{"id":80,"date":"2017-05-26T13:30:02","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T13:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/?p=80"},"modified":"2017-05-26T13:30:02","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T13:30:02","slug":"alternative-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/2017\/05\/26\/alternative-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative facts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current EASST Review<\/em> is wrestling with the topical question of\u00a0Alternative Facts<\/a>. Clearly this is an issue STS cannot duck. But here’s a little historical context.<\/p>\n

Since the creation of STS the world has changed. When SSK\u00a0started in EuroAmerica science was (taken to be) powerful. Certainly it\u00a0started its disciplinary histories and its laboratory ethnographies on the assumption that it was\u00a0‘studying up’. Obviously science and its innovations are still powerful in many respects. In\u00a0EuroAmerica most who have\u00a0access to biomedical care make use of it. And most of us who can use its ICTs. But at the same time it’s also a clich\u00e9 that science is not powerful everywhere in the West – or indeed beyond. Epistemically or otherwise.\u00a0It is as if the division between politics and truth established in Restoration England 350 years ago and described by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer has finally started\u00a0to come undone.<\/p>\n

How far has STS been responsible for this? Some think: quite a lot. But as I reflect on this I also wonder\u00a0what difference we have made overall, as a discipline. I’ve heard it said that we fought the science wars, and that we won. If you buy into\u00a0military metaphors then I suppose\u00a0that’s right, and it suggests that STS is pretty\u00a0powerful. And when you link STS tools to, say, the strength\u00a0of the feminist movement within parts of EuroAmerica, the combination has often been influential.<\/p>\n

That said, I tend to be more cautious. My sense is that our discipline\u00a0is\u00a0part of a larger weave of post-WWII changes\u00a0in which scientific authority has been\u00a0progressively eroded\u00a0in parts of EuroAmerica. First selectively, as some of its solutions turned into\u00a0problems in ways that owe little to STS (the invention of a nuclear world, the environmental crisis). And then less selectively, as a range of\u00a0western populations, industrial special interests, and politicians became happy to doubt experts as\u00a0and when it suited them to do so. Sometimes, though not always, using the tools of STS or its cognate disciplines. Though, another qualification, countries also differ. Crises of delegitimation in the English-speaking world – the US and to a lesser extent the UK – are particular. How STS works in the Netherlands or Norway or Japan or India is likely to be\u00a0quite different. More powerful? Less erosive? It depends on the country – but this is\u00a0a large topic in its own right<\/p>\n

On\u00a0Alternative Facts and the EASST Review<\/em><\/a>: there’s an editorial from Andrey Kuznetsov, together with short comments from Cymene Howe, Estrid S\u00f8rensen, David Pontille and Didier Torny, John Law, Helen Verran and Steve Fuller. All of these form part of\u00a0a new “STS Live” section of the Review<\/em>. In his editorial Andrey writes that: ‘\u201cSTS Live\u201d will focus on issues that are to some extent urgent, relevant to the community, and not resolved.’ This is an important new space for STS, it is online, and it’s open access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current EASST Review is wrestling with the topical question of\u00a0Alternative Facts. Clearly this is an issue STS cannot duck. But here’s a little historical context. Since the creation of STS the world has changed. When SSK\u00a0started in EuroAmerica science<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":584,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-facts","category-debates-and-discussions","tag-alternative-facts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8AUaG-1i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/584"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sciencestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}