The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Canto) [Paperback]

Harry M. Collins (Author), Trevor Pinch (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521645506 | ISBN-13: 978-0521645508 | Publication Date: October 28, 1998 | Edition: 2

Through a series of intriguing case studies including the study of relativity, cold fusion, the "memory" in worms, and the sex life of lizards, this book debunks the view that scientific knowledge is a straightforward outcome of competent theorization, observation, and experimentation. The first edition generated much debate and controversy. This second edition contains a substantial new Afterword that responds to some of the criticisms made by scientists. A distinction is made between the responses of scientific fundamentalists who maintain the myth of scientific certainty and more serious-minded critics. In dialogue with these latter critics The Golem attempts to build an island of reasoned debate between the two cultures. It seeks to replace the "Science Wars" with mutual understanding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Golem should be required reading for anyone interested in how scientific knowledge is created and concerned about the role of science in contemporary society." Science, Technology and Society

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (October 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521645506
• ISBN-13: 978-0521645508
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Case studies in science -- lucid, approachable, fascinating, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Canto) (Paperback)

Depending on your intentions, this book, and its companion volume The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology, could be indespensible. They comprise a number of case studies in contemporary (i.e. 20th century) scientific discoveries and controversies that can be read in any order. The studies are couched between an introduction and conclusion that express the authors' aims -- to show science in action as messy and controversial but nontheless a powerful means for generating knowledge. These slender volumes are ideally suited for a course in the history or philosophy of science.

By exploring how scientists actually conduct themselves and describing the scientific and extra-scientific stakes, the authors (two sociologists of science) dispel many scientific myths in a lucid, approachable style. Even with casual study, they can bolster scientific understanding. The books are of potentially special value to undergraduate and graduate students studying and doing science themselves. I'm tempted to say that if you're a young scientist, these books cannot fail to make you a better one. Even if you're not a scientist, and never intend to be one, these are fascinating stories.

Of course, many scientists have known for a long time what Collins and Pinch have tried to convey. J.B.Conant was such a scientist. His case studies, published in 1957, provide historical examples in the same mold as Collins and Pinch, who explicitly admit to having drawn inspiration from The Harvard Case Studies in Experimental Science edited by J.B.Conant

33 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Golem built on sand, May 21, 2001

By 

Keith (Regina, SK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Canto) (Paperback)

Another book in the sociology of science and science and technology studies genre that tries to throw into question scientific methods or rational reconstructions of various theories or episodes in the history of science. The authors argue that science, controversial research and experiments undertaken to prove certain scientific theories, are resolved or left unresolved simply by majority consensus--even though ostensibly, convincing evidence to the contrary is presented by a lone experimenter or experimenters. In some cases, scant or questionable evidence was used to support major theories; or the authority of the scientists overruled evidence to the contrary. Credibility is usually at stake in these controversies and it is at this cusp of scientific controversy that one starts to see the real workings of science. According to Collins and Pinch then, Nature imposes less of a constraint in scientific debates than previously supposed.

After going through the book though, I'm unconvinced by the authors' arguments and conclusions drawn from their eight examples. First off, I think that selectively sampling from the history of science in order to draw conclusions about how science is done generally tells us more about what direction the authors are trying to steer their arguments--rather than give us anything definite about the workings of science. In spite of the fact that the authors say they are doing 'interpretative history', their arguments and conclusions are simply unwarranted. In my view, what they are really pointing out is that the process of discovery in science is a messy and complex business; but this really has no bearing on scientists' justifications in their acceptance or rejection of theories. Saying that deeply-disputed science is never resolved by better experimentation or evidence is contradicted in their solar neutrino and gravity wave detection examples. As of June 2001, physicists from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom announced that the solar neutrino problem has been solved. (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999897) Additionally, resonant-mass gravitational wave detectors are currently on-line and free-mass gravitational wave detectors monitored with laser interferometers are being built in five locations around the world. If the scientific community didn't think these expensive observatories would produce data that would go into answering or resolving some key questions, why would they go through all the trouble of securing financing and building these facilities then?

