WHO RULES IN SCIENCE

I remember Willis Harman quoting someone saying that 'philosophy of science is to scientists what ornithology is to birds'. Most scientists simply want to get on with the job without worrying about the niceties of philosophy, let alone sociology. These books are both 'post-Sokal' analyses. Readers may recall the glee with which the papers reported the hoax paper written by Alan Sokal under the improbable sounding title 'Transgressing the boundaries: toward a transformative hermeneutic of quantum gravity'. When it was duly published, Sokal pulled the plug on the editors and all hell broke loose in the 'science wars'.

The context of the debate that both preceded and followed Sokal was set by earlier thinkers, notably Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, who are discussed in both of these books. It was Kuhn who perhaps defined the issues with greatest clarity with his notion of scientists doing normal work within a paradigm, the presuppositions of which are not routinely questioned. Then periodic revolutions occur, with new theories arranging the data in a novel way. On one level the debate is between modernists and post-modernists with their corresponding emphases on fact and interpretation respectively. Pushed further, as Baringer does, it can arguably be seen as a new manifestation of the tension between Enlightenment rationalism and romanticism, although I think that this comparison works better in the case of reductionist vs. holistic or Goethean approaches to science. Metaphysically speaking, though, both scientific rationalists and postmodern social constructivists are materialists, which the Romantics most certainly were not.

Sokal sets the tone in the second book when he argues that much sloppy thinking in science studies derives from a conflation of five distinct levels of analysis: ontology, epistemology, sociology of knowledge, individual ethics and social ethics. The questions are clearly related, he says, but they remain conceptually distinct. He is surely right that much confusion does exist, and that many critics fail to define or distinguish these levels, especially the ontological and the epistemological. David Norman Smith takes issue with Sokal later in the volume when he argues that irrationalism has deep roots in society, culture and psychology and is not mere lack of rigour. James Robert Brown also discusses this issue but makes the surprising statement that 'commitment is a virtue in religion – and a sin in science', neatly sidestepping the tenaciousness with which scientists do stick to theories. They are not supposed to do this in theory, but in practice they are as emotional and social as other human beings; and the cost of heresy is heavy in terms of loss of reputation then funding, as some have found to their cost.

Brown himself shows his philosophical colours when he makes the throwaway remark that 'I don't for a moment believe in precognition or other forms of ESP-theories that are for the most part incoherent and empirically inadequate'. He does, however, think it worth spending research money on, which is more than most! This raises questions that Brown himself discusses, namely 'evidential reasons' for belief in a certain theory. He is right that these cannot be sociologised away, but people view evidence in different ways depending on their philosophical presuppositions (or paradigm) which they learned during their training. For my part, I have good reasons backed by evidence that I regard as credible for believing in ESP (see Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe, for instance). Brown uses reason differently and has perhaps not acquainted himself first hand with the evidence; and even if he had, his presuppositions would produce a cognitive dissonance that predisposes him to reject the implications of the evidence as 'incoherent' (with his current world view). And here we come via epistemology to a hidden ontology that informs it. We all have such commitments, but we should try to be aware of them.

Having said all this, the quality of Brown's discussion of the main issues is very high. He states all the positions clearly, even when he then proceeds to argue against them. Among his most illuminating sections are those on the characteristics of science, underdetermination of theories, and the careful analysis of differing uses of subjective and objective. He is also good on the overall interface between science, epistemology and politics, which forms a subtheme of his book. For anyone trying to get to grips with the science wars debate, these two books offer much food for thought.