Course description

The title of this course uses the single word “crisis” to pose two overlapping questions: First, how do scientists cope with the threats to their credibility posed by the surge of populism and other expert-critical movements? And second, how do scientists respond to political, epidemiological, or other seemingly external crises that demand the production of timely knowledge? This course will begin to answer these entangled questions by unpacking the tools that scientists and other experts use to assert their credibility and tame crises. Then, we will consider the way that social movements—including “citizen scientists,” HIV/AIDS activists, and “biohackers”—use crises as opportunities to contest, mistrust, or reaffirm experts’ authority. Finally, we will study how these disputes are shaped by regulatory bureaucracies and the legal system. Throughout the course, students will apply concepts from the interdisciplinary field of science & technology studies (STS) to ongoing “crises” including climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, students should be confident in their ability to:

1. Identify tactics that scientists and other experts use to respond to (and exploit) crises.

2. Distinguish among the many reasons that publics (often as social movements) come to trust, distrust, or otherwise engage with experts in moments of crisis.

3. Analyze how the administrative state and courts mediate conflicts between lay publics and experts that arise during crises.

4. Apply concepts from the interdisciplinary field of science & technology studies to ongoing crises and other current events.

Syllabus preview

Module 1: How do scientists and other experts respond to crises?

Week 1: Science untainted by crisis

• Thursday
  • Weber, Max. (1917) 2004. “Science as a Vocation.” In The Vocation Lectures, edited by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Hackett Publishing Company.
  • Merton, Robert K. 1938. “Science and the Social Order.” Philosophy of Science 5 (3): 321–37.
  • Optional: Chapter 2, “From Calling to Job” in Shapin, Steven. 2019. “Weber’s Science as a Vocation: A Moment in the History of ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’.” Journal of Classical Sociology 19 (3): 290–307.

At our first class meeting, we will review the syllabus and become acquainted with one another. We will also discuss two idyllic depictions of science untainted by crisis. Weber conceives of science as a vocation and Merton describes it as a set of norms. In class, we will question whether Weber and Merton’s models of science hold up in times of crisis (or, if they are explanatory at all). Please come to class prepared to discuss examples of science in which you have participated (perhaps as a student or undergraduate researcher) and how these experiences diverged from what Weber and Merton might have expected.

Week 2: Crisis as a window into the social world of science

• Tuesday
  • Introduction and chapter 2 in Hilgartner, Stephen. 2000. Science on Stage. Writing Science. Stanford University Press.
  • Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48 (6): 781–95.
  • Collins, H M. 1981. “The Place of the ’Core-Set’ in Modern Science: Social Contingency with Methodological Propriety in Science.” History of Science 19: 6–19.
  • Parthasarathy, Shobita. 2021. “The AstraZeneca Vaccine Crisis in Europe Isn’t about Science at All.” Slate, March 17.
• Thursday
  • Latour, Bruno. 1983. “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World.” In Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science, edited by Karin D Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay. S.
  • Callon, Michel. 1984. “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay.” The Sociological Review 32 (S1): 196–233.
  • Optional: Kofman, Ava. 2018. “Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science.” The New York Times: Magazine, October 25.

In week two, we will ask how crises, controversies, and other disruptions reveal the limits of Weber and Merton’s models of science. The assigned texts are classics from STS. Tuesday’s readings suggest that scientists respond to crises by closing themselves off from outsiders. Hilgartner argues that scientists confront crises by concealing debate on a “backstage” and presenting a united front to outsiders. Gieryn adds that when scientists face threats like cuts to research funding they use “boundary work” to demarcate themselves from nonscientists. For Collins, a core-set of leading scientists are responsible for managing the uncertainties presented by a crisis while rank-and-file researchers tow the field’s line. In class, we discuss how Parthasarathy—in her Slate piece—draws on these STS concepts to defend UK regulators’ decision to temporarily pull a Covid-19 vaccine from the market amidst uncertainty over its safety.

Thursday’s texts explore how scientists can use crises to their advantage. In “Give me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World,” Latour argues that scientists make themselves useful in times of crisis by inserting themselves in networks alongside powerful institutions and actors. Callon extends this idea with a case study of marine biologists.

Week three: The “crisis of expertise”

• Tuesday, April 15
  • Collins, Harry, Robert Evans, and Martin Weinel. 2016. “Expertise Revisited, Part II: Contributory Expertise.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (April): 103–10.
  • Chapters 3 and 4 in Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford University Press.
  • Optional: Turner, Stephen. 2001. “What Is the Problem with Experts?” Social Studies of Science 31 (1): 123–49.
  • Optional: Grundmann, Reiner. 2017. “The Problem of Expertise in Knowledge Societies.” Minerva 55 (1): 25–48.
• Thursday, April 17
  • Introduction and chapters 1, 2, 3, 5 in Eyal, Gil. 2019. The Crisis of Expertise. Polity Press.

Having considered the strategies that scientists use to confront crises, in week three we will turn to a related concept: expertise. Giddens, Turner, Collins, and Eyal each seek to define expertise and explain why experts come under scrutiny during moments of crisis. Collins holds that expertise exists within individuals as the ability to contribute to a specialized field. Giddens and Eyal zoom out, showing how expertise is sustained by invisible networks of actors. In class, we will discuss how these scholars differ in their diagnosis of what Eyal calls the “crisis of expertise” and what roles they might prescribe for experts in crises.

Please contact me for the full syllabus.