Science In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society.
By Bruno Latour. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. 274 pp.
$17.00 paperback.Taking another look:
Science in Action RevisitedEugene Martin
University of Washington, Seattle
May 1998It has been twelve years since Bruno Latour’s Science in Action appeared on the bookshelves. Judging from the reactions expressed in the reviews that have accompanied it’s release (see the references) and the frequency of citation, the work has been a controversial success. What Latour sets forth in this book is nothing short of an all out assault on the accepted assumptions about how science operates and the meaning or facts that it produces. Aside from injured pride, science, it seems, barely noticed Latour’s shot across their bow; medicine, technology and scientific investigation are proceeding at an amazing rate. Science may be able to carry on with business as usual, but for those who tread across the boundaries of science and social science, things just are not the same.
It is possible that the last two pages of Science in Action are the most important: Appendix 1: Rules of Method and Appendix 2: Principles. It is in these two appendices that Latour neatly sums up his messages in order by chapter. My advice to other readers would be to examine these pages first, but be prepared to be confused. The short versions of the book’s messages are all but indecipherable without wading through the colorful scenarios and discussion contained in the preceding chapters.
The readable nature of Science in Action comes from Latour’s ready use of rich examples and a perspective deliberately crafted to be lacking in previous conceptions of science. Latour acts as the patient guide for a reasonable skeptic he dubs ‘the dissenter’. In each chapter, the dissenter encounters the successive supporting layers that lie behind scientific facts. As the dissenter learns about the dynamics behind the production of scientific knowledge, we encounter Latour’s anthropology of science from his sociologist’s perspective. But Latour is not only interested in the behavior of the scientists, he considers every entity, human, non-human, singular and organized, for its potential contribution to the creation and strengthening of scientific networks in the business of producing scientific knowledge.
Several surprises await the reader as Latour lays out his methods and perspective on science. The first of these is a collection of two-faced Janus’ who help delineate the junctures between ‘Ready Made Science’ and ‘Science in the Making’. The utterances of these characters illustrate the locations of that mysterious boundary some refer to as ‘the cutting edge’. For Latour, studying science always requires returning to this cutting edge to examine the actors, dynamics and events that perpetuated the packaging of a scientific development. Another surprise is the lucid and liberating perspective that Latour delivers on many of the commonplace elements of the scientists’ world: literature, laboratories and machines.
The latter part of the book is devoted to the network quality of scientific endeavors. Networks are first characterized by who or what is on the ‘inside’ of a network and who or what is ‘outside’. Latour emphasizes the need for an ‘undecided’ approach to network delineation that permits classification of inside and outside entities based on their associations not an imposed classification system or preconceived notions. Further developing his ideas on networks takes the form of considering those beyond the contact of the scientific network. In considering these elements, Latour is illustrating the ‘outside’ of sciences network, a demonstration that his approach can function on a macro scale as well as at the local. Durability is the final test of quality for a network. The fact that scientific networks come into existence is not sufficient for them to persist. They must be strengthened by keeping the required allies in line, supporting the network.
Through this exploratory narrative, Latour introduces us to the influence of several elements previously excluded from the world of science: rhetoric, nature and politics. Scientific literature is the incarnation of rhetoric in the business of science. The structure of a scientific publication is the embodiment of a network of allies that are enrolled in support of the perspective presented as the thesis of the article. Doubters are referred back to the ground already covered by the researchers and experiments listed in the references. Nature is reconsidered for its role as the impartial referee with the final word on the success of scientific progress. Latour twists the role of nature from verifier of science to an element being represented by science. In this one twist, nature becomes both the goal of science and something that is represented by science. Finally, through the exploration of scientific networks, Latour shows the presence of politics in science through funding, political science agendas and the effects of science on politics.
Latour’s alternative view of science is a departure from previous attempts to characterize the nature of scientific endeavors and progress. Thomas Kuhn (1962) proposed a structure of science based on revolution and ‘paradigm’ shifts within disciplines. These upheavals were supposed to come when a theoretical framework was no longer able to incorporate recent or contradictory advancements. A later view of science’s trajectory put forth by Rudolf Carnap (1966) suggests a more linear and incremental nature of scientific progress that builds on past experiences. Latour’s anthropological view of science eclipses both of these earlier works permitting both paradigm shifts and incremental progress to be possible within the dynamic nature of networks. Trajectories of scientific exploration and discovery are promoted and prolonged by network durability, a network quality that must be painstakingly built and perpetuated. In translation, a shift when one network supplants another, we find the sudden upheaval quality of paradigm shifts. Rather than being ‘the’ answer that actually captures the essence or behavior of science, the concepts put forth in Science in Action are better utilized as a backdrop for understanding.
Any researcher wishing to put Latour’s ideas into practice for measurement or predictive purposes will find themselves hard pressed to operationalize the interactions and elements of networks. This is a direction that has been taken up by Latour and his colleagues since the publication of Science in Action, although it is far from complete. Several articles by Michel Callon (1991), Madeline Akrich (1992) and Latour (1991, 1992) have provided greater depth and substance to network interactions. Progress and popularity on these issues has let to naming these concepts ‘Actor-Network Theory’ (ANT). Far from being a theory with explanatory powers of causality, ANT is much more utilitarian as a framework for description. Scientists, social scientists and others studying the role technologies play in society will find ANT useful for breaking down barriers of traditional approaches in analyzing the production of knowledge.
Latecomers to ANT may find themselves frustrated that ANT has already moved on. In the conference proceedings ('Actor Network and After' Workshop. 1997), the founders of ANT (Latour, Callon and Law) all declare ANT to be dead, a victim of its own processes having been ‘translated’ into something completely different. That these ‘translations’ have not been entirely ‘faithful’ to the original intentions of ANT accounts for its ‘death’. Despite these rumors of untimely demise, ANT still offers a new perspective on how science really works and what really does the work in science.
‘Science in Action’ asks researchers and scientists to take a fresh look at science’s ‘business as usual’ and breaks new ground over what is and is not science, how meaning is produced, and the ramifications of that meaning in the hands of society. It is a useful alternative to previous interpretations on how science functions and it will continue to generate controversy for years to come. Any student of the social sciences who has an interest in technology will appreciate the foundation Latour has laid for the reconciliation of science with society and his anthropology of science.
References:
Callon, M. (1997). Michel Callon's Keynote Speech: Actor-Network Theory -The Market Test. 'Actor Network and After' Workshop., Centre for Social Theory and Technology (CSTT)., Department of Sociology and Social Anthrpology Keele University.
Carnap, R. (1966). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Mineola, N. Y., Diver Publications Inc.
Fujimura, J. H. (1989). "Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. (book review)." Contemporary Sociology 18(5): 788 (3).
Hacking, I. (1992). "Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. (book review)." Philosophy of Science 59(3): 510(3).
Jardine, N. (1989). "Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. (book review)." Times Literary Suppliment 4416: 1291.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, Ltd.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1997). Bruno Latour's Keynote Speech: On Recalling ANT. 'Actor Network and After' Workshop., Centre for Social Theory and Technology (CSTT), Department of Sociology and Social Anthrpology Keele University.
Prus, R. (1990). "Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. (book review)." Canadian Review od Sociology and Anthropology 27(3): 436 (3).
Rude, C. (1992). "Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. (book review)." IEEE - Transactions of Professional Communication 35(2): 88(3).