Sociology, Science and the Weather

I thought this report on the BBC the other day provided a great example for teaching the sociology of science.

It’s easy for the critique of science to get over-simplified. Sociologists, and indeed, philosophers of science like Kuhn and Popper aren’t really saying that scientists are going around deliberately spreading lies and falsehood.

What they are claiming is that science routinely involves selecting some evidence and relegating other evidence to the dustbin. And this article and the testimony of Professor Phil Jones, seems to provide an excellent example of that process. I’m not a support of the global warming sceptics point of view at all - that’s not what this incident is about in my opinion. But it does show us how science is not quite as objective as some of its supporters like to claim, or how it tends to be presented. I remember a sociologist and scientist from Bath University, Harry Collins, who said that the sort of science he wanted to see taught, was the science when ‘fact’ were contested and debated. I agree - it would be much more interesting and it might make people - on all sides of this and other debates, more circumspect, more thoughtful and more open to the possibility that - heavens forbid - they might be wrong.