Who Rules in Science?: An Opinionated Guide to the Wars / Edition 1

by James Robert Brown

Overview

What if something as seemingly academic as the so-called science wars were to determine how we live?

This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities—and how much may be at stake. James Brown's starting point is C. P. Snow's famous book, Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, which set the terms for the current debates. But that little book did much more than identify two new, opposing cultures, Brown contends: It also claimed that scientists are better qualified than nonscientists to solve political and social problems. In short, the true significance of Snow's treatise was its focus on the question of who should rule—a question that remains vexing, pressing, and politically explosive today.

In Who Rules in Science? Brown takes us through the various engagements in the science wars—from the infamous "Sokal affair" to angry confrontations over the nature of evidence, the possibility of objectivity, and the methods of science—to show how the contested terrain may be science, but the prize is political: Whoever wins the science wars will have an unprecedented influence on how we are governed.

Brown provides the most comprehensive and balanced assessment yet of the science wars. He separates the good arguments from the bad, and exposes the underlying message: Science and social justice are inextricably linked. His book is essential reading if we are to understand the forces making and remaking our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674013643
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

James Robert Brown is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Scenes from the Science Wars

2. The Scientific Experience

3. How We Got to Where We Are

4. The Nihilist Wing of Social Constructivism

5. Three Key Terms

6. The Naturalist Wing of Social Constructivism

7. The Role of Reason

8. The Democratization of Science

9. Science with a Social Agenda

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Who Rules in Science? restores the image of the scientist as a rational actor, capable of generating reliable knowledge and defending the public interest. The book is wonderfully written and should be read as widely as possible.

Alan Sokal

This book is a lively, engrossing overview of the philosophical and political issues at stake in the current debates about science. Brown doesn't pull any punches in stating his own views, but he always takes care to present fairly even those arguments with which he disagrees. And he's an equal-opportunity debunker: scientists, sociologists and his fellow philosophers all come in for (mostly justified) criticism.
— Alan Sokal, co-author of Fashionable Nonsense

Robin Dunbar

A breath of commonsense, lucidly and wittily argued.
— Robin Dunbar, author of Gossip, Grooming, and the Evolution of Language and The Trouble with Science

Ullica Segerstrale

Who Rules in Science? restores the image of the scientist as a rational actor, capable of generating reliable knowledge and defending the public interest. The book is wonderfully written and should be read as widely as possible.
— Ullica Segerstrale, author of Defenders of the Truth

Michael Ruse

This is a wonderful book: funny, learned, intelligent, strong-minded. In a clear and understanding fashion, James Robert Brown introduces us to the battles over the nature of science. He is never afraid to make judgements, yet always with appreciation of people's positions, however extreme. If you read only one book on the "Science Wars," read this. My only regret is that Who Rules in Science? is not longer.
— Michael Ruse, Florida State University

Editorial Reviews

Who Rules in Science? restores the image of the scientist as a rational actor, capable of generating reliable knowledge and defending the public interest. The book is wonderfully written and should be read as widely as possible.

Ullica Segerstrale

This is a wonderful book: funny, learned, intelligent, strong-minded. In a clear and understanding fashion, James Robert Brown introduces us to the battles over the nature of science. He is never afraid to make judgements, yet always with appreciation of people's positions, however extreme. If you read only one book on the "Science Wars," read this. My only regret is that Who Rules in Science? is not longer.

Michael Ruse

Although opinionated, Who Rules in Science? is one of the least distorted and most generous surveys of the often bitter confrontations in the science wars. Brown's exposition of the ideas and significance of Thomas Kuhn and David Bloor are particularly well done. But Brown's crisp and accessible survey of the various factions in the analytic philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge is a prolegomenon to his main theme: the role of power, authority, and politics in modern science.

History and Philosophy of Life Sciences - Martin Fichmann

Meaty and challenging are the words to describe Brown’s treatment of the arguments that go on over the nature and social impact of science. ‘The battleground in the current round of the science wars,’ he writes, ‘is epistemology (What is evidence? Objectivity? Rationality? Could any belief be justified?)’ …The stakes are political, however; social issues are constantly lurking in the background. How we structure and organize our society is the consequence. Whoever wins the science wars will have an unprecedented influence on how we are governed. Brown, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, gives a rich and closely reasoned discussion of the issues in the science wars.

