Harry Collins (Cardiff University), Aspects of the Study of Expertise

 

 

Monday, March 4, 18 PM

Gilman Building, Hall 449

 

Chair: Yossef Schwartz

 

The revolution in our understanding of the practice of science that took place in the middle of the Twentieth Century (Wave 2 of science studies) has been taken to have a variety of consequences for the role of science in the public domain.  Science and scientists have come to be seen as much more 'ordinary'; science, as we now know, cannot work to a formal recipe that ensures that all its results are correct and sure.  Some analysts have drawn the conclusion that the public should be much more involved in technological decision-making than would have been thought proper in the first half of the last century under Wave 1 of science studies.  It follows that something like the revolt against MMR vaccine in the UK would be seen as normal and appropriate.  The Third Wave of science studies is an attempt to retain Wave 2 along with a pre-eminent role for science in matters of science.  ‘Spin-offs’ from the Third Wave are described.  Elective Modernism, a very recent development, proposes that science should be seen as 'good', in the moral sense.