Social Study of Science

The issue is in the form of a question: what is science? What makes it different from other knowledge systems? The author offers a social study of science (SSS) which denies that science can be differentiated from non-science by decision rules: "Scientific knowledge does not arise from the application of pre-existing decision rules to particular hypotheses or generalizations" (17). What is classified as science may depend on the context in which the question is raised, and two such contexts are those of the nominalist and the essentialist. The essentialist approach sees science as constantly changing and as complex, but according to the nominalist, the search for an answer is futile.

The sociology of knowledge has neglected science. Variations in knowledge, says Woolgar, can be attributed to differences in class background, religious affiliation, social context, and so on. The SSS approach must cope with the separate sociological tradition of the sociology of science, which follows the essentialist position. Woolgar approaches the issue from the standpoint of methodology. Discussions about science face a fundamental dualism between representation and object. The problem of representation raises the issue of how we can be sure that the representation is a true reflection of the object, a problem applicable to all sciences. Woolgar discusses methodological horrors, or the ways

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ter-the-fact rationalization for the conventional ways of proceeding. Another challenge to the received view of science is found in the assumption that the world exists independently of or prior to knowledge produced about it. There is some doubt about the status of the "natural world." Science is seen as discovery, and to discover is to reveal something that had been there all along. This means that object is antecedent and existed before it was discovered. Representation thus constitutes object. Woolgar uses historical examples such as the discovery of America by Columbus to illustrate the meaning of discovery and how the object discoverd exists before the act of discovery. The American continent was here before Columbus found it, but it was not "discovered" until Columbus found and reported on his finding of it. The continent had been discovered previously by others, such as the Viking,s but they had not made their discovery known to a wide audience. The act of reporting is an element in discovery. This same idea is applied to science, meaning that the object studied--or the process, or the "nature"--exists before it is studied and is independent of being studied. Science is the method and act of study. At any give
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Approximate Word count = 1649
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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