Scientific American

Many readers will finish James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science? Feeling that this "war" is more than a little phoney...The idea that these two schools are at "war" serves only to deflect attention away from their furtive collaboration. Who Rules in Science? sheds overdue light on this dark and secret liason.

Times Literary Supplement - David Hawkes

James Brown...details in this very readable book the Great Divide between the humanities and science, and between constructivist and empirically oriented camps...For those who are quite comfortable with the standard approach in science, Who Rules exposes a very unpleasant underbelly of science, in which scientists can be influenced by personal or political motivations.

Metapsychology - Keith Harris

Brown...here provides a cheerful gloss on some philosophical issues arising from the currently fashionable "science wars." The result is a readable survey of the history of the analytic philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge from positivism to constructivism, with the positions of the usual suspects characterized and criticized.

Choice - P. D. Skiff

This book is a lively, engrossing overview of the philosophical and political issues at stake in the current debates about science. Brown doesn't pull any punches in stating his own views, but he always takes care to present fairly even those arguments with which he disagrees. And he's an equal-opportunity debunker: scientists, sociologists and his fellow philosophers all come in for (mostly justified) criticism.

Alan Sokal

The latest and perhaps most comprehensive attempt at rescuing the pro-science "hard" Left from the anti-science cons Left is James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science. Like Sokal, Chomsky, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, and others he believes that clear thinking is the Left's best weapon, and that good science is a powerful engine of social justice. Thus, constructivism, which undermines the authority of science and reason, is not only wrong-headed but also socially irresponsible.

Commentary Magazine - Kevin Shapiro

While what has been known as "the science wars" seems to have finally played itself out—not, so much as I can tell, that distrust between the sciences and humanities has been settled, but that interest on the part of spectators has pretty well waned—the issues that animated the debate, and their practical importance in everyday life, may not have been successfully clarified for the general public. James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science? is the clearest, most accessible book on the subject for the general reader that I have come across during the many years of this bickering.

TechDirections - Tom Bowden

In Who Rules in Science, James Brown...warns that there's much more at stake here than people realize. This is not just a battle between postmodernist philosophers and working scientists over whether an electron is real or merely a social construction. It's about who gets to define reality, truth and rationality.

Globe and Mail - Sheilla Jones

A breath of commonsense, lucidly and wittily argued.

Robin Dunbar

In Who Rules in Science?, philosopher James Robert Brown argues cogently for public accountability for science—and public funding for scientists. He points out that debates about what science is, its control and its funding are not esoteric; they are the essence of the politics of science.

New Scientist

In Who Rules in Science?, philosopher James Robert Brown argues cogently for public accountability for science—and public funding for scientists. He points out that debates about what science is, its control and its funding are not esoteric; they are the essence of the politics of science.

New Scientist

Although opinionated, Who Rules in Science? is one of the least distorted and most generous surveys of the often bitter confrontations in the science wars. Brown's exposition of the ideas and significance of Thomas Kuhn and David Bloor are particularly well done. But Brown's crisp and accessible survey of the various factions in the analytic philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge is a prolegomenon to his main theme: the role of power, authority, and politics in modern science.
— Martin Fichmann

History and Philosophy of Life Sciences

James Brown...details in this very readable book the Great Divide between the humanities and science, and between constructivist and empirically oriented camps...For those who are quite comfortable with the standard approach in science, Who Rules exposes a very unpleasant underbelly of science, in which scientists can be influenced by personal or political motivations.
— Keith Harris

Metapsychology

While what has been known as "the science wars" seems to have finally played itself out--not, so much as I can tell, that distrust between the sciences and humanities has been settled, but that interest on the part of spectators has pretty well waned--the issues that animated the debate, and their practical importance in everyday life, may not have been successfully clarified for the general public. James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science? is the clearest, most accessible book on the subject for the general reader that I have come across during the many years of this bickering.
— Tom Bowden

