I originally started to read this book, and then had to put it down because I got so many ideas from the introduction. I picked it up again and started working through. I still think the introduction is good; the rest of the book doesn't really live up to opening, though. I guess I'd say this is typical of a dissertation turned into a book, with the degree of detail in the descriptive chapters overwhelming the point--Thurs did a ton of research for this book. The book is short, at 183 pages of text (excluding notes), but probably could have been a good third shorter, maybe a little more. We don't have a distribution system for that length of writing in the current scholarly world--it's too long for an article but too short for a book. Maybe the switch to electronic forms of distribution will change publishing practices and make a slimmer--but still meaty--work available.
Thurs starts with what seems to be a paradox in American culture. On the one hand, Americans accord science a lot of importance and power--referring to science is a way of closing debates. On the other hand, Americans are relatively ignorant of the specifics of science. This coupling is not exactly a paradox, but is still an interesting question. The short answer Thurs offers is that over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as science professionalized and became a distinct category within American culture, it also separated itself from the rest of that culture, so that it was increasingly easy for Americans to ignore it. Indeed, the only real connection between science an the wider culture was through technology. Other developments were easy to ignore, even while respecting.
Thurs traces this changing notion of science in American culture through four episodes, and then a conclusion, which really acts as a fifth episode and not a summing up of his argument: debates over phrenology, biological evolution, relativity, the existence of UFOs, and Intelligent Design. His focus is not on the practice of science, but on talk about science: this is what makes science in culture, the way we talk about it. His theoretical scaffolding builds on Thomas Gieryn's notion of boundary work, especially (although he doesn't single out Gieryn in his own book), but goes beyond it. Where Gieryn looked at how scientists themselves defined science, Thurs pushes beyond that to look at what the audience says, too. Thurs is witheringly skeptical of the 'popular mind,' and is at great pains to separate himself from such a notion. The popular mind, as he sees it, is based on an audience passively receiving ideas about science and then holding on to them, rather than arguing with them, using them in their own ways. What interests me in this theory is that it could be pushed even further, such that it is not just discussion, but practices, too, performances and ways of acting among scientists, popularizers, and an audience that creates what we think of as science.
Thurs sees the debate--or discourse--over science operating on three axes: science is defined against other cultural categories (especially religion); there are questions over who performs science; and there are questions about whether science requires a special method.
In the case of phrenology, debates over which occurred mostly in antebellum America, science was not really a distinct category. It meant systematized knowledge, but that knowledge could be about art or religion or any number of things; there were no specialized practitioners; and there was no particular method. As a result, no one tried to define phrenology as 'unscientific.' Rather, the debate was over whether it was right or wrong, useful or not. There were debates over whether looking for the roots of personality in material differences (as opposed to spiritual ones) undermined religion, but generally everyone favored an interpretation of phrenology that was in accord with religion.
After the Civil War, science was defined especially in discussions over evolution. By this time, there was a small but growing group of professional scientists. There was as yet no method that was distinctively scientific--although scientists were thought to be more careful in the development of their thought. Also at this time, as a sign of the increasing boundedness of science, there existed the genre of popular science--which is where a lot of this debate raged, unlike with phrenology, which was discussed in general interest magazines. It became a choice to seek out scientific information (87). The key, of course, was the distinction between science and another cultural area, religion. (As a side note, the term pseudoscience was becoming increasingly popular through the 1800s, but did not yet have a lot of argumentative force. It implied that something was scientifically wrong, but since there were other forms of wrongness that were just as important, if not more--morally, religiously--the pejorative carried little weight; 66.) There was also a growing division between popular and scientific knowledge. One front of this was that scientists were no longer just interested in facts, as they had been in the debate over phrenology, but in the sewing together of facts into theories. The term "working hypothesis" became popular in the 1880s, as an example of this (76).
