We cannot live by scepticism alone

Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism - social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, writes Harry Collins in Nature.

One can justify anything with scepticism. Recently a philosopher acting as an expert witness in a court case in the United States claimed that the scientific method, being so ill-defined, could support creationism. Worse, scientific and technological ideas are nowadays being said to be merely a matter of lifestyle, supporting the idea that wise folk may be justified in choosing technical solutions according to their preferences - an idea horribly reminiscent of 'the common sense of the people' favoured in 1930s Germany. Some social scientists defend parents' right to reject vaccines and other unnatural treatments because a lack of danger cannot be absolutely demonstrated. At the beginning of the century, President Thabo Mbeki's policies denied anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in South Africa. Some saw this as a justified blow against Western imperialism, given that the safety and efficacy of the treatment cannot be proven beyond doubt.
A third wave of science studies would mean breaking away from now-routine and secure criticism, and instead taking the risks involved with the synthesis and generalization that build human culture. Mbeki claimed that anti-retroviral drugs had not been proven to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pointed out that some scientists claim the drugs are poisonous. He was right. The hard problem for social studies of science is to show why, although he was right in logic, he was wrong for all practical purposes. Just showing there is some doubt about an issue, or another side to the story - at which we social scientists are nowadays unbeatable - does not inform you what to do in a case such as this.