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Science and human perception


Professor Harry Collins

Science is a collective activity, rather than an individual dialogue with nature. As with other collective activities, different groups bring different perceptions to the debate. This means that the same experiments and theories can be interpreted in different ways by different groups. This in turn means that scientific disagreements are very hard to settle: some, which are generally said to have been easy to solve, have taken many decades to bring to an end. The public are often exposed to unresolved scientific controversies and, unfortunately, have been led to expect a speedy solution when none is likely to be available.

Professor Harry Collins is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise and Science at Cardiff University. His main topic is the sociology of scientific knowledge and he has also worked on artificial intelligence. His publications include The Shape of Actions: What humans and machines can do (with Martin Kusch, MIT, 1998); The Golem: What you should know about science and The Golem at Large: What you should know about technology (both with Trevor Pinch, CUP). This year the University of Chicago Press will publish The One Culture: A conversation about Science (co-edited with Jay Labinger).