By the 1920s and 1930s, when discussion of relativity was common, science had become a coherent, stable category (91)--which meant not only that it had cultural power, butt hat it could be resisted. Relativity helped to draw that boundary, making the case that science was incomprehensible to the common person. Technology was the main link to science now, technology, and an increasingly specialized scientific press. (In 1932, the National Association of Science Writers was formed; 96.) Science could no longer be equated with common sense. There was a distinct method to creating it (105), the so-called hypothetico-deductive method. It was not just organizing facts and could not be done by anyone, but only by a specialized group of experts (110). Thurs noted that by becoming bounded, science had its limits, and certain people began playing with those limits, among them Charles Fort (121).
By the time debate over UFOs irrupted in post-War America, science was well bounded and separate. As a response to the increasing isolation of science, there was, in the 1950s, a push for popularization of science and the public understanding of science, but the effort was small in the wider context of publishing (129). The key axis in this debate was not method or science vs. religion but scientist: who was seen as smart, but separate, and an impressive interpreter of reality. The scientist, in fact, was greater than the method, which was just tools and technology anyway (146-8). Religion was seen as a completely separate sphere (and its invocation was sure to push any talk of UFOs beyond the bounds of science, as happened so often with the contactee movement). It was during this period that non-scientists began to develop alternative sciences, since science was closed to them, and that pseudoscience became a powerful criticism--to be wrong scientifically was to be wrong, period. Indeed, the notion of pseudoscience had changed. As recently as the pre-War period, the idea was that each science had its own false Doppelganger, as H. L. Mencken put it. Now all of those supposed falsities were united under the umbrella of pseudoscience (153). Fort was the Ur-source for both pseudoscience and alternative science, although these were not identical categories (154).
The concluding chapter is more of a whimper than a bang. It almost seems as though Thurs wanted to make this a full chapter on Intelligent Design but pulled back. As it is, there are no real concluding thoughts, and what he has to say about the ID debate is sketchy--no surprise given that we are in its midst. Thurs argues that like UFO proponents, those advocating ID want to break down the boundaries of science and return it to the forms of the early nineteenth century, when transcendence and importance were vital parts of knowledge. The debate so far, Thurs notes, has turned not on the meaning of scientist, since some proponents of ID are scientists, but on method.
In the absence of a conclusion, I'll offer some of Thurs' introduction. He argues that the boundedness of science is part of a more general trend of specialization--cultural categories of all sorts are getting bounded. But what's interesting is that the boundaries never circumscribe completely homogenous units--as is the case with science. And so the continual turning of debates is not only a product of those trying to subvert the various categories, but of those people using resources from within the categories to do the subverting.
Thurs starts with what seems to be a paradox in American culture. On the one hand, Americans accord science a lot of importance and power--referring to science is a way of closing debates. On the other hand, Americans are relatively ignorant of the specifics of science. This coupling is not exactly a paradox, but is still an interesting question. The short answer Thurs offers is that over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as science professionalized and became a distinct category within American culture, it also separated itself from the rest of that culture, so that it was increasingly easy for Americans to ignore it. Indeed, the only real connection between science an the wider culture was through technology. Other developments were easy to ignore, even while respecting.
Thurs traces this changing notion of science in American culture through four episodes, and then a conclusion, which really acts as a fifth episode and not a summing up of his argument: debates over phrenology, biological evolution, relativity, the existence of UFOs, and Intelligent Design. His focus is not on the practice of science, but on talk about science: this is what makes science in culture, the way we talk about it. His theoretical scaffolding builds on Thomas Gieryn's notion of boundary work, especially (although he doesn't single out Gieryn in his own book), but goes beyond it. Where Gieryn looked at how scientists themselves defined science, Thurs pushes beyond that to look at what the audience says, too. Thurs is witheringly skeptical of the 'popular mind,' and is at great pains to separate himself from such a notion. The popular mind, as he sees it, is based on an audience passively receiving ideas about science and then holding on to them, rather than arguing with them, using them in their own ways. What interests me in this theory is that it could be pushed even further, such that it is not just discussion, but practices, too, performances and ways of acting among scientists, popularizers, and an audience that creates what we think of as science.
Thurs sees the debate--or discourse--over science operating on three axes: science is defined against other cultural categories (especially religion); there are questions over who performs science; and there are questions about whether science requires a special method.
