Are We All Scientific Experts Now?, Harry Collins, Polity, 2014. $12.95 paper (140 pp.). ISBN 978-0-7456-8204-4 Buy at Amazon
In his remarkable manifesto, sociologist Harry Collins, a major voice in the field of science studies, answers the provocative question presented in the book’s title: Are We All Scientific Experts Now? Collins starts out by outlining science’s fall from grace in the public’s eye and by presenting a tongue-in-cheek caricature of scientific expertise based on the zeitgeist he holds responsible for the distortions. He goes on to present a compelling “taxonomy of expertise” that leads him to deny, in no uncertain terms, the specialist status to anyone who is not a member of the scientific community and is not able to make “judgements from the platform of the norms and aspirations that drive the community.”
Collins contrasts two waves of studies that led to very different views of science. In the first, iconic and heroic scientists with unique knowledge were elevated to almost mythological status; the rest of society was left to marvel at and celebrate the benefits of their work. The second wave, in which Collins played a major role, set out to question and deconstruct the scientific mythos. Its call to arms was Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962).
Indeed, the second wave showed that science was much more messy and complex than previously thought. That is illustrated by what chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi called “tacit knowledge,” the idea that scientists and other creators are guided by more than what can explicitly be exchanged using the written and spoken word. Tacit knowledge is beautifully illustrated by Collins in his study of the development of the transversely excited atmospheric laser. The realization that science has a tacit, cultural component led some in the public arena to call for an egalitarian-derived dismissal and devaluation of scientific expertise, a diminishing of scientists’ authority in society, and an advocacy for broader participation of nonexperts when making technical decisions.
Unfortunately, Collins only briefly sketches the unintended and detrimental impacts that the diminishment of science’s role has had on science itself and on Western society. That vaguely criticized zeitgeist warrants a much deeper analysis. At the same time, I’m impressed by the author’s self-critical assessment of wave two—in particular, his acknowledgment of the need to restore the privileged role of experts in technical decision making. His call for a third wave of science studies to correct overinterpretations and reverse policies and societal trends caused by the diminished recognition of scientific expertise is in itself remarkable.
Collins’s new book contains some gems. In particular, his taxonomy of expertise will help scientists understand why the foundations of expertise often shift and experts are often contested in the public arena. There’s ubiquitous expertise, which is acquired simply by growing up in society and learning to do such basic things as operate a microwave, remote control, or graphic interface. On the other end of the spectrum is specialist expertise, which requires a decade or more of training, often as an apprentice gaining tacit knowledge through interactions with accomplished practitioners.
One of Collins’s biggest contributions to science studies is the concept of interactional expertise. It can be attributed to a person who has obtained a certain level of fluency in a field even if he or she does not directly participate in experiments, theory building, or data analysis. His book Gravity’s Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves (University of Chicago Press, 2004) is proof that Collins himself has gained interactional expertise by engaging with scientists for more than three decades.
Collins uses Joseph Weber as an example in Are We All Scientific Experts Now? to demonstrate the roles that tacit knowledge, community, and time play when judging mavericks in science. Weber claimed to have seen the first experimental evidence of a gravitational wave, but the community subsequently dismissed his claims, and he became a tragic figure after about 1975. Collins points out that in the current internet age, Weber’s papers would be accessible to anyone, not just scientists. However, he adds, being part of a specific scientific culture and community of specialists is the only way to truly contextualize such work—and then have a basis to ignore it. Collins missed an opportunity to contrast the Weber affair with the rather different case of Raymond Davis Jr, whose claim of detecting a solar neutrino flux much lower than that predicted by the standard solar model was challenged for decades even as Davis maintained his credibility in the community. He ultimately received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the detection of cosmic neutrinos.”
Are We All Scientific Experts Now? makes the important point that when people demand that scientists in such contentious fields as climatology “show their work,” it is an act of subterfuge. When scientists do release their data, few elected officials or members of the general public have enough interactional expertise to make a sound judgment. More’s the pity: Interactional expertise could be a powerful tool for those in the political arena confronted with bogus scientific claims backed by the testimony of some maverick. Time and the messy scientific process may tell if the maverick scientist is a Weber or a Davis.
We can only hope—as Collins advocates for at the end—that more social scientists will take concrete steps to once again “elevate science to a special position in our society.”
Thomas Vogt is director of the NanoCenter and the Educational Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
