Michael Mulkay

Norms and ideology in science

For many years, the scientific research community within the modern Western academic setting was depicted by sociologists as being predominantly openminded, impartial and objective. These features, it was claimed, although they were not unique to the scientific community, were present there to a degree unrealised in other fields of intellectual endeavour. This supposed fact could not be explained in terms of the special characteristics of scientists as individuals, because it was recognised that the motives, interests and qualities of individual scientists were quite diverse and by no means always in accord with the special attributes of their professional community. It seemed preferable, therefore, to regard these attributes as characteristics of the community as such, that is, as norms which defined the social expectations to which scientists were generally obliged to conform in the course of their professional activities 1. As a result of this line of reasoning, a long list of putative norms or normative principles has been developed, among which the most important are

Problem Areas and Research Networks in Science

A general account is presented of the emergence, growth, and decline of scientific research networks and their associated problem areas. Research networks are seen to pass through three phases. The first, exploratory phase is distinguished by a lack of effective communication among participants and by the pursuit of imprecisely defined problems. The second phase is one of rapid growth, associated with increasing social and intellectual integration, made possible by improved communication. An increasingly precise scientific consensus gradually emerges from a process of negotiation, in which those participants who are members of the scientific elite exert most influence. But as consensus is achieved the problem area becomes less scientifically fruitful; and as the network grows, career opportunities diminish. Consequently, the third, final phase is one of decline and disbandment of the network, together with the movement of participants to new areas of scientific opportunity.

Rhetorics of Hope and Fear in the Great Embryo Debate

Legislation designed to control the conduct of research on human embryos was introduced in Britain in 1990. During the preceding debate, there had been widespread public discussion concerning the rights and wrongs of such research. This study examines some of the rhetorical resources used in the final parliamentary debate to support and oppose the continuation of embryo research. Two distinctive rhetorics employed in the dispute are described and documented. They are shown to have been associated with divergent conceptions of the membership of the human community and of the moral boundary within which embryo research should be required to operate. Suggestions are offered regarding the cultural preservation of the critical rhetoric of science, the influence of the two rhetorics upon the legislative outcome of parliamentary debate, and the relevance of these rhetorics to future reappraisals of the limits of scientific research.

Knowledge and Utility: Implications for the Sociology of Knowledge

In this paper an attempt is made to widen the scope of the current debate about the possibility of subjecting scientific knowledge to sociological analysis. It is suggested that in identifying scientific knowledge as epistemologically special, and as exempt from sociological analysis, sociologists have tended to make two basic assumptions; namely that scientific theories can be clearly validated by successful practical application and that the general theoretical formulations of science do regularly generate such practical applications. These assumptions, as customarily interpreted, pose a major challenge for any sociological analysis which views scientific knowledge as the contingent outcome of interpretative and context-dependent social acts. It is argued, however, in some detail, that the validity of these assumptions is doubtful and that the usefulness of science is no barrier to the full sociological analysis of scientific knowledge.

Social death in Britain

The causes of human death, the social distribution of death and the social organisation of dying have all changed dramatically during the last century in the industrialized societies. Since the nineteenth century, the percentage of deaths arising from shortterm infectious diseases has fallen sharply, while the significance of long-term degenerative diseases has greatly increased (OpeS, 1985). Whereas, in the last century, the mortality rate was particularly high among children and continued at what we would regard as a high level throughout adult life, the incidence of death is now heavily concentrated among the elderly. Thus average life expectancy is now much longer. For the majority of people, death approaches slowly over years of gradual decline and its final advent is supervised by qualified personnel in systematically organised settings where technical facilities for prolonging life are to hand. Similarly, disposal of the dead, like the process of dying, has become rationally organised. Unlike the 1800s, when burial was universal and in many areas posed a serious threat to the health of the living, two thirds of human corpses in Britain today are hygienically destroyed by burning. To a considerable degree, death and dying have been taken under human control (Walter, 1990). This brief outline of the changing profile of biological death in our society is well documented and its main features are unlikely to be challenged. There is, however, another hidden profile of social death which is more difficult to observe and is less frequently discussed. Biological death and social death resemble the

