The “I don’t want to debate with Latour” was directed more at Jesper (who mentioned some ways Latour might address my comments) — I understand that you don’t want to have a duel, but rather discuss Latour’s ideas and issues.

The other point was that I’d rather not discuss even the issues of science studies (raised by Latour etc.) — while they are interesting, I haven’t the time (or desire) to discuss them.

Although I think I don’t understand your post completely I would like to react briefly. I am not interested in debating Latour, in the first place I am interested in some issues – that might be the same issues you are talking about. So, if you would like to discuss some of the issues you are interested in, go ahead!

greetings

I guess there’s the question of what I’m trying to do: my arguments certainly couldn’t convince Latour that he’s wrong, and probably couldn’t convince a crowd of sociologists, but could easily convince a crowd of scientists — though in both cases I think this is due more to the conclusion than the argument.

I was just trying to figure out if Latour was saying anything useful to me: I’m not trying to debate Latour, but simply address (on my own terms) issues that he addresses, or that you bring up about/around him. That is, I’m quite sure I couldn’t pin him down, but to the extent that he raises issues or suggests ideas that I find interesting and useful, I can react on my own.

[Notably, I don’t much care what Latour would say in response to stuff I say; I’m perhaps interested in his ideas, but not in his discourse. (And yes, I’m sure he’d say that you can’t talk about ideas absent a discourse etc.)]

So, to Rik and Jesper — I don’t have the time or energy (or, crucially, interest) to discuss Latour further, but thanks for your time and links.

1) there’s the contribution in science studies close connected with authors like Stengers and Despret (I guess you know Stengers from her work with Ilya Prigogine, Order out of Chaos I don’t know if anything else is transated into English but I guess so)
2) following on this there are numurous attempts in Latours work to elaborate the findings and suggestions from 1)

This devission has some advantages I think;

Lets first touch upon 1). Nils you write: “Science is about finding out what’s true”. I suppose you are not claiming this sentence to be the final word on the subject. “Science is …” is of course the subejct of science studies (philosophy of science). Many interesting attempts have been made to make sence out of this question. Especially influential, and with reason, is the work done by Popper (Objective knowledge) and Lakatos, working on a ‘demarcationmodel’ that could distinguish science from crap. But alas, both had to admit at the end of their journey that they has failed to cope with that task. This gave rise to some very sceptical approaches to science, especially famous is the “anything goes” from Feyerabend, denouncing any claims on reality in science. Consider this background. What Latour is trying to do in a great part of his work is going beyond the problems that are present in science studies. We cannot hold onto the model scetched by Popper as he himself admits, but neither can we state that science is purely social as some authors would have it.
If you want to critise Latour, Jesper, but your are confused with the many new words he is using (they are many) you should, in my opinion, look for his work on science. Whatever new concepts he borrows from Whitehead or James, it won’t save him from the test of reality, as he himself seems to admit. Jesper, you write: “- it’s not that often he mentions the possibility that the properties of something – tuberculosis, vacuums, whatever – may actually influence a scientific result”. I claim he does mention it. If you have Pandora’s Hope lying on your desk you can read it yourself. I can’t give you the page and the exact quote cause I haven’t got it here but it goes something like this: “Pasteur authorises the yeast to authorise him to speak in its name”. We cannot ignore the work of the scientist but this does not mean Latour ignores the ultimate test of reality. The problem is that Latours work is interpreted from within the context scetched above (this is why he ends up being interpreted as sounding sceptical of science). And that is your (Jespers) comment on how Latour is being used. I do not think you can blame Latour for being misused. And as you already noticed I do not agree on making the distinction between what Latour claims and what he does.
I think the advantage of using my devision is that we can look for what he writes about science in connection with other authors, and putting him up to test. I have no problems admitting that a lot of the writings of Latour are very opaque (or is this only a French word?) and not al that clear. (Intermezzo: I am not Latours dog as you might begin to think. I am not interested in a pro – contra game, only in exchanging thoughts about an interesting subject.) The implications he is working on based on a new philosophy of science (itself being rather young) are above all confusing and do often sound ridiculous, especially when aproached with common sense. His style indeed is polemical and I can understand your uneasiness here, Nils. Besides mostly touching short on implications and very little on 1) in most of his articles makes them very difficult to understand.
I cannot on this moment touch upon the very interesting devide between politics and science, Nils, but it might be interesting to consider one article from Latour that is a bit outstanding cause it is readable ( http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour/articles/article/077.html ), touching on science and epistemology. I also apologise being short on time and therefore not being able to read the rapport you sent about the challenger and give further comments on the sentence you quote.
Ending this rather long post, but I won’t have access to the internet earlier than next weekend, I would like to ask two questions concerning your comments;
Jesper you write: “Have you ever heard or seen someone using Latour as an argument _for_ learning science?” I think I do not understand this question, could you please explain it to me?
Nils, in your comment you give some attention to Latour as an ethnographer of science and also some critique: “The obvious criticism of his constructivist point of view (viewing science as a social practice, and truth as something constructed) is that it is analytical, not holistic, looking at labwork in isolation from the whole society in which science works. In particular, ignoring The Ultimate Test of Reality (or rather, applications).”, I wonder what article or book you are commenting on, please mention. I am also sure I have read this critique before, although I can’t remember where. Could you elaborate a little further into the issue?
Kind regards, hoping you did not feel asleep while reading it, Rik
Ps: it would be nice to know from each other what is our starting point for our interest in Latour (if you don’t mind): I am a student (comparative science of cultures) in Ghent, Belgium, Latour is the main person in my thesis I am presenting about assumptions in social sciences

