Sociologist fools physics judges
But do social scientists understand science?
After more than 30 years of studying the physicists who work on gravity waves, spending countless hours talking to physicists and writing a book on the history and sociology of the field, social scientist Harry Collins had a question. Could he pass as a physicist?
Find out here.
Comments
It is not at all clear what this experiment demonstrates. Perhaps that a bright journalist immersed in the field can mimic a bad, or at least unthinking, practitioner. The only two questions of substance, the quoted one and a question about whether or not electromagnetic effects could mimic a gravity wave, the answers from both people are wrong or silly. (In the both questions, the physicist's answer is if anything worse than Collin's answer).
Ie, the experiment seems to answer the question "Can an expert (either through malice or carelessness) mimic someone with little deep knowledge of the field?" Of course. In both cases where the answer actually required some thought on the part of the physicist, it apparently did not get it, making the job of those trying to distinguish between the two impossible.
Posted by: W Unruh | July 6, 2006 01:35 AM
It seems to me that "interactional expertise", is exhibited frequently by medical clinicians, as opposed to research scientists, in introductory remarks about the basis of a clinical science. For example, physicians will introduce the topic of HIV treatment options with prefatory remarks about CD4, GP120, co-receports, etc., when in fact they may be quite ignorant of the chemistry or structure of these entities. Their actual understanding of these objects may be on the level of a good science writer of journalist.
Posted by: Daniel Polowetzky | July 10, 2006 06:25 PM