In the case of phrenology, debates over which occurred mostly in antebellum America, science was not really a distinct category. It meant systematized knowledge, but that knowledge could be about art or religion or any number of things; there were no specialized practitioners; and there was no particular method. As a result, no one tried to define phrenology as 'unscientific.' Rather, the debate was over whether it was right or wrong, useful or not. There were debates over whether looking for the roots of personality in material differences (as opposed to spiritual ones) undermined religion, but generally everyone favored an interpretation of phrenology that was in accord with religion.
After the Civil War, science was defined especially in discussions over evolution. By this time, there was a small but growing group of professional scientists. There was as yet no method that was distinctively scientific--although scientists were thought to be more careful in the development of their thought. Also at this time, as a sign of the increasing boundedness of science, there existed the genre of popular science--which is where a lot of this debate raged, unlike with phrenology, which was discussed in general interest magazines. It became a choice to seek out scientific information (87). The key, of course, was the distinction between science and another cultural area, religion. (As a side note, the term pseudoscience was becoming increasingly popular through the 1800s, but did not yet have a lot of argumentative force. It implied that something was scientifically wrong, but since there were other forms of wrongness that were just as important, if not more--morally, religiously--the pejorative carried little weight; 66.) There was also a growing division between popular and scientific knowledge. One front of this was that scientists were no longer just interested in facts, as they had been in the debate over phrenology, but in the sewing together of facts into theories. The term "working hypothesis" became popular in the 1880s, as an example of this (76).
By the 1920s and 1930s, when discussion of relativity was common, science had become a coherent, stable category (91)--which meant not only that it had cultural power, butt hat it could be resisted. Relativity helped to draw that boundary, making the case that science was incomprehensible to the common person. Technology was the main link to science now, technology, and an increasingly specialized scientific press. (In 1932, the National Association of Science Writers was formed; 96.) Science could no longer be equated with common sense. There was a distinct method to creating it (105), the so-called hypothetico-deductive method. It was not just organizing facts and could not be done by anyone, but only by a specialized group of experts (110). Thurs noted that by becoming bounded, science had its limits, and certain people began playing with those limits, among them Charles Fort (121).
By the time debate over UFOs irrupted in post-War America, science was well bounded and separate. As a response to the increasing isolation of science, there was, in the 1950s, a push for popularization of science and the public understanding of science, but the effort was small in the wider context of publishing (129). The key axis in this debate was not method or science vs. religion but scientist: who was seen as smart, but separate, and an impressive interpreter of reality. The scientist, in fact, was greater than the method, which was just tools and technology anyway (146-8). Religion was seen as a completely separate sphere (and its invocation was sure to push any talk of UFOs beyond the bounds of science, as happened so often with the contactee movement). It was during this period that non-scientists began to develop alternative sciences, since science was closed to them, and that pseudoscience became a powerful criticism--to be wrong scientifically was to be wrong, period. Indeed, the notion of pseudoscience had changed. As recently as the pre-War period, the idea was that each science had its own false Doppelganger, as H. L. Mencken put it. Now all of those supposed falsities were united under the umbrella of pseudoscience (153). Fort was the Ur-source for both pseudoscience and alternative science, although these were not identical categories (154).
The concluding chapter is more of a whimper than a bang. It almost seems as though Thurs wanted to make this a full chapter on Intelligent Design but pulled back. As it is, there are no real concluding thoughts, and what he has to say about the ID debate is sketchy--no surprise given that we are in its midst. Thurs argues that like UFO proponents, those advocating ID want to break down the boundaries of science and return it to the forms of the early nineteenth century, when transcendence and importance were vital parts of knowledge. The debate so far, Thurs notes, has turned not on the meaning of scientist, since some proponents of ID are scientists, but on method.
In the absence of a conclusion, I'll offer some of Thurs' introduction. He argues that the boundedness of science is part of a more general trend of specialization--cultural categories of all sorts are getting bounded. But what's interesting is that the boundaries never circumscribe completely homogenous units--as is the case with science. And so the continual turning of debates is not only a product of those trying to subvert the various categories, but of those people using resources from within the categories to do the subverting.
