10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17455
The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a profound health, economic and social crisis but also a dense summary of key STS concepts. The current pandemic invites us to recognise the co-existence of different modes of science, offering an opportunity to contribute to a better understanding of contemporary science in society dynamics and their changes.
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2038-3460
17455
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Massimiano Bucchi
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
decisional processes
STS Challenges. The Next Ten Minutes and The Coexistence of Modes of Science
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
11
Anniversary Reflections
2020-11-12
2023-06-26
2020-11-12
2023-10-12
23-26
TS
Massimiano Bucchi
2020/11/12
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17455
23
Università di Trento
2038-3460
1
decisional processes
en
26
STS Challenges. The Next Ten Minutes and The Coexistence of Modes of Science
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17455/16303
11
                                                           Anniversary Reflection
                                                                                  23




STS Challenges. The Next Ten Minutes
and The Coexistence of Modes of
Science
Massimiano Bucchi
Università di Trento




     Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a profound health,
     economic and social crisis but also a dense summary of key STS concepts.
     The current pandemic invites us to recognise the co-existence of different
     modes of science, offering an opportunity to contribute to a better
     understanding of contemporary science in society dynamics and their
     changes.

     Keywords: STS; Covid-19; modes of science; coexistence; decisional
     processes.

     Submitted: May 30, 2020 – Accepted: June 30, 2020

     Corresponding author: Massimiano Bucchi, Dipartimento di Sociologia e
     ricerca sociale, Università di Trento, Via Verdi 26, 38122 Trento, Italy.
     Email: massimiano.bucchi@unitn.it




   In ten minutes from now, a scientific expert will say something about
the Covid-19 pandemic that will trigger comments and critiques from
other scientific experts, further questions and discussions in the media.
   Controversies; insights into the changing social role of scientists and
the public image of science; shifting relationships between expertise and
policymaking. The current pandemic is not only a profound health, eco-
nomic and social crisis but also a dense summary of key STS concepts. As
Steven Shapin put it in our recent conversation, “we are now living
through the greatest exercise in public scientific education that there’s
ever been”1.
   Public debates reveal implicit assumptions about the perceived role
and nature of science.

TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
11 (1) pp. 23-26 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                2020
24                                                          Tecnoscienza – 11 (1)

