social epistemology, 2000, vol. 14, nos. 2}3, 187–199Are debatable scienti c questionsdebatable?JOHN ZIMANAbstractScientists often nd diµ culty in engaging in formal public debate abouttranscienti c social issues. Although science is a highly disputatious institution,public argumentation amongst scientists follows very di¶ erent conventionalpractices from those that rule in political and legal arenas. Amongst otherdi¶ erentiating features, scienti c disputes are typically conducted in writingrather than orally, they are not sharply polarised or formally adversarial, they areseldom addressed to a speci c proposition, and they do not reach decisive closure.As a result, the rhetorical style that scientists learn from participation in suchpractises is not well adapted to the established format of socio-political ‘ debate ’.For scientists to contribute e¶ ectively to such debates, they must learn new waysof making their particular type of knowledge convincing in unfamiliar intellectualand social contexts.1. IntroductionAs soon as one realizes that public communication is central to science one begins tothink about rhetoric (Ziman 1968). The notion that the ndings of research are sorational and compelling that they ‘ stand to reason ’ is a fantasy (Ziman 2000). Scienti cknowledge is the product of a ‘ disputatious community of truth-seekers ’ (Campbell1986), where erce argumentation is the name of the game. The art of persuasion thusplays a major role in scienti c practise.What is more, quite apart from the hubbub of informal, more or less privateexchanges of opinion, scienti c progress depends on formal public argumentation,written and verbal. The norm of ‘ communalism ’ (Merton 1942 [1973]) underpins avariety of strongly institutionalized social practises which ensure that novel researchclaims are o¶ ered up for expert criticism before they are accepted by a researchcommunity. The contest for credibility between claimants and their critics—in practise,all members of the same community, but adopting di¶ erent roles according to thecircumstances—is intrinsically so erce that it is subject to very strict conventions.Author: John Ziman, 27 Little London Green, Oakley, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP18 9QL, UK ; e-mail:jmziman!cs.comSocial Epistemology ISSN 0269-1728}print}ISSN 1469-5297 online’2000 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp:}}www.tandf.co.uk}journals188 john zimanIn other words, science is not unlike other established epistemic institutions, such aslaw, scholastic theology and parliamentary government. Scienti c disputation,although performed for real, is highly ritualized and constrained to a strictly limitedrhetorical armamentarium. Certain styles of persuasive discourse are customary, w hilstothers are strongly forbidden. This goes further than the conventional courtesies andrules for turn-taking, etc. The social context shapes the subject matter, the structure ofthe argument, the framework within which it is set, the vocabulary of assertion anddenial, and many other features of presentation and critique.As I have tried to show at length elsewhere (Ziman 2000) ‘ academic science ’ in itsidealised traditional form is not only a peculiarly e¶ ective institution for producing aparticular type of knowledge : it is also the stereotype, the paradigm, of ‘science ’ as away of knowing. In this sense science is di¶ ere nt from other sources of thought andaction, such as pragmatic experience, common sense, technical practise, religious belief,spiritual inspiration, moral imperative, economic necessity or political expediency. Inreality, however, the notion of ‘ pure ’ science is a chimera. It is becoming less and lessfeasible to exclude from scienti c disputation considerations that are not amenable to itstraditional rhetoric, such as human values, social interests, technological capabilities,and so on. Indeed, I would argue that the academic and industrial research traditionsare being transformed and merged into a new institutional form. This new institutionalform—what I have called ‘ post-academic ’ science (Ziman 1996)—is characterized bya variety of new norms and practices, and is becoming the dominant mode, even inrelatively ‘basic ’ elds of research.What this means in practise is that argumentation about ‘ what is known scienti cally ’is taking place in a variety of other fora governed by quite di¶ erent rules. One way ofdescribing such argument is that it typically involves transcienti c issues—that is,questions that could never be resolved by established principles of scienti c method,such as experimental demonstration, mathematical prediction, or other forms ofoverwhelming rational inference (Weinberg 1972). The debate over climate changeclearly involves many such features. In any case, science can no longer isolate itselfsocially from other societal institutions, such as law, government, commerce, themilitary, etc. that operate quite di¶ erent modes of argumentation, quite di¶ erent stylesof persuasion and quite di¶ erent criteria of belief. The debate over climate change, forexample, is now so deeply implanted in the womb of politics that it cannot really avoiddeveloping in conformity to the principles of that social environment, rather than thoseof the scienti c world where it was conceived.This in no way implies that the argumentation then becomes ‘irrational ’ or governedsolely by brute force. In every domain of civilized life there are well-established modesof orderly deliberation. Scienti c concepts and considerations are typically invokedwith respect in such deliberations. Modern political processes, especially in theirbureaucratic aspects, owe a great deal to the scienti c style of rationality (Ezrahi 1990) ;modern economic discourse is extravagantly scientistic in its rhetorical excesses ; ethicalargumentation is now much focussed on scienti c issues and there is much discussionabout the best way of incorporating genuine scienti c evidence into legal proceedings.One might say, rather, that the problem is not the incursion of politics, law, ethics, etc.into the realm of science, but the tendency to import quasi-scienti c arguments intoother societal realms which do not share their premises, criteria or objectives.Nevertheless, the argumentation rituals of these other realms, although quitedistinctive, are very di¶ erent from those of science,
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