Implications of Artificial Separation Between Science and Society - Essay Example

?What implications do artificial separation between science and society suggest for the future of scientific and engineering practice? Introduction Modernity, among many things, is also characterised by the conception of science as completely detached from the society. The existing dualism between science and technology presupposes that science is absolutely objective while society is merely subjective. The paradigm of modern science involves the values that advocate and practice the artificial separation of knowledge production from ordinary people, society, nature and other beings. The modern scientific practice, which is a product of mechanical reproduction in the age of Enlightenment, is based on the ideas of technological reproduction, patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, Eurocentricism and anthropocentricism. The purpose of the paper is to examine the ways through which the artificial separation between science and society fetters the future and the free development of scientific and engineering practice. The paper would look at the epistemological closedness of the dominant ‘scientific’ practices with relations to gendered, racial, technological deterministic and other hegemonic aspects. The Hidden Unscientific Behind the Scientific Thomas Kuhn (1996) in his magnum opus “The structure of Scientific Revolutions” has argued that every science produces and is a product of a paradigm that corresponds to the norms, values and culture of the society within which it functions. Science changes only when there are paradigm shifts with relations to the general intellect of the society. Such a view offers an historical understanding of science and its complex interrelations with the society. Berger and Luckmann contemplate on the differences between different fields of education and assert that “engineering education can take place effectively through formal, highly rational, emotionally neutral processes while musical education necessitates multiple emotional identifications” (1966, p.133). The supposed neutral space of scientific production can be unscientific in multiple ways as the so-called scientific space is actively related to the social space and the multiple constraining factors active therein. It is true that the spaces of scientific production in modernity are systematically isolated from the existing social spaces. However, it does not mean scientific spaces are completely detached from the social spaces for the simple reason that nothing that engages real human beings can remain out of the reach of the society. The dominant values of the contemporary society such as patriarchy, class exploitation and domination, racial prejudices and discrimination and colonialism are actively reproduced by and through supposedly neutral scientific praxis. Many feminists have raised substantial criticisms pointing out the gendered nature of the scientific and engineering practices. The scientist man not only alters the nature but also women as they are considered as raw material for progress and development and an object for ‘scientific’ experimentation. According to Sismondo, “feminist scholars have argued that because scientific communities have lacked diversity, they have typically lacked some of the resources to better enable them to see aspects of sexism in scientific work. Therefore, standpoint theory, together with the recognition of the social character of knowledge, shows that to increase objectivity, communities of research and inquiry should be diverse, representative, and democratic” (Sismondo, 2010, p. 77). The existing scientific field is not inclusive of subaltern groups such as women, blacks and minorities and it is resistant towards diversity and multiculturalism. The ideal scientist is an American/European White male who has the role of god on the earth. Sismondo is categorical in saying that “the ideology of engineering emphasizes concrete hands-on abilities and those concrete abilities can be valued as masculine. Men can be “hands on tinkerers,” or women can be perceived as engaging in a “bricolage” style of engineering” (2010, p.78). Ideology too needs to be considered as part of the dominant scientific paradigms. Western scientific thought which was a product of colonial modernity is inherently gendered and it also plays an active role in the perpetuation male dominance and gender divisions on the society. However these gendered scientific discourses are not uniform as “there are distinct gendered styles of scientific thought: masculine knowledge is characterized by reductionism, distanced objectivity, and a goal of technical control, and feminine knowledge by attention to relationships, an intimacy between observer and observed, and a goal of holistic understanding. If this rough dichotomy is right, scientific knowledge is gendered” (Sismondo, 2010, p. 77). Many of the disciplines in the prevailing scientific field are characterised by fragmentation and strict dichotomy between the object and subject, human world and natural world and many other binaries and dualisms. Irwin (1995) is of the view that what is known as scientific community is not homogenous and moreover it is not a community outside of the human society but, on the opposite, a community within the general society. And, Irwin asserts that scientific production is concentrated only in the scientific communities; still, it does not cease to exist in the general society. All citizens are part of the processes of knowledge production and contribute some way or another to the enrichment of scientific knowledge and practices. In other words, knowledge production does not exist outside of the social production. Scientific production is just one among many forms of social production. After all, scientific knowledge did exist even prior to the making of the scientific community. The modern rationality not only creates but also perpetuates an artificial separation between science and society as the “the conceptual machinery became the property of specialist elites, whose bodies of knowledge were increasingly removed from the common knowledge of the society at large. Modern science is an extreme step in this development and in the secularization and sophistication of universe-maintenance” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 103). Every science emerges and develops only within the context of the larger social processes which shape the prevailing modes of knowledge production. For instance, it is possible to imagine the existence of “an objective “science’ of hunting, corresponding to the objective reality of the hunting economy” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 63). The same goes with all forms of societies. In mechanised society, there will be mechanical reproduction of scientific knowledge. In the same manner, an anthropocentric society produces anthropocentric sciences and vice versa too. Conclusion Science and society are not mutually exclusive categories. No science exists out of the realm of society, independent of concrete human beings. It is necessary to affirm that science is produced and reproduced within the confines of people. It is an irony that consciousness is not necessarily considered as being part of either “an external physical world or an inward subjective reality” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p.26). And, scientific activity is not simply what experts do in the controlled settings of laboratory. Science is primarily about knowledge production which takes place at the centre of the society as a product of the general intellect of the society. The existing scientific and engineering practices are constrained by the ideological underpinnings of genderedness and anthropocentricism. References Berger, P and Luckmann, T 1966, The social construction of reality. New York, Anchor Books.  Irwin, A 1995, Citizen science: A study of people, expertise and sustainable development. London, Routledge.  Kuhn, T 1996, The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd ed., Chicago, University of Chicago Press.  Sismondo, S 2010, An introduction to science and technology studies, 2nd Ed., Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.  Read More