Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction 9783031083051, 9783031083068, 3031083059

Table of contents :
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1: Introduction: Why Do We Need to Rethink Science?
1.1 The Re-emergence of Scientism
1.2 A Complementary Vision
1.3 Science as a Humanist Enterprise
References
Part I: From the Philosophy of Science to the Social Studies of Science
2: Gnoseology: The Foundations of Human Knowledge
2.1 Language and Reality: Arbitrary Relationship?
2.1.1 The Role of Language
2.2 Classifications: Concepts and Terms
2.3 The Three Spheres of Knowledge: Saying, Doing, Thinking
2.3.1 The Sphere of Thought
2.3.1.1 Is There Such Thing as Universal Concepts?
2.3.1.2 Oral Cultures Versus Written Cultures
2.3.2 The Sphere of Language
2.3.2.1 Facts as Material-Symbolic Phenomena Guided by Theory
2.3.3 The Sphere of Action
2.4 Tacit Knowledge: Its Role in Everyday Life and in Science
References
3: Epistemology: The Foundations of Scientific Knowledge
3.1 Neo-positivism
3.1.1 Reductionism
3.1.2 A Denotative Theory of Meaning
3.1.3 The Verification Principle
3.1.4 The Concept of Scientific Law
3.1.5 Induction
3.1.6 The Legacy of Neo-positivism
3.1.6.1 We Are Not a Mouse Weighing 80 kg!
3.2 Popper’s Realism and Critical Rationalism
3.2.1 Falsifiability
3.2.2 Science on … Stilts
3.2.3 Political Liberalism
3.2.4 The Critique of Induction
3.2.5 The Demarcation Criterion
3.2.6 Rationality as Critique and Discussion
References
4: Society in Science
4.1 The Critiques Levelled Against Popper
4.2 Science Revisited: Norwood R. Hanson
4.2.1 Abduction
4.3 The Social Dimension of Science: Thomas Kuhn
4.3.1 The Critiques of Kuhn and of His Legacy
4.4 Freed Science: Paul K. Feyerabend
4.5 Common Sense in Science
4.6 Scientific Knowledge and Common Sense Knowledge: A Circular Relationship
4.7 Deconstructed Science: Metaphors, Metonymies and Analogies
4.7.1 Each Name (Common or Scientific) has a Metaphorical or Analogical Origin
4.7.2 The Initial Baptism
4.7.3 The Influence of Metaphors
4.7.4 Metaphors and Ideologies
References
5: The Advent of the Studies of Science and of Technology
5.1 The Advent of the Sociology of Science: Robert K. Merton
5.2 The Edinburgh School “Strong Programme”
5.3 The Experimental Method: Cultural Assumptions and Deviance
5.4 Mathematics and Logics as Social Institutions
5.4.1 The Empirical Programme of Relativism
5.5 The Strong Programme....Reinforced: Bruno Latour
5.5.1 The Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
5.5.2 Culture and Nature
5.6 A Summary
5.6.1 Realists
5.6.2 Critical Realists
5.6.3 Soft Realists
5.6.4 Constructivists
5.6.5 Relativists
References
Part II: Main Themes in STS
6: The Boundaries of Science
6.1 The Problem of Demarcation
6.1.1 Essentialist Approaches: Falsificationism, Institutionalised Ethos and Paradigmatic Consensus
6.1.2 The Constructivist Hypothesis and Boundary Work
6.2 Drawing and Redrawing the Boundaries of the Scientific Community
6.2.1 The Royal Society at the Start of the Seventeenth Century and the Problem of Testimony
6.2.2 Modern Times
6.3 Science Situated: From the “View from Nowhere” to “Truth-Spots”
6.3.1 The Hospital and the Segmented Human Body
6.3.2 The Laboratory
References
7: Science Behind the Scenes
7.1 Experiments
7.1.1 The Experimenter’s Regress
7.2 Facts, Black Boxes and Ships in Bottles
7.3 Laboratory Studies and Epistemic Cultures
References
8: Scientists, Experts and Public Opinion
8.1 Expertise: A Status Attributed to a Group
8.1.1 An Increasingly Blurred Boundary
8.2 The Communication of Science
8.2.1 Public Understanding of Science and the Information Deficit Model
8.2.2 From Public Engagement to Citizen Science
References
9: Science and Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin
9.1 The Emergence of Technology Studies
9.2 From Technological Determinism to the Social Shaping of Technology (SST)
9.3 The Social Construction of Technology (SCOT)
9.4 Actors and Artefacts in the Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
9.5 The Ecological Approach to Technology
9.6 Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Sociology of Expectations
References
10: Science, Technology and Gender
10.1 Women in Science
10.2 The Construction of Gender and Critical Empiricism
10.3 The Standpoint Theory and Situated Knowledge
10.4 Gender and Technology
References
Part III: Contemporary Fields of Inquiry
11: Environment
11.1 The Cultural Construction of Nature
11.2 Climate Change
11.3 Anthropocene
References
12: Digital Societies
12.1 Algorithms
12.2 Digital Sociology and Its Methodological Challenges
12.3 Artificial Intelligence
References
13: Medicine and Biotechnologies
13.1 Medicalisation, Normalisation and Biopolitics
13.2 The Human Genome Project
13.3 Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology
References
14: Five Challenges for the Future
14.1 Multispecies Ethnography
14.2 Agriculture
14.3 Science and the Senses
14.4 Risks, Disasters and Resilience
14.5 The Personalisation of Medicine: From Pharmacogenomics to Self-Tracking Tools
References
15: Conclusion
References
References
Index