Re-Thinking Science (ePub)

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic
relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting
evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society
and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to
maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists that there
is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with
scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates
with science.

The authors argue that changes in society now make such
communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is
transforming science not only in its research practices and the
institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological
core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have
developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science.

The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated
society from science is regularly transgressed and that the
resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the
emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or
context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and
science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis
on which a new social contract between science and society might be
constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the
elements that would comprise this new social contract.