In the cold fusion, molecular memory and the spontaneous-generation-of-life examples (the Pasteur-Pouchet debate), Collins and Pinch fail to mention conceptual implausibilites with these examples. In the spontaneous generation example, conceptual difficulties and hard questions arise. If life appears spontaneously, how does it manage to do this? Shouldn't life always arise in any material--no matter what you do to it? Why would life bother to reproduce itself if it could just arise de novo? Where would the available energy come from to produce this spontaneous life? Why would a process such as fermentation stop? How can complex single-celled organisms assemble themselves from mercury for example? Pasteur also carried out decisive experiments that lent support to his claims; and Koch and others added to, and corroborated Pasteur's bacteriological discoveries. Nature favored Pasteur.

As for cold fusion, why do Fleischmann and Pons need the approval of the scientific community? Why not just build a cold fusion cell, put it in your car and start selling them... if cold fusion works. It has been 15 years since their announcement: where are the commercial applications? According to physicists, cold fusion is contrary to everything that has been empirically well-established in nuclear physics. Contrary to what the authors say, we don't get science as normal; we get questionable results and a breach of proper scientific protocol. Turf protection is irrelevant; the phenomenon doesn't exist.

Molecular memory is another of their examples loaded with conceptual problems. How are our literally 100,000s of memories stored chemically? And how do we retrieve, or 'read off' these 'chemical memory bits' neurologically?

In the relativity example, other previous lines of confirming evidence, the unification of previous successful theories and the consistency of the mathematical arguments will affect the interpretation of new evidence or experiments that go into corroborating a new theory (as in general relativity). If the authors looked at all the above-mentioned factors in dealing with their relativity example--and this was pointed out to them in the criticisms at the back of their book by Mermin (Physics Today; March 1996, April 1996), I think their case is substantially weaken. Was Eddington's data, and his interpretation of it, questionable? Perhaps. In Eddington's Space, Time and Gravitation (1920), the data seemed to point towards Einstein. (I would say that Eddington's results couldn't be any weaker than what the authors present here.) Their arguments about the unresolved existence of the ether--based on Miller's ambiguous data--is just wrong. Collins and Pinch never really explain why Eddington's data is weak while Miller's data is plausible. Einstein got it right. It had nothing to do with the end of the Great War.

Finally, throughout the book there is a continual conflation of science with its application or technology. And because technology has spawned endless disasters, science becomes guilty by association. But technological abuse really has nothing to do with science proper. (The more sinister example of that classic mushroom cloud is always mistakenly paired up with E=mc2. But the equation simply states a matter-energy equivalence. What could be `bad' about it? How it is used is a completely different question.) One has to wonder how to take analyses of science history episodes by academics who don't seem to have a clear grasp of the actual science content being discussed (Special and general relativity example is alongside the cold fusion example). Their lumbering Golem metaphor depiction of science is simply disingenuous. ...

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The "Scientific Principle", January 14, 2001

By 

J. Enders "jenders" (Darmstadt) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Canto) (Paperback)

"The Golem: What You Should Know About Science" by Collins and Pinch can be recommended to any present and future scientist. The cases laid out by the authors demonstrate how much science and scientific results can be hidden under personal interests, believes (superstition is a better word), wishes and inaccuracy. One example is the "proof" of Einstein's gravitaion theory by Sir Arthur Eddington by systematically dismissing data in conflict with the theory.

Nonetheless, I cannot say that I got the message of the book. In all cases finally the "scientific principle" worked out nicely, i.e. the claims and conclusions of researchers have been controlled by other scientists. Since we are all human beings, one must be naive to believe that scientists were immune against a personal bias of their work, and, of course, influece, leadership (more or less due to competency) and the way how data and criticism are presented has an impact on how scintific findings are being discussed. It is important to remind oneself to be as objective as possible in scientific work, but there is no reason to discard the present scientific system.