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Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems

Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems
1973 p/b edition Transaction Publishers
AuthorJerome Ravetz
LanguageEnglish
SubjectScience
PublisherOxford University Press
Publication date
1971
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages449
ISBN1412833787

Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems is a 1971 book by Jerome Ravetz. It contains a reasoned illustration of science as a social process with all the failing and imperfections of human endeavors.

Content

'It is impossible to understand the social and ethical problems confronting science without recognizing the falsity of the assumption, crucial to traditional theories of science, that the results of scientific research must be essentially good and true. Dr. Ravetz demonstrates the role of choice and value-judgment, and the inevitability of error, in scientific research'.[1]

Important aspects of the book are the social construction of facts, science as a craft with essential tacit elements, the role of choice and value judgment, and the inevitability of error. The book argues that the internal quality control system of industrialized science will suffer severe problems: "The problem of quality control in science is thus at the centre of the social problems of the industrialized science of the present period." James H. Moor (1973) summarizes the main claims of Ravetz's work are as follows: "First, historically the social character of science has undergone tremendous changes. Secondly, the traditional philosophies of science which conceive of science as an activity in the pursuit of truth are obsolete. And thirdly, it is imperative to develop a new philosophy of science which accounts for the social nature of contemporary science."[2] Ravetz analyzes the transition from basic science to 'industrialized science', with particular attention of issues of degeneration (shoddy science). He also focuses on entrepreneurial science, where a scientist becomes more concerned with research grants and power than with the quality of his scientific research.[2] The need for 'good morale', i.e. for an ethos of science upheld by a community of peers is mentioned in relation to the danger that such an ethos may not survive 'industrialized science'. For Gowing (1974) the main difficulty of this work is the confusion among the different kinds of science addressed by the inquiry: 'natural sciences, pure and applied', versus 'any sort of disciplined inquiry', up to include 'social sciences'.[3]

Reception

For Rothman (1974) Ravetz elucidates "the processes by which genuine and meaningful scientific knowledge accumulates. These chapters – nine in all – form the most interesting and useful part of the book. His description of the emergence and refinement of scientific facts is articulated by the argument that science is craftman's work."[4]

The work is praised by John Ziman,[5] for whom "we may, through books like this, achieve a new level of self-critical science." For Thomas Gieryn[6] writing in 1998 "Ravetz is impressively prescient, but does a better job anticipating what would happen to science by the 1990s than anticipating its sociological understandings."

Anthony Jackson,[7] takes issue against Ravetz's perceived critique of the social sciences as "immature and ineffective fields of inquiry that may be equated with folk-science". The work of Ravetz was also reviewed by Diana Crane,[8] Ardon Lyon,[9] Nathan Reingold,[10] and Dael Wolfle.[11]

A German translation appeared in 1973,[12] and a Japanese one in 1977 by historian of science Shigeru Nakayama.[13] In 1996 there was a second edition with a new introduction by the author with Transaction Publishers[14] that was reviewed by Steven Shapin.[15]

References

  1. ^ (from Oxford University Press back matter entry for this volume)
  2. ^ a b Moor, J.H., 1973, Review of ‘Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems by Jerome R. Ravetz’, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep., 1973), pp. 455-457.
  3. ^ Gowing, M., 1974, Review of ‘Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems by Jerome R. Ravetz’, The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Mar., 1974), pp. 72-75.
  4. ^ Rothman, R.A, 1974, Review of ‘Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems by Jerome R. Ravetz’, Philosophy of the Social Science, 4, 301-309.
  5. ^ Ziman, J. (December 1971). "Sanity on Science". Nature. 234 (5331). Nature Publishing Group: 567–567. doi:10.1038/234567a0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  6. ^ Gieryn, T. F. (1998). "Review of Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems". The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. 68 (1). University of Chicago Press: 105–107. ISSN 0024-2519.
  7. ^ Jackson, A. (1 December 1973). "Essay Review: The End of Science and the Ends of History of Science: Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems". History of Science. 11 (4). SAGE Publications Ltd: 292–305. doi:10.1177/007327537301100405. ISSN 0073-2753.
  8. ^ Crane, D. (1974). "Review of Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems". American Journal of Sociology. 80 (3). The University of Chicago Press: 771–773. ISSN 0002-9602.
  9. ^ Lyon, A. (1973). "Review of Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems". The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-). 23 (92). [Oxford University Press, University of St. Andrews, Scots Philosophical Association]: 274–276. doi:10.2307/2218013. ISSN 0031-8094.
  10. ^ Reingold, N. (1973). "Review of Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems". Isis. 64 (2). [The University of Chicago Press, The History of Science Society]: 249–249. ISSN 0021-1753.
  11. ^ Wolfle, D. (12 May 1972). "The Quality of Science: Strains and Controls: Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Jerome R. Ravetz. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971. xii, 450 pp. $16". Science. 176 (4035). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 641–643. doi:10.1126/science.176.4035.641.
  12. ^ Ravetz, J. R. (1973). Die Krise der Wissenschaft Probleme der industrialisierten Forschung“. Luchterhand.
  13. ^ Tsukahara, T. (1 August 2017). "Commentary: New Currents in Science: The Challenge of Quality, examining the discrepancies and incongruities between Japanese techno-scientific policy and the citizens' science movement in post-3/11 Japan". Futures. 91: 84–89. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2017.04.008. ISSN 0016-3287.
  14. ^ Ravetz, J. (31 October 1995). Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (Reprint ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-56000-851-4.
  15. ^ Shapin, S. (1997). Ravetz, J. R. (ed.). "Signs of the Times. Reviewed Work: Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems by Jerome R. Ravetz". Social Studies of Science. 27 (2). Sage Publications, Ltd.: 335–349. ISSN 0306-3127.
Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_knowledge_and_its_social_problems