     However, there have been several discussions regarding disagreement
and diversity of advice provided by experts and the impact this could
have on policy decisions and public opinions. These discussions often os-
cillate between two extremes: those who think that science (and scien-
tists) should speak with “just one voice”, offering to political decision and
to public opinion reliable and uncontroversial knowledge; those who in-
vite to recognise the inherent uncertainty, provisional character and artic-
ulation of scientific debate and research processes, allowing no shortcuts
even in times of emergency.
     In STS, we are familiar with the different “modes” of science (mode-1
and mode-2, academic and post-academic science, Science 1.0 and 2.0),
often described as chronological transitions of organisational practices of
research and its social uses (Gibbons et al. 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001;
Ziman 2000; Bucchi 2015).
     To an STS-eye, the current debates on the role of science in the pan-
demic might be easily interpreted as the misalignment between “mode-2”
concrete expectations (e.g. short-term orientation towards practical goals;
pressure to deliver solutions; scientists as expert advisors) and “mode-1”
traditional social image of science (e.g. long term, curiosity driven effort
and discussion; independence; scientists as intellectuals having the right
to express their own individual vision, even when potentially contradict-
ing their colleagues).
     It is easy to imagine STS lifting its finger and admonishing science:
“You are working and being funded as mode-2 science but still pretend-
ing to have all the prerogatives and freedom of mode-1 science”. And vice
versa, lecturing society: “You are expecting quick results and convenient
fixes typical of mode-2 science but are still reasoning and imagining sci-
ence along the lines of mode-1”.
     But would this really help? Or is the current crisis a situation that in-
vites us instead to recognise the coexistence of different modes of science
- as narratives, rhetorics and images that continuously overlap and inter-
sect, with the same actors practicing and preaching different modes in
different situations?
     This overlapping is neither unprecedented nor unfamiliar to those
studying science and even to scientists themselves. In his book Science
and Government (1960), CP Snow tells the story of how leading physi-
cists contributed to the UK military effort during the World War II. One
of them, Nobel laureate Patrick Blackett, credited for having made possi-
ble defeating the powerful Nazis U-Boots, introduced the concept of
“operational research”. His lesson to politicians and the military was
“that you cannot run wars on gusts of emotion. You have to think scien-
tifically about your own operations” (ivi, 25). Blackett had a lesson also
for his fellow scientists willing to engage as experts advising decision
makers: “The giver must convince himself that if he were responsible for
action, he would himself act so” (ibid.). When scientists accept to enter
into the dynamics of this operational modality of knowledge, they implic-
Bucchi                                                                   25
itly accept to try and give simple responses to complex questions, to
compress the long times of research; not to suppress uncertainty altogeth-
er but making it manageable by those who have the ultimate responsibil-
ity of political decisions.
    This role of science in decisional processes, can, of course, enter into
tension with an image of research as independent. In this sense, for in-
stance, the 92 different scenarios offered by experts to the Italian gov-
ernment in view of the so-called “phase 2” of the pandemic represent a
very detailed technical overview but quite difficult to be used in deci-
sions.
    Tension and ambiguity between different modes of science can also
emerge dramatically, as it happened in the case of L’Aquila earthquake
(2009). The reading of that judicial case from the international scientific
community was fast and superficial, even comparing it to the Galileo trial.
Without entering into the complex juridical details, it is clear that ex-
pressing an evaluation in a scientific paper is not the same thing – from
the point of view of responsibility – compared to expressing it when a
scientist acts in the capacity of expert delegated by politics to manage an
emergency situation.2
    The “right to error” is typical of independent science: taking unusual
or intellectually risky paths has sometimes allowed making unexpected or
revolutionary discoveries. On the other hand, a scientist who accepts en-
gaging into operational relationships with politics must evaluate the po-
tential consequences of her/his indications. Not all scientists, however
recognised for their studies and academic publications, have like Blackett
the necessary qualities to play this difficult role. And unfortunately, not
always politics succeeds in carefully selecting among the different advices
provided by experts: UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally man-
aged to get rid of Blackett and continued to trust physicist Frederick Lin-
demann, who insisted on concentrating all military efforts on bombing
German cities. Data later showed that his estimation of the impact of
those attacks was completely wrong, ten times higher than real effects.
    Seventy years later, the ambivalence and interplay of different visions
and modes of science is much stronger and visible. Rather than an ambi-
guity to be finally resolved, we could consider it as resource for bringing
into light such different visions, highlighting their implications and con-
sequences for research, politics, and society.
    In ten minutes from now, STS scholars will have once again an oppor-
tunity to contribute to a better understanding not just of the present pan-
demic, but more broadly, of contemporary science in society dynamics
and their changes.
26                                                           Tecnoscienza – 11 (1)

References
Bucchi, M. (2015) Norms, competition and visibility in contemporary science:
   The legacy of Robert K. Merton, in “Journal of Classical Sociology”, 15 (3),
   pp. 233-252
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H. and Schwartzman, S. (eds.) (1994) The
   New Production of Knowledge: Dynamics of Science and Research in Con-
   temporary Societies, London, Sage.
Nowotny, H., Scott, P. and Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge
  and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Snow, C.P. (1960) Science and Government, Cambridge, MA, Harvard Universi-
   ty Press.
Ziman, J. (2000) Real Science. What it is, and what it means, Cambridge, Cam-
   bridge University Press.



    1
      Original interview, 14 april 2020. A short excerpt has been published in
Corriere Innovazione, 24 april 2020.
    2
      A recent reappraisal of the issue by Brandmayr here:
https://hscif.org/author/fb446cam-ac-uk/
