Brief Description
Originally published in French: Sociologie des controverses scientifiques (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2003).
Learn More about the Book
In Scientific Controversies, Dominque Raynaud shows how organized debates in the sciences help us establish or verify our knowledge of the world. If debates focus on form, scientific controversies are akin to public debates that can be understood within the framework of theories of conflict. If they focus on content, then such controversies have to do with a specific activity and address the nature of science itself. Understanding the major focus of a scientific controversy is a first step toward understanding these debates and assessing their merits.
Controversies of unique socio-historic context, disciplines, and characteristics are examined: Pasteur's germ theory and Pouchet's theory of spontaneous generation; vitalism advocated at Montpellier versus experimental medicine in Paris; the science of optics about the propagation of visual rays; the origins of relativism (the Duhem-Quine problem). Touching on the work of Boudon, Popper, and others, Raynaud puts forward an incrementalist theory about the advancement of science through scientific controversies.
The debates Raynaud has selected share in common their pivotal importance to the history of the sciences. By understanding the role of controversy, we better understand the functioning of science and the stakes of the contemporary scientific debates.
About the Author
Dominique Raynaud is a sociologist and science historian at the UniversitE de Grenoble, France. He is the author of several books, including Sociology and Its Scientific Vocation and Optics and the Rise of Perspective.
Review Quotes
1.
"Raynaud (Univ. de Grenoble, France) shows the importance of organized debates around scientific controversies that help confirm our knowledge about the world. He examines the following unique scientific conflicts within their sociohistoric contexts: Pasteur's germ theory versus the theory of spontaneous generation; vitalism versus experimental medicine; visual rays and the science of optics; and the origins of relativism. Raynaud's carefully chosen examples not only show pivotal moments in the history of science but also help explain the origins and evolution of more recent scientific debates. . . . Raynaud offers a sober voice and clear commitment to pursuing scientific truths via scientific methods, as opposed to the politicization of science seen in the controversies surrounding Galileo and the Inquisition, and Stalinism and genetics. For Raynaud, science expresses more than the zeitgeist of an epoch; rather, science is focused on revealing truth. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended."
--D. B. Levy, Choice
2.
"Raynaud (Univ. de Grenoble, France) shows the importance of organized debates around scientific controversies that help confirm our knowledge about the world. He examines the following unique scientific conflicts within their sociohistoric contexts: Pasteur's germ theory versus the theory of spontaneous generation; vitalism versus experimental medicine; visual rays and the science of optics; and the origins of relativism. Raynaud's carefully chosen examples not only show pivotal moments in the history of science but also help explain the origins and evolution of more recent scientific debates. . . . Raynaud offers a sober voice and clear commitment to pursuing scientific truths via scientific methods, as opposed to the politicization of science seen in the controversies surrounding Galileo and the Inquisition, and Stalinism and genetics. For Raynaud, science expresses more than the zeitgeist of an epoch; rather, science is focused on revealing truth. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended."
--D. B. Levy, Choice
