Ideological Practices of Science

American Institute Of Physics, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

SES 99-11008 - Alexei B. Kojevnikov (American Institute of Physics) "Ideological Practices of Science" The project will investigate, in a series of historical case studies, the uses and functions of ideologies in the practice of scientific research. The problem of science and ideology has been discussed most often in a restricted form, considering their possible interactions as negative, distorting influences and contrasting on this basis the experiences of science under pluralistic and politically democratic regimes to that under this century's most violent dictatorships. The underlying assumption behind such an opposition -- the idea that science not only should but also can be effectively protected from ideological and political influences -- is no longer considered an adequate description of the social practices of science even in democratic contexts. A new conceptual approach thus needs to be developed, one capable of analyzing and comparing scientific developments in different societies and regimes without relying upon the ideology of pure science. The project's six case studies deal with very diverse scientific experiences in a wide range of historical settings, representing three major cultural areas -- European, American, and Russian and a sequence of changing political and ideological contexts throughout the twentieth century. Each study concentrates on a particular important episode or phenomenon, mostly taken from the experience of physics, as the quintessential "hard" science. They are united by a common theme, the role of ideology in scientific practice, and by a common approach developed over the course of several years of previous research. The "big" ideologies of nationalism and internationalism were simultaneously at work in divided Europe after World War I (the rise of Niels Bohr's network from a neutral base in Copenhagen) and in the Cold-War scientific rivalry between the two superpowers (the parallel development of masers and lasers in the 1 950s). Another case reconsiders the phenomenon of ideological discussions in Stalinist Russia, including the paradigmatic Lysenko event of 1948. An example of an academic ideology is represented by the concept of "research school," born in Wilhelmian Germany and later borrowed by a few other academic cultures. Ideologically-laden scientific concepts and theories are analyzed in the debates over the interpretation of quantum mechanics in Weimar Germany and in the tension between individualist and collectivist approaches in solid state physics, from the 1930s through the 1950s. A common analytical approach develops out of the discussion of these different cases, which promises a wider applicability. As a theoretical concept, ideology is used here in its nonpejorative meaning and is neither opposed to scientific practice, nor conflated with it, but considered a part, and a substantial one, of practice. Besides "big" ideologies, the study also pays attention to more specific ideologies of particular social and professional groups, including scientists themselves. The specific patterns of interactions between science and ideology are analyzed on the levels of the macro-politics of science, the micro-sociology of research communities, and also in scientific concepts and theories. As a whole, the project will contribute to the growing understanding that the real-life complexities and varieties of the social and political interactions of science cannot be reduced to a choice between two simple polarities, either the essential social reductionism or the ultimate independence of scientific knowledge.