Science In Society: An Introduction to Social Studies of Science: Textbook [Paperback]

The world around us is continually being shaped by science, and by society’s relationship to it. In recent years sociologists have been increasingly preoccupied with the latter, and now in this fascinating book, Massimiano Bucchi provides a brief introduction to this topical issue.

Bucchi provides clear and unassuming summaries of all the major theoretical positions within the sociology of science, illustrated with many fascinating examples. Theories covered include Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific change, the sociology of scientific knowledge, actor-network theory, and the social construction of technology. The second half of the book looks at recent public controversies over the role of science in the modern world including:

* the Sokal affair, otherwise known as the science wars
* debates over public understanding of science, such as global warming and genetically modified food
* the implications of the human genome project.

This much needed introduction to a rapidly growing area brings theory alive and will be essential reading for all students of the sociology of science.

Science is increasingly at the centre of public debate. The role of the scientific enterprise, its responsibilities, its relationships with the social, political, religious and economic institutions, and the legal and administrative measures required to regulate scientific discoveries and technological innovations: all these are issues that appear with ever greater prominence and urgency on the political and public agenda.
Not only does the sociology of science play a marginal role in the debate on these matters, but when it is called upon to testify, it is treated in overly simplistic terms. ‘Relativism’, ‘constructivism’ and ‘anti-scientism’ are the pejorative epithets most frequently used to dismiss an entire sector of inquiry – or conversely to elevate it to the status of an ideological challenge against research in its entirety or, in the most extreme cases, against the capacity of human beings to understand the reality that surrounds them.
It is not the intention – even less the presumption – of this book to conduct an apologia for the sociology of science or to rehabilitate it in the eyes of scientists and commentators. Its much more modest aim is to describe some of the main contributions that have distinguished the discipline over the past fifty-odd years. Its purpose is to show, as far as possible, that sociology of science has developed into a broad and diversified area of research, with a wealth of empirical studies, and an abundance of internal debates often conducted in no less lively polemic with the outside.
Dismissing the discipline out of hand – in the manner of those commentators who spring to the attack whenever they hear ‘sociology’ coupled with ‘science’ – does not, I submit, have much more sense than attributing a single, monolithic position to the whole of the philosophy of science and ‘accepting’ or ‘rejecting’ it on that basis alone, thereby ignoring the substantial differences among Nagel, Popper and Feyerabend. The reader may be surprised to learn that, for instance, the sociology of science does not coincide with the notorious ‘strong programme’; that sociologists themselves are deeply divided on themes like relativism or constructivism; or that the statement ‘nature does not exist, everything is constructed by society’ would only be endorsed by a tiny number of scholars working in the discipline. Or again that many of the theses of the contemporary sociology of science were first put forward – and often in even more radical form – by a medical doctor in the first half of the last century (Fleck, 1935).
Of course, the book can only provide a partial survey of its subject matter, one restricted to the themes or approaches most distinctive of the discipline. It omits, for instance, systematic analysis of research policies. This area of inquiry has now acquired the size and status of a sector in itself, yet the sociology of science’s contribution to it has often been only marginal compared to that by other disciplines.
Compared to a more rigidly chronological treatment, or one proceeding author by author, the advantage of the theme-based organization used by the book is that it shows how sociologists of science have developed their discipline in close dialogue with scholars working in other fields: primarily historians and philosophers of science, but also anthropologists, economists, political scientists, engineers and natural scientists. Indeed, there are and have been numerous university departments and journals operating under the generic denomination of ‘Science Studies’ or ‘Science and Technology Studies’ (frequently abbreviated to STS), most notably the celebrated Science Studies Unit of Edinburgh.
Also deliberately excluded from the book are certain ‘classical’ authors on the sociology of knowledge, such as Durkheim, Marx and Mannheim, even though they are often cited by sociologists of science and used as authoritative points of reference.1
A final caveat. Works of a theoretical-general nature are the exception in the general panorama of STS – especially since the 1970s. Rather, empirical case studies, often minutely documented, are the rule. The book makes brief mention of some of these case studies, but obviously without claiming to do justice to their complexity, since this would often require extensive preliminary description of the scientific matters treated. My advice is that the reader should use these citations to decide the cases of greatest interest and as a stimulus to read the work mentioned in its entirety. In all cases I have cited the text in which the subject is treated most briefly and accessibly. A list of suggested readings and interesting websites is included for each chapter. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.