TechDirections

The latest and perhaps most comprehensive attempt at rescuing the pro-science "hard" Left from the anti-science cons Left is James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science. Like Sokal, Chomsky, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, and others he believes that clear thinking is the Left's best weapon, and that good science is a powerful engine of social justice. Thus, constructivism, which undermines the authority of science and reason, is not only wrong-headed but also socially irresponsible.
— Kevin Shapiro

Commentary Magazine

In Who Rules in Science, James Brown...warns that there's much more at stake here than people realize. This is not just a battle between postmodernist philosophers and working scientists over whether an electron is real or merely a social construction. It's about who gets to define reality, truth and rationality.
— Sheilla Jones

Globe and Mail

Many readers will finish James Robert Brown's Who Rules in Science? Feeling that this "war" is more than a little phoney...The idea that these two schools are at "war" serves only to deflect attention away from their furtive collaboration. Who Rules in Science? sheds overdue light on this dark and secret liason.
— David Hawkes

Times Literary Supplement

Brown...here provides a cheerful gloss on some philosophical issues arising from the currently fashionable "science wars." The result is a readable survey of the history of the analytic philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge from positivism to constructivism, with the positions of the usual suspects characterized and criticized.
— P. D. Skiff

Choice

Postmodernists and social constructionists claim that there can be no such thing as "objective science." Indeed, many argue that the underlying "facts" of science are merely social conventions and that any view of the natural world is as likely to be as accurate as any other: "[i]t is one story among many stories," says Stanley Aronowitz. The process of scientific investigation and the knowledge that it yields, therefore, is worthy of neither particular respect nor governmental funding. University of Toronto professor of philosophy Brown (Smoke and Mirrors) ably takes on many of the claims proffered by the antiscience camp and argues that the logic in those claims is faulty. Brown's engaging style makes accessible complex issues central to the philosophy of science. The positions of two of the 20th century's great philosophers of science, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, for example, are summarized deftly and fairly harshly, and contrasted with those of their most famous detractors: Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida and David Bloor. Brown somewhat gleefully recounts the renowned hoax wherein physicist Alan Sokal sent in "a concoction of cleverly contrived gibberish written in the worst postmodern jargon" to the pomo journal Social Text. But he's no apologist for science, and he contends that scientists are subject to social bias and that science and social justice should be closely linked. "Science," according to Brown, "is the single most important institution in our lives," and thus understanding how it's used and misused is critical to a well-functioning democracy. (Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Brown (philosophy, U. of Toronto) explains the scope of this work in his preface, defining the many battles he is addressing—e.g. science and the religious Right, science and parts of the environmental movement, the patenting of knowledge by biotech firms<- ->although these topics overlap his principal concerns. Writing clearly, energetically, and profoundly for a motivated general audience, he looks closely at the issues of objectivity, values, and social influences and develops an underlying theme linking great science and social justice. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A close analysis of the "science wars" examines the link between politics and epistemology. Brown (Philosophy/Univ. of Toronto) does an admirable job of engaging the general reader in such issues as the role that science plays in creating or changing the social order and the role of social factors in the creating or changing of scientific theories. He opens with a look back at C.P. Snow's Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, which explored the gulf between the humanities and the sciences, and follows with a description of reactions to the Sokal hoax of 1996, in which a physicist lampooned the sociology journal Social Text by tricking it into publishing jargon-filled pseudoscientific nonsense. Next, Brown considers the philosophical positions and goals of the various factions: the political left, including activists friendly to orthodox views of science and social constructivists and postmodernists who are hostile, and those on the political right, such as religious fundamentalists and some sociobiologists who are similarly divided in their regard for orthodox views of science. The author takes readers through a whirlwind course in the philosophy of science in the 20th century, focusing on the concepts of realism, objectivity, and values. He acknowledges that social constructivists are right in seeing social factors at work in science, but he insists that reason and evidence play a dominant role. Brown sees the democratization of science as one of the central themes of the science wars, and he takes the position that when participants are drawn from every affected social group, more objective science will result. He argues that knowledge grows through comparative theoryassessment, and that the way to ensure the optimal diversity of rival theories is by having a wide variety of theorists from diverse backgrounds; thus the political act of affirmative action leads to more objective science. Brings the science wars home for the lay reader by identifying the combatants, examining their goals, and exposing the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments.

Kirkus Reviews