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The dominant model is a resource for more than just individual scientists,
and can be seen as an ideological resource for science as a whole. The notion
of popularization as distortion can be used to discredit non-scientists use
of science, reserving the use for scientists. In effect this enlarges the bound-
aries of the conceptual authority of scientists. This is despite the fact that
science depends upon popularization for its authority. If there were no
popularizers of any sort, then science would be a much more marginal
intellectual activity than it is.
Perhaps most importantly, although scientists routinely complain about
simplifications and distortions in popular science, they recognize other forums
in which simplification and distortion is acceptable. At some level, most steps
in the scientific process involve simplifications: descriptions of techniques are
simplified in attempts to universalize them, the complexity of data is routinely
simplified in attempts to model it, and so on (Star 1983). When outside
researchers use results from a discipline or problem area, they routinely
summarize or reshape those results to fit new contexts (Hilgartner 1990).
Although particular cases of this reshaping are seen as distortions, in gen-
eral it is accepted as legitimate. No sharp distinction can be drawn, then,
between genuine knowledge and popularization: Scientific knowledge is con-
structed through the collective transformation of statements, and popular-
ization can be seen as an extension of this process (Hilgartner 1990). Any
statement of scientific knowledge is more or less well suited to its context,
and might have to be changed to become suited to some other context,
even another scientific context. Popularization is a way of moving know-
ledge into new domains. The popular context creates its own demands, and
will tend to shape popular science accordingly.
9781405187657_4_015.qxd 15/7/09 10:38 AM Page 174
174 Public Understanding of Science
The dominant model of popularization assumes that scientific knowledge
is not tied to any context. Popularization pollutes pure scientific knowledge
by simplifying or otherwise changing it to fit non-scientific contexts.
That model ignores ways in which pure science can be continuous with
its popularizations, ways in which pure science can even depend upon
popular science to further research. The model also ignores ways in which
science is historically located in disciplinary and other matrixes. Knowledge
claims are contextualized and recontextualized within pure science, in ways
that scientists understand and accept: a claim appropriate for cancer research
may have to be reframed for a physiologist.
Interestingly, scientists can find themselves rejecting the dominant model,
if they are marginalized and choose to adopt the stance of the dissident.
Dissident scientists may challenge norms of science that emphasize its inde-
pendence and self-sufficiency, instead seeing science as corrupted or permeated
by politics, and seeing the public as a potential participant, corrective force,
and source of accountability (Delborne 2008).
The Deficit Model
Going hand in hand with the dominant model of science popularization is
the deficit model of the public understanding of science (Wynne 1992).
On that model, scientific and technical literacy is a good in short supply out-
side the ranks of scientists and engineers. The public is thus characterized
as deficient in knowledge. Shocking statistics about the number of people
who believe that the Sun goes around the Earth and not vice versa, or that
the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, easily motivate the deficit model.
Any deficiency must be seen as a problem. Given the centrality of science
and technology to the modern world, scientific illiteracy is viewed as a moral
problem, leaving people incapable of understanding the world around them
and incapable of acting rationally in that world. For scientists, the deficiency
also represents a political problem, because (presumably) the scientifically
illiterate are less likely to support spending on science and more likely to
support measures that constrain research. Therefore, many people feel that
we need more public understanding of science : the problem is one to
be corrected by didactic education, a transfer of knowledge from science to
broad publics.
While there is considerable sympathy within STS for the idea that publics
should know more about science and technology, STS s perspective on
expertise leaves it skeptical of the idea that the goal should be simply to
teach people more science (e.g. Locke 2002). As a result, in STS the phrase
9781405187657_4_015.qxd 15/7/09 10:38 AM Page 175
Public Understanding of Science 175
public understanding of science often refers to studies of attempts to apply
scientific knowledge or methods to problems in the public sphere. Here lay
reactions to experts are as much of interest as experts strategies for applying
their knowledge.
Publics may have more nuanced relationships with scientific knowledge
than the deficit model assumes. We have already seen that the dominant
model of popularization mistakenly removes science and popularization
from their contexts. The deficit model similarly fails to appreciate the
contextual nature of knowing. Publics have knowledge that intersects with
science, they may translate and appropriate scientific knowledge, and they
appraise scientific knowledge and its bearers.
Because members of the public have pre-existing interests in certain prob-
lems and their solution, case studies often show a certain level of conflict
between lay and scientific understandings. Steven Yearley (1999) summarizes
the findings of these case studies in terms of three theses:
1. A large part of the public evaluation of scientific knowledge is via the
evaluation of the institutions and scientists presenting that knowledge.
2. Members of the interested public often have expertise that bears on the
problem, which may conflict with scientific expertise.
3. Scientific knowledge contains implicit normative assumptions, or assump-
tions about the social world, which members of the public can recognize
and with which they can disagree.
