Science studies

Science studies is an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in its broader social, historical, and philosophical context. It is concerned with the history of scientific disciplines, the interrelationships between science and society, and the covert purposes that underlie scientific knowledge claims. At the same time that it is critical of science, it holds out the possibility of broader public participation in science policy issues.

The word "studies" is apt (as opposed to, for example, theory) in that the majority of science studies practitioners carry out detailed investigations of particular phenomena (technological milieus, laboratory culture, science policy, the role of the university, etc.) without subscribing to any single comprehensive view of the topic.

History of Science Studies
Science studies is best understood as a moment in a steadily widening conversation, in which scholars with interests in the social, historical, and philosophical analysis of science and technology have achieved a succession of wider integrations. Numerous disciplines have contributed to this conversation, but two stand out: the history and philosophy of science (HPS) and the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK).

Drawing on the work of Thomas Samuel Kuhn, especially his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), HPS united scholars in history and philosophy who shared interests in not only the history of science, but also its philosophical underpinnings. Kuhn's work established that the history of science was not necessarily a linear succession of discoveries, which bring us closer to the truth, but rather a succession of paradigms, which are broader, socio-intellectual constructs that determine which types of truth claims are permissible.

Meanwhile, the sociology of scientific knowledge developed at the University of Edinburgh, where David Bloor and his colleagues developed a powerful intellectual synthesis, which has been termed the Strong Programme, which was based on what Bloor called the empirical programme of relativism (EPOR) and the principle of symmetry. In brief, the Strong Programme holds that science studies scholars should remain neutral with respect to the truth claims science makes: they should explain the success or failure of a scientific theory in the same terms. Previously, successful scientific theories were attributed to having discovered the truth of the matter, while failed theories were attributed to the bias introduced by social factors, such as religious belief or racism. According to the Strong Programme, the outcome of all scientific controversies—successful or not—should be explained by social factors.

As science studies programs took shape, scholars were drawn into the conversation from other disciplines, including history of science and technology, sociology of science, philosophy of science,  and anthropology, but also literature, art history, cultural studies, gender studies, history of consciousness, medicine, law and computer science (see Scientific Community Metaphor).

In the 1980s, a "turn to technology" occurred as science studies scholars such as Wiebe Bijker and Steve Woolgar argued that technology could be examined using the principle of symmetry. As a result, many science studies programs added "technology" to their names, and started calling their field Science and technology studies (STS). Confusingly, STS also stands for Science, technology, and society, a field that developed largely within engineering schools in the 1960s in response to calls for wider public participation in science and technology policy. The "turn to technology" brought science studies into communication with scholars in science, technology, and society programs.

Related people

 * David Bloor
 * Barry Barnes
 * Michel Callon
 * Harry Collins
 * Michel Foucault
 * Elihu M. Gerson
 * Donna Haraway
 * Carl Hewitt
 * Thomas Samuel Kuhn
 * Bruno Latour
 * John Law
 * Lawrence Lessig
 * Donald MacKenzie
 * Robert K. Merton
 * Walter J. Ong
 * Neil Postman
 * Sal Restivo
 * C. P. Snow
 * Susan Leigh Star
 * Anselm Straus
 * Lucy Suchman

Science studies, general

 * Bauchspies, W., Jennifer Croissant and Sal Restivo: "Science, Technology, and Society: A Sociological Perspective" (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).
 * Biagioli, Mario, ed. The Science Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999).
 * Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. Handbook of science and technology studies (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995).
 * Latour, Bruno, "The Last Critique," Harper's Magazine (April 2004): 15-20.
 * Latour, Bruno. "Science in Action". Cambridge. 1987.
 * Latour, Bruno, "Do You Believe in Reality: News from the Trenches of the Science Wars," in Pandora's Hope (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999)
 * Mary Wyer, Donna Cookmeyer, Mary Barbercheck ed. Women, Science and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies, Routledge 2001

Objectivity and truth

 * Haraway, Donna J. "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 183-201. (available online)
 * Foucault, Michel, "Truth and Power," in Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 109-133.
 * Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
 * Restivo, Sal: "Science, Society, and Values: Toward a Sociology of Objectivity" (Lehigh PA: Lehigh University Press, 1994).

Medicine and biology

 * Fadiman, Anne, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997). (website)
 * Martin, Emily, "Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State," in Mario Biagioli, ed., The Science Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999), 358-371.
 * Dumit, Joseph, "Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity" (Princeton University Press, 2003).

Media, culture, society and technology

 * Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin USA, 1985. ISBN 0670804541
 * Lawrence Lessig. Free Culture. Penguin USA, 2004. ISBN 1594200068
 * Howard Rheingold. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge: Mass., Perseus Publishing. 2002.
 * Jeff Hancock. Deception and design: the impact of communication technology on lying behavior
 * William J. Mitchell. Rethinking Media Change Thorburn and Jennings eds. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2003.
 * Donald MacKenzie. The Social Shaping of Technology Open University Press: 2nd ed. 1999. ISBN 0335199135