What is scientific consensus for policy? Heartlands and hinterlands of physics
Lead Research Organisation:
Cardiff University
Department Name: Sch of Social Sciences
Abstract
Policy-makers should rely on generating decisions in the light of mainstream scientific opinion - what is often called 'the scientific consensus'. This project is aimed at understanding how this consensus is formed. If we want to understand what is going on when policy-makers gauge the extent of consensus and non-consensus in the scientific and technological community, we need to understand these processes.
Yet science is often controversial. A healthy science needs disagreement and discussion as much as it needs consensus in order to test conclusions to the maximum. The public and policy-makers often encounter scientific disagreement when faced with crucial decisions. Therefore the nature of agreement and disagreement in science needs to be understood.
Science is knowledge based on communal agreement, yet individuals can and do sometimes disagree with the mainstream. Using science's rhetorical power as an element of public discourse, one can create an atmosphere of controversy where there is possibly none (e.g. writing scientific papers that suggest the existence of disagreement where there is none in the scientific mainstream). For example, the tobacco lobby is known for having done this and it could be that the oil industry has helped to create an appearance of disagreement in the matter of the science of climate change.
To increase our understanding of these issues we will look at consensus formation in physics. The project will begin by looking at the place where many physicists initially reveal their work to their fellows: the dominant electronic preprint server known as 'arXiv'. Physicists can upload their draft papers to arXiv where they may be read by the wider community. Currently around 6,000 papers a month are uploaded to arXiv. An ordinary member of the public cannot upload a paper to arXiv because it is technically complex, but also because, nowadays, the submission must be sponsored by an existing professional physicist. However it has not always been like this. At one time anyone who understood the technicalities could upload. The new restrictions have been put in place because too many unorthodox submissions were being made. In sociological language, a border has been established which now defines what has potential to contribute to the consensus on a topic and what does not. If we want to understand the nature of scientific consensus, arXiv is a good place to start.
Physicists admit they read very few of the papers uploaded to arXiv, concentrating on those that have a direct bearing on their research topics. But arXiv has another way of dealing with papers without simply excluding them: it puts them into a category called 'general physics'. We do not know how physicists choose what is interesting and what is not, what they know about the meaning of the general physics category and, therefore, how the notions of 'good' and 'bad' science are created in physicists' minds. We also do not know what the excluded physicists, or redirected physicists, make of what happens to them, something else we will examine. We will look further into the territory of qualified scientists who publish in so called 'fringe journals' and further out still into the world of what are sometimes called 'cranks'. All this fits into and understanding of the creation of consensus and those outside it.
The results of looking at all these boundaries will then be re-conceptualised to understand what this means for the formation of consensus in science that has policy implications. The ultimate aim is to illuminate policy-related discussions of how to identify the boundaries of legitimate science and the consensus that exists within them. The research should then help policymakers and publics interested in scientific affairs to distinguish when a science is or is not controversial. Our deep, careful study of the way these things unfold in arXiv will give us a sound scientific understanding that can be applied to other areas.
Yet science is often controversial. A healthy science needs disagreement and discussion as much as it needs consensus in order to test conclusions to the maximum. The public and policy-makers often encounter scientific disagreement when faced with crucial decisions. Therefore the nature of agreement and disagreement in science needs to be understood.
Science is knowledge based on communal agreement, yet individuals can and do sometimes disagree with the mainstream. Using science's rhetorical power as an element of public discourse, one can create an atmosphere of controversy where there is possibly none (e.g. writing scientific papers that suggest the existence of disagreement where there is none in the scientific mainstream). For example, the tobacco lobby is known for having done this and it could be that the oil industry has helped to create an appearance of disagreement in the matter of the science of climate change.
To increase our understanding of these issues we will look at consensus formation in physics. The project will begin by looking at the place where many physicists initially reveal their work to their fellows: the dominant electronic preprint server known as 'arXiv'. Physicists can upload their draft papers to arXiv where they may be read by the wider community. Currently around 6,000 papers a month are uploaded to arXiv. An ordinary member of the public cannot upload a paper to arXiv because it is technically complex, but also because, nowadays, the submission must be sponsored by an existing professional physicist. However it has not always been like this. At one time anyone who understood the technicalities could upload. The new restrictions have been put in place because too many unorthodox submissions were being made. In sociological language, a border has been established which now defines what has potential to contribute to the consensus on a topic and what does not. If we want to understand the nature of scientific consensus, arXiv is a good place to start.