Bruno strikes me as a person who sees a sausage factory, and concludes that sausages are disgusting — rather than being amazed that such delicacies can emerge from such a barbaric process.

[Disclosure: I love sausages. Also, I’ve seen a sausage factory (on film), and found it really cool.]

More seriously, Latour’s field work in ethnography of science is probably his best contribution (that I know of) to science studies. The obvious criticism of his constructivist point of view (viewing science as a social practice, and truth as something constructed) is that it is analytical, not holistic, looking at labwork in isolation from the whole society in which science works. In particular, ignoring The Ultimate Test of Reality (or rather, applications).

Science isn’t as pure and holy as it likes to seem, but neither is it as artificial as Latour seems to say.

Caveat: I haven’t read any of Latour’s books, nor plan to (see below). I’ve read some essays and interviews by him, and reviews of his books, and some articles about him, but I don’t claim to have any deep understanding of him.

Crucially, from what I’ve read of Latour, I find him utterly useless for understanding science or its role in the world.

Perhaps he’s saying something very deep and subtle, but when I can understand what he’s saying (and with some work or in some cases, he does seem to be saying some stuff quite clearly), it’s either trivial or horribly wrong (this, and that I find his writing verbose are why I don’t plan to read any of his books). Again, maybe I’m only understanding the obvious stuff and am missing his deep points, but I don’t think so.

(An apology for the apology: I’m apologizing so much because some people (presumably Rik, maybe Jesper?, certainly many academics) respect Latour very much, and I find him obnoxious and worthless, which seems to be an easy perspective for scientists/mathematicians to take. I’m apologizing b/c I’m trashing him, which is at the very least rude. No more apologies: everything has caveats and quotes.)

This posting is basically “Why I can’t stand Latour, by example”; it’s a (hopefully measured) rant.

For concreteness, here’s a brief interview Bruno gave.

First let me summarize valid issues that Bruno raises or touches on (my perspectives on the issues, in my words):

— an understanding of science is important for some political decisions these days, but politicians and the public are ignorant of science and scientists do a bad
job of communicating.

— scientific theories impinge on religious (or other cultural) claims about the world.

— politics affects the funding, direction, and conduct of science, especially in medicine

— scientists can be petty and teritorial

— the task of doing science is not pure labwork: it involves politics (getting funding, getting your theory accepted)

— technological benefits are often exagerated

These are all pretty commonplace; it’s worth repeating that science is much messier than it’s presented, but it’s also worth repeating that science has largely earned its respect.

