Science, after all, is the concerted effort of many human brains. If we want a non-miraculous explanation of science’s successes, we had better be able to account for them in social terms.
The Mythos of 'Modern' Science
'Modern' science, by which is meant science as essentially mathematical, like other communities has its own mythos, or self-narrative, by which community members identify as such, and understand their roles. The specific mythos of mathematical science was largely invented during the period known as the 'enlightenment', a period that ironically shares many features with the 'dark ages', two of the most superstitious periods in recorded history, and both occasioned by a revolt against a way of knowing that was distrusted by much of the population. In any event, I'll briefly outline the main elements of this mythos, and compare them with the actual history in which mathematical science arose.
2019
7 Ortolano (2009) shows that Snow uses "the arts," "literary intellectuals," and "traditional culture" vaguely and more or less interchangeably; they are not clearly delineated categories, but rather general terms "of reference for non-scientific things" (22, n77). 8 See also Emma Eldelin (2006) for an analysis of how the "two cultures" concept was used and reinterpreted in debates in Sweden. 9 See Bortoft (1996) for a study of Goethe's science; see Johnsson (2015) for a study of 12 For studies on the tendency to interpret the world teleologically and agentially-i.e. interpreting processes and living and non-living entities as goal-directed, purposeful, and intentional-see e.g. Rosset (2008), Kelemen & Rosset (2009), and Urquiza-Haas & Kotrschal (2015). The idea is expressed succinctly by evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby: "Teleological explanations are found in Aristotle (invited by his observations, because he was in fact largely a biologist), and arguably constitute an evolved mode of interpretation built into the human mind. Humans find explaining things in terms of the ends they lead to intuitive and often sufficient" (Tooby & Cosmides 2015: 14). For studies on reasoning and decision-making, see Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman (eds.) (2002) and Oaksford, Chater, & Stewart (2012). For a comprehensive and accessible monograph on how "natural" thinking diverges from "scientific" thinking, see Andrew Shtulman (2017). For other popular accounts of bias and the "non-rationality" of human reasoning, see e.g. Fine (2005), Haidt (2012), and Sharot (2017). 22 with most psychology, it is likely that the majority of these studies have been conducted on WEIRD people: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan 2010). The extent to which the results are generalizable to all humans is thus not obvious. However, nothing substantial in my argument hinges on whether it is possible to generalize the psychological results to everyone. First, the audience of contemporary popular science is composed mostly of WEIRD people. These are the kinds of people that popularizers attempt to persuade, and so to the extent that the psychological research is valid for them, it is relevant for analyzing contemporary popular science. Second, and more importantly, many science communicators and popularizers tend to assume that modern science is difficult and counterintuitive. Tim Radford's sentiment is common, as indicated by other popularizers who express similar views. For example, biologist Lewis Wolpert, in a book tellingly called The Unnatural Nature of Science (1992), argues that the primary reason for poor levels of public understanding of science and widespread antiscience sentiment, besides cultural prejudices stemming from works of fiction like Shelley's Frankenstein, is to be found in the nature of science itself: 13 many of the misunderstandings about the nature of science might be corrected once it is realized just how "unnatural" science is.. .. Firstly, the world just is not constructed on a common-sensical basis. This means that "natural" thinking-ordinary, day-today common sense-will never give an understanding about the nature of science. Scientific ideas are, with rare exceptions, counterintuitive: they cannot be acquired by simple inspection of phenomena and are often outside everyday experience. Secondly, doing science requires a conscious awareness of the pitfalls of "natural" thinking. For common sense is prone to error when applied to problems requiring rigorous and quantitative thinking; lay theories are highly unreliable.