Physicists admit they read very few of the papers uploaded to arXiv, concentrating on those that have a direct bearing on their research topics. But arXiv has another way of dealing with papers without simply excluding them: it puts them into a category called 'general physics'. We do not know how physicists choose what is interesting and what is not, what they know about the meaning of the general physics category and, therefore, how the notions of 'good' and 'bad' science are created in physicists' minds. We also do not know what the excluded physicists, or redirected physicists, make of what happens to them, something else we will examine. We will look further into the territory of qualified scientists who publish in so called 'fringe journals' and further out still into the world of what are sometimes called 'cranks'. All this fits into and understanding of the creation of consensus and those outside it.
The results of looking at all these boundaries will then be re-conceptualised to understand what this means for the formation of consensus in science that has policy implications. The ultimate aim is to illuminate policy-related discussions of how to identify the boundaries of legitimate science and the consensus that exists within them. The research should then help policymakers and publics interested in scientific affairs to distinguish when a science is or is not controversial. Our deep, careful study of the way these things unfold in arXiv will give us a sound scientific understanding that can be applied to other areas.
Planned Impact
The PI's recent work on expertise in policy-making has stressed the necessity for policy-makers to consider scientific consensus/controversy when it exists and when it bears on policy-making decisions. The caveat is that before these are taken into account, the policy-makers must first be able to identify whether the consensus exists or not. The proposed project looks to answer this fundamental point by analysing a case study of a 'hard' science and the social mechanisms whereby it constitutes its borders and forms consensus view inside itself. This will be done by thoroughly illustrating:
1) How the boundaries of a science are established, that is, how scientific communities define what is 'in' and 'out' of their professionally sanctioned boundaries and defining legitimacy on technical issues.
2) How membership to an established community is gained by individuals.
3) How scientific communities assign different levels of expert-status to its members.
4) How scientific communities identify individuals lying outside the boundaries of consensus, and the social underpinnings of these standards.
These four points are directly tied to the important question of how policy-makers can identify when there is or is not scientific consensus in a given expert community and how one can identify what counts as consensus when it exists. The question can have major impact on public issues relevant to anything from local, national and international political agendas where technological and scientific issues arise. Stemming from the PI's research agenda are several case studies (e.g. the AZT controversy in South Africa) that highlight how misunderstanding or misrepresenting scientific consensus can lead to badly justified and badly implemented policy choices. The project will help us understand such issues.
In terms of a wider public understanding of science, the point of illustrating the social dimensions of scientific consensus is also tied to the PI's long established programme of increasing public awareness of the collective nature of scientific knowledge channeled through various media: the Golem book series on science and society, the Cardiff group's webpage showcasing the group's work, a Facebook site for the group's ongoing experimental project, public conferences and keynote adresses to groups outside academia across a wide range of disciplines, papers in policy-related journals and publishing in journalistic outlets interested in the group's work. Through these outlets the group highlights the collective dimension of science not as a weakness but as a strength. The case study would increase the pool of sociological studies that can be used to illustrate the point that science's value as a cultural product lies in its participants being immersed inside a collective enterprise.
arXiv administrators themselves comprise an additional 'external' user's of the project's results; as a group within academia but outside the immediate world of social studies of science. arXiv founder Paul Ginsparg is keenly interested in how the project's results could be used by arXiv to model its own borders and has provided a written offer to aid in carrying out the arXiv stage of the research, with interest in its implications for arXiv itself. Finally, as an open acces website for the diffusion of scientific knowledge, arXiv's participation model could have bearing on future discussions of how OA can be successfully implemented in the diffusion of knowledge in other instances.
1) How the boundaries of a science are established, that is, how scientific communities define what is 'in' and 'out' of their professionally sanctioned boundaries and defining legitimacy on technical issues.
2) How membership to an established community is gained by individuals.
3) How scientific communities assign different levels of expert-status to its members.
4) How scientific communities identify individuals lying outside the boundaries of consensus, and the social underpinnings of these standards.
These four points are directly tied to the important question of how policy-makers can identify when there is or is not scientific consensus in a given expert community and how one can identify what counts as consensus when it exists. The question can have major impact on public issues relevant to anything from local, national and international political agendas where technological and scientific issues arise. Stemming from the PI's research agenda are several case studies (e.g. the AZT controversy in South Africa) that highlight how misunderstanding or misrepresenting scientific consensus can lead to badly justified and badly implemented policy choices. The project will help us understand such issues.