Now to trash him:

The second line of:
“During the Renaissance, people were very aware that the world of political debate and the world of scientific facts were closely connected. It was only later on that the two fields came to be seen as separate, and people began to think that there had to be one assembly in which political questions were discussed (Parliament) and another in which scientific questions were discussed.”

is absolutely idiotic any way you parse it.

The discourses of politics and science have radically different and incompatible rules — it’s natural that they be separate.

Politics is about the application of power and distribution of good things; in a democracy it’s about balancing different desires, through negotiation
and compromise (or the application of force).

Science is about finding out what’s true.

A Chinese democracy and a Greek democracy might reasonably look very different: presumably the aggregate of Chinese have different values (and power) than the aggregate of Greeks.

However, Chinese scientists and Greek scientists (while they may use different languages) should come to the same conclusions about the world.

Politicians emphatically have constituents, and should reflect them; scientists don’t (they do have patrons though).

Later:
“My point is simply that scientific and political debate should be taking place in a common space.”

is also idiotic. Obviously they should have some overlap, to the extent that they relate, but they largely don’t overlap.

[Another apology: maybe he’s just staking out an extreme (and extremely idiotic) position, and maybe in his book or lectures he suggest something sane, like that there be more scientific advisors or experts consulting in the halls of power.]

Okay, I could go on, but my point is roughly: there are certainly interactions between science and politics, but they’re far simpler and more distinct than Bruno suggests. For instance:

— some political acts are based on scientific claims; it would be nice if these were correct claims

— politics and funding affect the direction of science, and the conduct to the extent that a much-desired goal affects conduct

Another trashing: he refers to “the Columbia space shuttle incident”. As I understand it, NASA management exagerates the reliability of the shuttle. It’s done so for decades, and this is well-known. It’s a problem of politics, not science (or the scientific ignorance or apathy of politicians and NASA management). I don’t see what’s so “difficult to distinguish between issues that fall within the realm of science and issues that are part of the political realm”.

Here’s Feynman’s report on the Challenger (1986?); it’s long and technical, but the intro and conclusion are quick.

Lastly, Latour bugs me because it feels like he sets himself against scientists: it feels very adversarial on his part, and I feel absolutely no empathy for scientists from him. Maybe he’s got a chip on his shoulder, maybe he rubs me the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure he’d get a better reception if he presented himself as “Scientists ideally are trying to understand the truth about the world: what does this entail? what does this mean? [and how can it help politics, and how can politics help it?]”

Maybe he doesn’t believe this; maybe he has other interests. He could ask or answer questions I care about, but doesn’t seem to. Mostly (as far as I know), scientists tend to ignore Latour and others in science studies, so long as it doesn’t intrude on their work — he isn’t relevant to them. I’m chatting here mostly (in an attempt?) to be social.

1: In Pandora’s Hope, He claims not be anti-science in any way, and to actually be a bridge-builder, working against the division of the “two cultures” (C.P. Snow.)

2: Though he claims not to promote a sceptical attitude towards science, what he writes about is always how tools, ideas, labs, people create results – it’s not that often he mentions the possibility that the properties of something – tuberculosis, vacuums, whatever – may actually influence a scientific result. And that goes a pretty far way towards promoting a sceptical attitude towards science.

3: His surprise in the article I was referring to was about the fact that somebody could use a prototypical “critical” argument against science – it’s not an absolute truth, nothing has been finally proven, the scientist has economical stakes in the result – but use it for criticizing something that Latour himself apparently believes, namely global warming.

Have you ever heard or seen someone using Latour as an argument _for_ learning science?

Or perhaps, what’s the ratio between the amount of times the following two events have occured?
a) Someone using Latour to cast doubt about a scientific claim.
b) Someone using Latour as an argument that you have to take a scientific claim seriously even if you don’t like it.

According to Latour himself, the ratio should be 1:1, but in my experience a) happens all the time, but b) never happens. There’s the rub. Is that an unfair description?