Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology ed. by Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne

Abstract

338 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE tency as a powerful way to understand social factors in science—or bias, if you will. Toxicologists “are able to agree through enculturation and training” whether a rat is alive or dead, and such agreedupon standards can help the sociologist assess claims about the num­ ber of rats that may have survived a particular experimental test (pp. 29-30). Abraham uses the study of internal inconsistency to great effect. He invokes bias not to propose that it is possible to develop an unbi­ ased way to reach decisions about drugs but rather to propose that an internally consistent and balanced process might be possible. He suggests that the process could be improved by distancing of the relevant parties, by independent testing, by greater public openness (particularly in Britain), and by creating greater tension between regulators and the industries they regulate. Pharmaceutical executives enjoy grumbling about governmental obstructionism in the approval of new drugs, and I assume they have grumbled about this book. But this is the sort of book that demon­ strates just how far we can take the methods of science studies and sociology of science. It draws on the excesses of epistemological chicken to present a realist analysis, and the end result is serious work that tries to understand a process that matters to us all. It should be appreciated not only for its potential to play a role in improving drug regulation but also for its contributions to the re­ spectability of our scholarly enterprise. Susan Lindee Dr. Lindee, associate professor in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Suffering Made Real: Ameri­ can Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) and coauthor with Dorothy Nelkin of The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1995). Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction ofScience and Tech­ nology. Edited by Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. vi+232; notes, bibliography, index. $59.95 (hardcover). The average citizen, we have all heard, knows little about science, certainly not enough to act effectively in those many areas ofmodern life in which scientific and technical expertise play an important role. Lacking an adequate comprehension of basic scientific facts, theories, methods of investigation, and reasoning, such individuals cannot think clearly or proceed constructively when confronting a variety of issues concerning, for example, the environment, medical care, and science policy. It would seem fortunate, then, that in the 1980s the British Royal Society and the American Association for TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 339 the Advancement of Science established committees for the public understanding of science to improve this alarming state of affairs. According to Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology, however, the conventional viewjust described is seriously flawed; a 1985 report by the Royal Society and a 1993 report by the British government that supported this view helped to stimulate the research contained in the present volume. Its editors, Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne, together with a group of predomi­ nantly British sociologists ofscience and science policy analysts, who contribute case studies from the United Kingdom, argue quite suc­ cessfully that this orthodox perspective needs to be reconsidered, starting with the concepts “public,” “science,” and public “(mis)understanding ” of science. This volume points out that contrary to conventional assumptions on this topic, the public is not a homogeneous mass of individuals. Moreover, the idea of the average and scientifically ignorant citizen is an abstraction that impedes rather than advances careful analysis. Some chapters, including the excellent introduction and conclusion by the editors, demonstrate the value of thinking instead about a variety of diverse “publics,” whose composition is defined by their relationship to particular issues to which science has some relevance. For example, Helen Lambert and Hilary Rose examine the efforts by patients with a genetic metabolic disorder to interpret what medical science tells them. And Steven Yearley considers the ways in which various environmental organizations make sense ofscience. Here we see particular groups of people facing concrete problems and acting in specific cultural contexts. Although scientists...