The seven sexes: A study in the sociology of a phenomenon, or the replication of experiments in physics

Sociology

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 1975, Pages 205-224

  Collins, H M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BATH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

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EID: 84970442154     PISSN: 00380385     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003803857500900202     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. See J. D. Douglas, Understanding Everyday Life, R.K.P., 1971. McHugh's writing is largely influenced by the ethnomethodologists, and the influence of this school should be visible in the paper which follows. More important however (at least in a biographical sense), is the influence of the writings of Winch and Wittgenstein. My excuse for beginning the paper with an ethnomethodological quotation rather than one from Wittgenstein (apart from its appositeness) is that I am not able to disentangle the implications for the sociology of science of the two approaches. It seems that I am not alone in this, for an anonymous but authoritative source has recently written:
2. See McHugh, P., Raffel, S., Foss, D., Blum, A., On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, R.K.P., 1974, p. 104.
3. Other papers which are of immediate relevance to the stance taken here include: D. Bloor, ‘Wittgenstein and Mannheim on the Sociology of Mathematics’, (Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 4 (1973), 1973-91)
4. A. McAlpine and A. Bitz, ‘Some Methodological Problems in the Comparative Sociology of Science’ (read at a conference on the comparative sociology of science, London, 7th December 1973)
5. J. Law and D. French, ‘Normative and Interpretive Sociologies of Science’.
6. See also parts of H. M. Collins, ‘The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks’, Science Studies, 4, (1974), 165-86.
7. Wittgenstein's description of a strange world where the inhabitants sell wood at a price determined by the area of the base of the pile, irrespective of its height and shape. Escher's drawings and Magritte's paintings help to relieve one of this certainty. (See L. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, I, 149.)
8. Further, this feeling of solidness about some knowledge may in some cases lead to an idea of progress, current knowledge seeming to be better than superseded knowledge, because it has a prima-facie claim, being a natural object. Perhaps some of Kuhn's ambiguities may be put down to this. Curiously, even Collingwood believed in scientific progress. He writes, ‘The interest of science, in relation to the conception of progress, seems to be that this is the simplest and most obvious case in which progress exists and is verifiable'’. (R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, O.U.P., 1946. Paperback edition p. 332.)
9. For instance, see ‘The Competitive World of the Pure Scientist’, F. Rief, in Science and Society, (ed.), J. Kaplan, Reid McNally and Co., 1965, W. D. Garvey and B. C. Griffith, ‘Scientific Communication as a Social System’, Science, 157,(1967), 1011-16. M. J. Mulkay, ‘Conformity and Innovation in Science’, Sociological Review Monograph 18 (September 1972), 5-24.
10. For example, see Gruber and Marquis, Factors in the Transfer of Technology, M.I.T. Press (1969).
11. Readers familiar with the literature of the sociology of science will have recognised in the points made under ‘Enculturational Model’ some which are often associated with the term ‘Tacit Knowledge’. (See M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, R.K.P. (1958)
12. J. R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems, O.U.P., (1971)
13. Jevons, Scientific Education, Allen and Unwin, 1969).
14. This is offered as a general conclusion for established scientific fields. Experimental replications which don't work at first are taken as ‘anomalous cases’ etc., or as signifying lack of knowledge, but continued failure will be taken to signify a lack of ‘experimental ability’ which may cause the scientist to ‘give up’ or disqualify him from continuing as an experimentalist. ‘Good experimental scientists’ are those who ‘normal’ experiments generally do work. Colin Bell has discussed replications in sociological research. (See Futures, April, 1974.)