Scientific knowledge is invariably at least partly tied to the local circum- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szamanka888.keep.pl
The dominant model is a resource for more than just individual scientists,
and can be seen as an ideological resource for science as a whole. The notion
of popularization as distortion can be used to discredit non-scientists use
of science, reserving the use for scientists. In effect this enlarges the bound-
aries of the conceptual authority of scientists. This is despite the fact that
science depends upon popularization for its authority. If there were no
popularizers of any sort, then science would be a much more marginal
intellectual activity than it is.
Perhaps most importantly, although scientists routinely complain about
simplifications and distortions in popular science, they recognize other forums
in which simplification and distortion is acceptable. At some level, most steps
in the scientific process involve simplifications: descriptions of techniques are
simplified in attempts to universalize them, the complexity of data is routinely
simplified in attempts to model it, and so on (Star 1983). When outside
researchers use results from a discipline or problem area, they routinely
summarize or reshape those results to fit new contexts (Hilgartner 1990).
Although particular cases of this reshaping are seen as distortions, in gen-
eral it is accepted as legitimate. No sharp distinction can be drawn, then,
between genuine knowledge and popularization: Scientific knowledge is con-
structed through the collective transformation of statements, and popular-
ization can be seen as an extension of this process (Hilgartner 1990). Any
statement of scientific knowledge is more or less well suited to its context,
and might have to be changed to become suited to some other context,
even another scientific context. Popularization is a way of moving know-
ledge into new domains. The popular context creates its own demands, and
will tend to shape popular science accordingly.
9781405187657_4_015.qxd 15/7/09 10:38 AM Page 174
174 Public Understanding of Science
The dominant model of popularization assumes that scientific knowledge
is not tied to any context. Popularization pollutes pure scientific knowledge
by simplifying or otherwise changing it to fit non-scientific contexts.
That model ignores ways in which pure science can be continuous with
its popularizations, ways in which pure science can even depend upon
popular science to further research. The model also ignores ways in which
science is historically located in disciplinary and other matrixes. Knowledge
claims are contextualized and recontextualized within pure science, in ways
that scientists understand and accept: a claim appropriate for cancer research
may have to be reframed for a physiologist.
Interestingly, scientists can find themselves rejecting the dominant model,
if they are marginalized and choose to adopt the stance of the dissident.
Dissident scientists may challenge norms of science that emphasize its inde-
pendence and self-sufficiency, instead seeing science as corrupted or permeated
by politics, and seeing the public as a potential participant, corrective force,
and source of accountability (Delborne 2008).
The Deficit Model
Going hand in hand with the dominant model of science popularization is
the deficit model of the public understanding of science (Wynne 1992).
On that model, scientific and technical literacy is a good in short supply out-
side the ranks of scientists and engineers. The public is thus characterized
as deficient in knowledge. Shocking statistics about the number of people
who believe that the Sun goes around the Earth and not vice versa, or that
the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, easily motivate the deficit model.
Any deficiency must be seen as a problem. Given the centrality of science
and technology to the modern world, scientific illiteracy is viewed as a moral
problem, leaving people incapable of understanding the world around them
and incapable of acting rationally in that world. For scientists, the deficiency
also represents a political problem, because (presumably) the scientifically
illiterate are less likely to support spending on science and more likely to
support measures that constrain research. Therefore, many people feel that
we need more public understanding of science : the problem is one to
be corrected by didactic education, a transfer of knowledge from science to
broad publics.
While there is considerable sympathy within STS for the idea that publics
should know more about science and technology, STS s perspective on
expertise leaves it skeptical of the idea that the goal should be simply to
teach people more science (e.g. Locke 2002). As a result, in STS the phrase
9781405187657_4_015.qxd 15/7/09 10:38 AM Page 175
Public Understanding of Science 175
public understanding of science often refers to studies of attempts to apply
scientific knowledge or methods to problems in the public sphere. Here lay
reactions to experts are as much of interest as experts strategies for applying
their knowledge.
Publics may have more nuanced relationships with scientific knowledge
than the deficit model assumes. We have already seen that the dominant
model of popularization mistakenly removes science and popularization
from their contexts. The deficit model similarly fails to appreciate the
contextual nature of knowing. Publics have knowledge that intersects with
science, they may translate and appropriate scientific knowledge, and they
appraise scientific knowledge and its bearers.
Because members of the public have pre-existing interests in certain prob-
lems and their solution, case studies often show a certain level of conflict
between lay and scientific understandings. Steven Yearley (1999) summarizes
the findings of these case studies in terms of three theses:
1. A large part of the public evaluation of scientific knowledge is via the
evaluation of the institutions and scientists presenting that knowledge.
2. Members of the interested public often have expertise that bears on the
problem, which may conflict with scientific expertise.
3. Scientific knowledge contains implicit normative assumptions, or assump-
tions about the social world, which members of the public can recognize
and with which they can disagree.
Scientific knowledge is invariably at least partly tied to the local circum- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]