Contexts of Scientific Discourse: Social Accounting in Experimental Papers

Almost all analysis in the sociology of science has involved attempts to describe scientists’ social actions and ‘technical’ beliefs. For example, much effort has been devoted to investigating whether scientists, in the course of their research, act in a detached, impersonal, universalistic manner and whether these forms of action are required for the regular production of valid scientific knowledge (1). Other investigators have sought to provide definitive descriptions of the ‘main features’ of particular scientists’ beliefs as a preliminary to explaining the beliefs as having been moulded by the actors’ socially derived interests (2). In recent years, however, there has been a growing although by no means widespread recognition that neither social action nor technical belief in science can be identified unequivocally for the purposes of sociological analysis (3). This is because it has become increasingly clear that different scientists can and do give quite divergent, yet equally plausible, accounts of the ‘same’ act or the ‘same’ belief; and that particular actors tend to alter their accounts of their own and of others’ actions and scientific ideas as they respond to new social situations.(4). As a result, some sociologists concerned with the study of scientists’ meaningful actions, as distinct from scientists’ ‘behaviour’, have come to see that meaning does not reside in the actions themselves but in the context-dependent procedures of social accounting whereby actions are interpreted.

Methodology in the sociology of science: Some reflections on the study of radio astronomy

The traditional view of methodology in sociology has been relatively simple. Its basic assumptions have been as follows: that empirical data relevant to sociological analysis exists independently of the investigator; that the fundamental task of the researcher is to &dquo;gather&dquo; these data (the metaphor is revealing) whilst minimising any distorting effects that might arise from the investigator’s intrusion into the social process; that adequate evidence for any one theoretical concept can usually be obtained by means of one single operational indicator; and that research method provides the link between theory and the collection of data, whilst remaining distinct from theory and independent of the data to be gathered. In recent years these assumptions have begun to be revised 1. In the first place, it is argued that sociological research is a social act; an act in which those being studied usually participate with the investiga-

Frankenstein and the Debate Over Embryo Research

This study uses evidence from the press and from the parliamentary record to examine the extent to which, and the ways in which, people involved in the public debate over laboratory experiments on human embryos in Britain during the 1980s drew on images from science fiction. It is shown that negative images from science fiction were used in the debate, but that these images could be transformed into resources for defending, as well as attacking, this form of scientific endeavor. It is also shown that other fictional structures were present in the debate and that both sides relied heavily on fictional components to justify their competing appraisals of embryo research.

The Triumph of the Pre-Embryo: Interpretations of the Human Embryo in Parliamentary Debate over Embryo Research

In 1984, both British Houses of Parliament overwhelmingly condemned the proposal in the Warnock Report that research be allowed on human embryos, under licence, during the first two weeks of their existence. In 1990, legislation permitting such research and based directly on the Warnock proposal was approved with substantial majorities in the two Houses. This study describes some of the cultural developments underlying the swing within Parliament from almost total rejection of embryo research to eventual acceptance. Material taken from the parliamentary record and from the Warnock Report is used to illustrate how two competing images of the human embryo provided a central focus for the adversarial process whereby legislation on embryo research came to be enacted.

Embryos in the news.

An examination is undertaken of the way in which embryo research and associated techniques of assisted reproduction were represented in British newspapers during the passage through Parliament in 1989-90 of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill. It is shown that, despite complaints within Parliament of media bias in favour of embryo research, press reports of parliamentary debate concerning these matters were consistently balanced and uncommitted. It is also shown, however, that a substantial majority of editorials, features and other extended newspaper presentations did strongly recommend the continuation of embryo research. The underlying rhetoric and the specific narrative structures employed in the press to convey the case for embryo research are described and compared with alternative textual resources which were available in principle, but almost entirely excluded from the newspapers in practice. Suggestions are made to account for the overwhelming support for embryo research in the media during this phase of the public debate; and the likely impact of press coverage on public opinion and upon the parliamentary process is assessed.