In terms of a wider public understanding of science, the point of illustrating the social dimensions of scientific consensus is also tied to the PI's long established programme of increasing public awareness of the collective nature of scientific knowledge channeled through various media: the Golem book series on science and society, the Cardiff group's webpage showcasing the group's work, a Facebook site for the group's ongoing experimental project, public conferences and keynote adresses to groups outside academia across a wide range of disciplines, papers in policy-related journals and publishing in journalistic outlets interested in the group's work. Through these outlets the group highlights the collective dimension of science not as a weakness but as a strength. The case study would increase the pool of sociological studies that can be used to illustrate the point that science's value as a cultural product lies in its participants being immersed inside a collective enterprise.
arXiv administrators themselves comprise an additional 'external' user's of the project's results; as a group within academia but outside the immediate world of social studies of science. arXiv founder Paul Ginsparg is keenly interested in how the project's results could be used by arXiv to model its own borders and has provided a written offer to aid in carrying out the arXiv stage of the research, with interest in its implications for arXiv itself. Finally, as an open acces website for the diffusion of scientific knowledge, arXiv's participation model could have bearing on future discussions of how OA can be successfully implemented in the diffusion of knowledge in other instances.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Harry Collins (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Collins H M
(2017)
Why Democracies Need Science
Collins Harry
(2019)
Experts and the Will of the People: Society, Populism and Science
Collins HM
(2016)
The Ecology of Fringe Science and its Bearing on Policy
in arXiv e-prints
| Description | Our promise was to explore fringe science with scientific and technological decision-making in mind. The revolution in our understanding of the natural sciences that began in the 1970s has shown how hard it is to resolve scientific controversy. Even in pure sciences such as physics, controversies can take half-a-century to reach closure. But policy-making has to work faster than this. Therefore we looked for ways of demarcating fringe science from mainstream science that, even if they were not epistemologically foundational, would enable policy-makers to justify to publics the choice to take mainstream science as the starting point for policy making. After extensive fieldwork covering the heartlands to the hinterlands of science we constructed a classification of fringe sciences and a table of characteristics comparing the fringe with the mainstream. We found, for example, that some fringe sciences did not intend their findings to contribute to science but to popular book sales; we found that some were determined to revolutionise science rather than add to it in an incremental way and, above all, we found that fringe sciences often exhibit what we call 'pathological individualism'. That is they distrust established paradigms and consider that the only valuable science must turn on individual inventiveness - in other words, they balance they aim to achieve in terms of what Kuhn called 'essential tension' is far more in favour of individual rather than collective achievement. These and the other criteria can justify policy decisions that are founded in the mainstream. Those findings are collected in the paper 'Collins, Harry, Bartlett, Andrew and Reyes-Galindo, Luis, 2016, 'The Ecology of Fringe Science and its Bearing on Policy', (http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05786). A second paper co-authored with Paul Ginsparg the founder of arXiv, the very widely used pre-print server, shows that arXiv's automated system for winnowing out fringe papers will not work for a class of papers which is 'past its sell-by date' - that is, has all the appearance of a scientific paper but has no credibility within the mainstream and thus policy-makers are bound to need to take the advice of mainstream scientists when deciding which findings are to be taken seriously in policy-making terms. This paper is: Collins, Harry, Ginsparg, Paul and Reyes-Galindo, Luis, (forthcoming) 'A Note Concerning Primary Source Knowledge', Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 00, 000-000 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.07228). The findings of both of these papers are being used on our other publications such as the forthcoming book, Why Democracies Need Science (Polity, 2017) which indicates how policy-makers can assess the substance and standing of scientific consensuses |
| Exploitation Route | This work, in addition to now being published as a journal article, has now been incorporated into a new book which will explain how these sociological differences should be incorporated into technological decision-making and how they can allow science to be used as a check and balance in pluralist democracies, thus combating populism. This is exactly the kind of thing intended in the research and is already being used in our other books 'Why Democracies Need Science' and 'Gravity's Kiss: The Detection of Gravitational Waves' |
| Sectors | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05786 |
| Description | These findings support a body of work that explains the importance of science to democracy and pluralist democracy. These findings, the, support a body of work intended to safeguard Western democracies against the predations of populism. Without a sociological way of demarcating fringe science from mainstream science, it would be hard to justify this work. |
| Sector | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |