Science as a Social Process

BACK: Views of Technology

Introduction

This is something that we’re living in now! What are the social processes and norms associated with science? These are the norms that we use to reward and associate with researchers, careers, etc.

Recall Merton’s functionalist sociology of science. There’s norms of behavior that guide scientific practice. There is a system of norms (universalism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism) that organize our system of science with rewards and sanctions.

A lot of people critique his view–it’s not really how scientists work. On top of this, different areas of researcher might have different norms.

Kuhn also argued that normal science is governed by a paradigm. New claims need to be consistent with these paradigms–leading to dogmatism and secrecy. But thinking in terms of norms of behavior doesn’t take us very far.

Interpretation:

Norms themselves don’t represent constraints for scientists. Wittgenstein argues that norms need to be interpreted.

Norms are used by people as rhetorical resources. What is science? What isn’t science? By using our social norms, we sort of create rules and organize what the general scientific community will like or dislike. Clearly, this leads to some intense stratification.

Science is HIGHLY stratified

There’s a lot of data to support this, but here’s one: 80% of citations are to 20% of published papers. But what do citations actually mean–outside of IP, etc. Scientists use citations strategically to tell others that “they belong to the community”–there’s something good about my work. This then creates institutional prestige and productivity–meritocracy and elitism.

The Case of Women

The number of women as senior researchers are extremely unbalanced in the US: 49%, 18% (biology, engineering). Italy: 82%, 45% (Life science, physical)

Laura Bassi (1711-1778) is the first female professor in the world and was the chair of experimental physics. How did she get to this position if it wasn’t acceptable for women to study?

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) The first book of math published by a woman. She (and Bassi) argued that “the mind has no sex.” The mind was completely separate from the body–this was said in a spiritual framework. The soul and body were different. But this wasn’t the beginning of a history of emancipation. By 1800, intellectual faculties gradually began to be gendered and closed down the possibility for women to participate in scientific life.

There was a traditional misogyny of the scientific community. Stay in your lane. We can’t risk social disruption by allowing women to do science.

There are new “scientific theories” about women’s intellectual abilities. The scientific community had to create scientific theories to continue this stratified structure: if there was research that there was no difference between men and women’s brains it would be over. Some of those theories they came up with: the “soft brain” (brain resources go to the baby during pregnancy) and the “thinking uterus” (female thinking is correlated to their sexual organs).

Back to the present:

There are three big stages in order to get women to participate in science:

Getting In: Women need to overcome masculine images and stereotypes and overcome difficulty in seeing themselves as a potential scientist/engineer.
Staying In: Even if you get in, you might not feel like you fit in. There are social conventions and informal networks that women might not fit in.
Doing Science: Do women and men learn and practice science differently? Are there different patterns of thinking?