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The strong programme or Strong Sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge
Sociology of scientific knowledge

The sociology of scientific knowledge , closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Practitioners include Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Feyerabend, Elihu M....
 (SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor
David Bloor

'David Bloor' is a professor in, and a former director of, the at the University of Edinburgh .He started his academic career in philosophy and psychology....
, Barry Barnes
Barry Barnes

S. Barry Barnes is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter. Barnes worked at the 'Science Studies Unit' at the University of Edinburgh with David Bloor in the 1980s and early 1990s, where they developed the strong programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge....
, Harry Collins
Harry Collins

Harry Collins is a professor at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. While at the University of Bath Professor Collins developed the Bath School approach to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge....
, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry
John Henry (historian)

John Henry is a Historian of Science in the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh associated with the Strong Programme.He has written books and articles on numerous topics in the history of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century science including books on the work of Francis Bacon, the Scientific Revolution, and Nicol...
. The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies
Science and technology studies

Science and technology studies is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these in turn affect society, politics, and culture....
 is credited as being unparalleled (Latour
Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour is a France sociology of science, Anthropology and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies . After teaching at the ?cole des Mines de Paris from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor and vice-president for research at the Institut d'?tudes politiques de Paris , where he is associated with the Centre d...
 1999). The largely Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
-based school of thought has illustrated how the existence of a scientific community
Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science....
, bound together by allegiance to a shared paradigm
Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts.To the 1960s, the word was specific to grammar: the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines its technical use only in the context of grammar or, in rhetoric, as a term for an illustrative parable or fable....
, is a pre-requisite for normal scientific activity.

The strong programme is a reaction against previous sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as phrenology
Phrenology

Phrenology is a defunct field of study, once considered a science, in which the personality traits of a person were determined by "reading" bumps and fissures in the skull....
.






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The strong programme or Strong Sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge
Sociology of scientific knowledge

The sociology of scientific knowledge , closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Practitioners include Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Feyerabend, Elihu M....
 (SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor
David Bloor

'David Bloor' is a professor in, and a former director of, the at the University of Edinburgh .He started his academic career in philosophy and psychology....
, Barry Barnes
Barry Barnes

S. Barry Barnes is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter. Barnes worked at the 'Science Studies Unit' at the University of Edinburgh with David Bloor in the 1980s and early 1990s, where they developed the strong programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge....
, Harry Collins
Harry Collins

Harry Collins is a professor at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. While at the University of Bath Professor Collins developed the Bath School approach to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge....
, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry
John Henry (historian)

John Henry is a Historian of Science in the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh associated with the Strong Programme.He has written books and articles on numerous topics in the history of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century science including books on the work of Francis Bacon, the Scientific Revolution, and Nicol...
. The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies
Science and technology studies

Science and technology studies is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these in turn affect society, politics, and culture....
 is credited as being unparalleled (Latour
Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour is a France sociology of science, Anthropology and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies . After teaching at the ?cole des Mines de Paris from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor and vice-president for research at the Institut d'?tudes politiques de Paris , where he is associated with the Centre d...
 1999). The largely Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
-based school of thought has illustrated how the existence of a scientific community
Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science....
, bound together by allegiance to a shared paradigm
Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts.To the 1960s, the word was specific to grammar: the 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines its technical use only in the context of grammar or, in rhetoric, as a term for an illustrative parable or fable....
, is a pre-requisite for normal scientific activity.

The strong programme is a reaction against previous sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as phrenology
Phrenology

Phrenology is a defunct field of study, once considered a science, in which the personality traits of a person were determined by "reading" bumps and fissures in the skull....
. Failed theories would be explained by citing the researchers' biases, such as covert political or economic interests. Sociology would be only marginally relevant to successful theories, which succeeded because they had revealed a true fact of nature. The strong programme proposed that both 'true' and 'false' scientific theories should be treated the same way -- that is, symmetrically. Both are caused by social factors or conditions, such as cultural context and self interest. All human knowledge, as something that exists in the human cognition, must contain some social components in its formation process.

