Initial post
Dear List,
With a humble heart and a spirit of most sincere gratitude toward
those who have preceded me in such exemplary manners, I now commence
as the next emcee for this slow read of Joseph Ransdell's (JR's)
papers. The paper on which I focus is entitled, "Sciences as
Communicational Communities." It can be found online at:
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/physics.htm
The version we will consider was completed on November 21st, 1998.
However, the original version on which it is based was delivered as
an oral presentation on October 28th, 1995.
Gary F and Gary R have both followed plans in their slow reads that
are somewhat similar in form. I will attempt to follow their lead as
closely as possible. This post will serve as an introductory email.
It provides some background on Daniel Lee Kleinman--the "academic
politician" cited in this paper-- and on the American Physical
Society, the organization (or a local chapter thereof) to whom the
paper is addressed. It also provides a bit information on the how
the kind of controversy on which the paper dwells has recently
manifested in my home discipline of anthropology.
First, however, I will give a listing of some sectional divisions
that I will be using that organize the series of posts I will make
for the slow read of this paper. After this initial post, I plan to
make 5 more posts that each summarize a section or two of the paper
and pose a few questions relevant to them.
In my reading, this paper divides into 6 sections: three relatively
long segments followed by three short ones. I summarize them as
follows:
1) Paragraphs 1-6: JR frames the debate between scientists and
academic politicians, stating that Peirce is useful to the scientist
side of it. He sets a two-part agenda for the rest of the essay,
announcing that he will be speaking "in the spirit of Peirce" as he
proceeds through it. He seeks 1) to convey some idea of what is
actually involved in scientific practice and 2) how this relates to
the "strategies of argumentation" academic politicians use against scientists.
2) Paragraphs 7-11: JR characterizes false images of scientific
method and communication and, in order to counter these, calls for
inquiry into the norms that govern scientific communication which are
obvious but typically go unnoticed.
3) Paragraphs 12-17: JR focuses on scientific publication in order to
identify said norms, characterizing it as driven by its "subject
matter"; he then attacks the "sociologist of knowledge" perspective
on scientific practice, characterizing it as paradoxical (either
ignorant of scientific practice, or unable to remain sociological
once engaged in a given scientific practice).
4) Paragraphs 18-21 [the crux of the paper]:JR lays out what
scientific communication must entail if it is to cohere, sustain
itself, grow, and maintain its subject matter orientation; he then
contrasts the scientist and the academician identities, acknowledging
that the latter in practice does integrate with the former (to the
detriment of the former), but only in a non-normative manner.
5) Paragraphs 22-23: JR focuses on the concept of truth, defining
scientific assertions of truth as subject-specific communicational
acts.
6) Paragraphs 24-25: JR concludes with the recommendations that
scientists respond to academic politicians by 1) refusing to react to
politicians' interventions on the politicians' own terms and 2)
developing public relations communications that express authentically
what science as a human activity is actually like (in addition to
its character as a technologically productive activity).
As mentioned above, I will be posting every few days with a more
detailed summary and set of questions related to each of these
sections.
Moving on, now, to background information, for those who might be
interested in reading the opinion piece by Kleinman against which JR
frames his own position (I found it interesting), the article is
entitled, "Why Science and Scientists are Under Fire." It can be
found online at:
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-ScienceScientists-Are/95766/
Kleinman was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia Institute
of Technology when JR (relatively senior in status to Kleinman at the
time) responded to his article in 1995. Kleinman is currently
Professor and Chair of Community & Environmental Sociology in the
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. For the purposes of this slow read, it might be
worth noting that Kleinman has conducted research on the biological,
not the physical sciences. His work, since the time he wrote the
opinion piece, has focused on documenting the informal and indirect
ways and means by which commercial industries have affected the
practice of laboratory work on university campuses. More detailed
information about Kleinman's research interests can be found online
at: http://www.dces.wisc.edu/faculty/kleinman/index.php.
With regard to the context for this paper's original presentation, it
was delivered at a local meeting of the American Physical Society
(APS), In Lubbock Texas. For those who may not be familiar with this
organization, the APS is the leading professional organization for
the advancement of physics in the United States. It currently has
around 46,000 members. (website address is: http://www.aps.org/ ).
Given the mission and character of this organization, it seems likely
that the audience JR was addressing for this presentation was
composed mainly of people connected in some way with the Physics
Department of Texas Tech University. If this was the case, the
audience (judging by the department's current composition) was
probably fairly diverse in terms of age, somewhat diverse in terms of
ethnicity, and nearly, if not entirely, all male. I speculate to
this degree on such features of the audience's character, as it might
seem to have some bearing on some of the rhetorical choices JR made
in this paper.
With regard to the question of whether or not the issues raised in
this 1998(1995) paper remain timely, there is evidence (for better
and for worse) from as recently as January of this year that, at
least as far as anthropologists in the United States are concerned,
they definitely are still alive and kicking. A case in point: in
late 2010, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological
Association approved a new overview statement (to be used in
organizational publicity materials) answering the question, "What is
Anthropology?" The statement did not include the term "science" at
any point in its wording. The furor that broke out within the
organization over the erasure of "science" in this statement is
documented in The Chronicle Review, January 9, 2011, in an article by
Hugh Gusterson
(http://chronicle.com/article/What-if-They-Had-a-Science-War/125828/
). Some of the terminology is different from that used by JR and
Kleinman, but the characterization of the relation between scientists
and those who allegedly threaten to undermine their work remains much
the same. If times have changed, the changes have been relatively
subtle--at least in my own neck of the woods.
For those who have had the patience to read this far down the email,
your interest in this paper is much appreciated. I think it offers
an opportunity to reexamine a number of topics on which previous
threads in the slow read have focused, particularly those concerning
the practice and the definition of science. I hope to read posts
from you all as we proceed through this paper.
Best wishes and looking forward,
Sally
(The "long-time lurker")
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