Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems
{{Short description|Book by Jerome Ravetz}}
{{Infobox book|
|name = Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems
|image = Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems.jpg
|caption = 1973 p/b edition Transaction Publishers
|author = Jerome Ravetz
|illustrator =
|cover_artist =
|country = United States
|language = English
|series =
|subject = Science
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|pub_date = 1971
|media_type = Print
|pages = 449
|isbn = 1412833787
|preceded_by =
|followed_by =
}}
Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems is a 1971 book by Jerome Ravetz. It contains a reasoned illustration of science as a social process with all the failing and imperfections of human endeavors.
Content
{{blockquote|It is impossible to understand the social and ethical problems confronting science without recognizing the falsity of the assumption, crucial to traditional theories of science, that the results of scientific research must be essentially good and true. Dr. Ravetz demonstrates the role of choice and value-judgment, and the inevitability of error, in scientific research.[https://web.archive.org/web/20161020092356/http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/4/local/back-matter.pdf (from Oxford University Press back matter entry for this volume)]}}
Important aspects of the book are the social construction of facts, science as a craft with essential tacit elements, the role of choice and value judgment, and the inevitability of error. The book argues that the internal quality control system of industrialized science will suffer severe problems: "The problem of quality control in science is thus at the centre of the social problems of the industrialized science of the present period." James H. Moor (1973) summarizes the main claims of Ravetz's work are as follows: "First, historically the social character of science has undergone tremendous changes. Secondly, the traditional philosophies of science which conceive of science as an activity in the pursuit of truth are obsolete. And thirdly, it is imperative to develop a new philosophy of science which accounts for the social nature of contemporary science."{{cite journal |jstor=186209 |vauthors=Moor JH |title=Reviewed work: Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems, Jerome R. Ravetz |journal=Philosophy of Science |date=1973 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=455–457 |doi=10.1086/288550}} Ravetz analyzes the transition from basic science to 'industrialized science', with particular attention of issues of degeneration (shoddy science). He also focuses on entrepreneurial science, where a scientist becomes more concerned with research grants and power than with the quality of his scientific research. The need for 'good morale', i.e. for an ethos of science upheld by a community of peers is mentioned in relation to the danger that such an ethos may not survive 'industrialized science'. For Gowing (1974) the main difficulty of this work is the confusion among the different kinds of science addressed by the inquiry: 'natural sciences, pure and applied', versus 'any sort of disciplined inquiry', up to include 'social sciences'.{{cite journal |doi=10.1017/S0007087400012875 |title=Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems |date=1974 |vauthors=Gowing M |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |volume=7 |pages=72–75}}
Reception
For Rothman (1974) Ravetz elucidates "the processes by which genuine and meaningful scientific knowledge accumulates. These chapters – nine in all – form the most interesting and useful part of the book. His description of the emergence and refinement of scientific facts is articulated by the argument that science is craftman's work."{{cite journal |doi=10.1177/004839317400400212 |title=Book Reviews : Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. By JEROME R. RAVETZ. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1971. Pp. 499. £5 |date=1974 |vauthors=Rothman RA |journal=Philosophy of the Social Sciences |volume=4 |issue=2–3 |pages=301–302}}
The work is praised by John Ziman,{{cite journal |vauthors=Ziman J |journal=Nature |title=Sanity on Science |volume=234 |issue=5331 |pages=567 |date=December 1971 |issn=1476-4687 |doi=10.1038/234567a0|bibcode=1971Natur.234..567Z}} for whom "we may, through books like this, achieve a new level of self-critical science." For Thomas Gieryn{{cite journal |vauthors=Gieryn TF |journal=The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy |title=Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Jerome R. Ravetz|volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=105–107 |date=1998 |doi=10.1086/602948 |issn=0024-2519}} writing in 1998 "Ravetz is impressively prescient, but does a better job anticipating what would happen to science by the 1990s than anticipating its sociological understandings."
Anthony Jackson,{{cite journal |vauthors=Jackson A |journal=History of Science |title=Essay Review: The End of Science and the Ends of History of Science: Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=292–305 |date=1 December 1973 |issn=0073-2753 |doi=10.1177/007327537301100405}} takes issue against Ravetz's perceived critique of the social sciences as "immature and ineffective fields of inquiry that may be equated with folk-science". The work of Ravetz was also reviewed by Diana Crane,{{cite journal |vauthors=Crane D |title=Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Jerome R. Ravetz |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=771–773 |date=1974 |doi=10.1086/225863 |issn=0002-9602}} Ardon Lyon,{{cite journal |vauthors=Lyon A |journal=The Philosophical Quarterly |title=Reviewed work: Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems, Jerome R. Ravetz|volume=23 |issue=92 |pages=274–276 |date=1973 |issn=0031-8094 |doi=10.2307/2218013|jstor=2218013}} Nathan Reingold,{{cite journal |vauthors=Reingold N |journal=Isis |title=Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Jerome R. Ravetz|volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=249 |date=1973 |doi=10.1086/351094 |issn=0021-1753}} and Dael
A German translation appeared in 1973,{{cite book |vauthors=Ravetz JR |date=1973 |title=Die Krise der Wissenschaft Probleme der industrialisierten Forschung |publisher=Luchterhand |url=https://www.booklooker.de/B%C3%BCcher/Angebote/titel=Die+Krise+der+Wissenschaft+Probleme+der+industrialisierten+Forschung}} and a Japanese one in 1977 by historian of science Shigeru Nakayama.{{cite journal |vauthors=Tsukahara T |journal=Futures |title=Commentary: New Currents in Science: The Challenge of Quality, examining the discrepancies and incongruities between Japanese techno-scientific policy and the citizens' science movement in post-3/11 Japan |volume=91 |pages=84–89 |date=1 August 2017 |issn=0016-3287 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.04.008|url=https://da.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/da/kernel/90005640/90005640.pdf}} In 1996 there was a second edition with a new introduction by the author with Transaction Publishers{{cite book |vauthors=Ravetz J |date=31 October 1995 |title=Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems |publisher=Routledge |edition=Reprint |isbn=978-1-56000-851-4}} that was reviewed by Steven Shapin.{{cite journal |vauthors=Shapin S |veditors=Ravetz JR |journal=Social Studies of Science |title=Signs of the Times. Reviewed Work: Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems by Jerome R. Ravetz |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=335–349 |date=1997 |doi=10.1177/030631297027002006 |issn=0306-3127}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=OlFyG1BYTSEC Book's page at Google books]
Category:1971 non-fiction books
Category:Books by Jerome Ravetz