Characteristics


As formulated by David Bloor in Knowledge and Social Imagery (1976), the strong programme has four indispensable components:
  1. Causality: it examines the conditions (psychological, social, and cultural) that bring about claims to a certain kind of knowledge.
  2. Impartiality: it examines successful as well as unsuccessful knowledge claims.
  3. Symmetry: the same types of explanations are used for successful and unsuccessful knowledge claims alike.
  4. Reflexivity: it must be applicable to sociology itself.


History


Because the strong programme originated at the 'Science Studies Unit,' University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom....
, it is sometimes termed the Edinburgh School
Sociology of scientific knowledge

The sociology of scientific knowledge , closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Practitioners include Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Feyerabend, Elihu M....
. However, there is also a Bath School associated with Harry Collins
Harry Collins

Harry Collins is a professor at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. While at the University of Bath Professor Collins developed the Bath School approach to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge....
 that makes similar proposals. In contrast to the Edinburgh School, which emphasizes historical approaches, the Bath School emphasizes microsocial studies of laboratories and experiments. The Bath school, however, does depart from the strong programme on some fundamental issues. In the social construction of technology
Social construction of technology

Social construction of technology is a theory within the field of Science and Technology Studies . Advocates of SCOT -- that is, Social constructionism -- argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes technology....
 (SCOT) approach developed by Collins' student Trevor Pinch
Trevor Pinch

Trevor J. Pinch is a sociologist and former chair of the Science and Technology Studies department at Cornell University.Pinch has a degree in Physics from the Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bath....
, as well as by the Dutch sociologist Wiebe Bijker
Wiebe Bijker

Wiebe E. Bijker is a Netherlands professor, chair of the Department of Social Science & Technology at the Faculty of Arts & Culture in the Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands....
, the strong programme was extended to technology. There are SSK-influenced scholars working in science and technology studies
Science and technology studies

Science and technology studies is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these in turn affect society, politics, and culture....
 programs throughout the world.

Criticism


In order to study scientific knowledge from a sociological point of view, the strong programme has adhered to a form of radical relativism
Relativism

Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects.Common statements that might be considered relativistic include...
. In other words, it argues that - in the social study of institutionalised beliefs about ‘truth’ - it would be unwise to use 'truth' as an explanatory resource. That would be to include the answer as part of the question (Barnes 1992), not to mention a thoroughly 'whiggish' approach towards the study of history — that is an approach seeing human history as an inevitable march towards truth and enlightenment. This does not, however, imply as Alan Sokal
Alan Sokal

Alan David Sokal is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics....
 for example seems to assert, that the strong programme does not recognise the importance of the natural world in bringing about scientific beliefs/knowledge. Radical relativism has been criticised by Alan Sokal
Alan Sokal

Alan David Sokal is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics....
 as part of the Science wars
Science wars

The science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between "Postmodernism" and "Scientific realism" about the nature of scientific theories....
, on the basis that such an understanding will lead inevitably towards solipsism
Solipsism

Solipsism is the philosophy idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists." Solipsism is an epistemology or ontology position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified....
 and postmodernism
Postmodernism

Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement'. While "modern" itself refers to something "related to the present", the movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives....
. Strong programme scholars insist that their approach has been misunderstood by such a criticism and that its adherence to radical relativism is strictly methodological.

See also

  • Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
    Sociology of scientific knowledge

    The sociology of scientific knowledge , closely related to the sociology of science, considers social influences on science. Practitioners include Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Feyerabend, Elihu M....
  • Philosophy of science
    Philosophy of science

    The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science. The field is defined by an interest in one of a set of "traditional" problems or an interest in central or foundational concerns in science....
  • Science studies
    Science studies

    Science studies is an interdisciplinarity research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in a broad social, historical, and philosophical context....
  • Social constructivism
    Social constructivism

    Social constructivism extends constructivism into social settings, wherein groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings....
  • Sokal affair
    Sokal Affair

    The Sokal affair was a hoax by physics Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text ....


External links