Hey Johnson!
Now THAT is an dazzling post you wrote.
If I understand you correctly, you say that the process of knowledge production in the lab is neither the main nor the most obvious place where the social nature of science becomes evident. We should (also) look at what motivates scientists or lab directors to pursue certain topics in the first place.
Maybe.
But to me it seems that the sociologists of scientific knowledge are not very interested in the subjective dimensions of science. They are interested in the objective dimensions. So to them, it’s of minor concern how the person who initiated the hair growth study came up with the idea or motivation. What they want to know is how the team working on that study came up with “objective”, “factual” things to say about the biological mechanisms involved in hair growth. I am using the scare quotes here to indicate that, for the sociologists of scientific knowledge, the point is to try to explain how the objective-factual status of the results is thoroughly constructed (yet for that no less real).
To my mind, this approach packs more of a sociological punch, so to speak, than an approach that would focus on scientists’ motivations and on the subjective and intersubjective factors shaping those motivations. Why? First, because it’s more surprising and more adventurous: I mean, these people pushed sociological inquiry right into the heart of the most objective and apparently non-social procedures and practices we know! Second, because it is more specific to the topic we are dealing with. Sure, we can ask what motivates a scientist to pick a particular research topic… but how is this different from asking what motivates “anyone” to do “anything”? Would we simply end up with a sociological treatment of motivations and decisions in general? Then how is this “sociology of science?”
What do you think?
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