The strong programme or strong sociology is a variety of the

sociology of scientific knowledge The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology ...

(SSK) particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes,

Harry Collins Harry Collins, FLSW (born 13 June 1943), is a British sociologist of science at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the Learne ...

, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on

science and technology studies Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. Histo ...

is credited as being unparalleled ( Latour 1999). The largely

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

-based school of thought aims to illustrate how the existence of a

scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many "working group, sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional acti ...

, bound together by allegiance to a shared

paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...

, is a prerequisite for normal scientific activity. The strong programme is a reaction against "weak" sociologies of science, which restricted the application of sociology to "failed" or "false" theories, such as

phrenology Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the Human brain, brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific ...

. Failed theories would be explained by citing the researchers'

bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individ ...

es, such as covert political or economic interests. Sociology would be only marginally relevant to successful theories, which succeeded because they had revealed a fact of nature. The strong programme proposed that both "true" and "false" scientific theories should be treated the same way. Both are caused by social factors or conditions, such as cultural context and

self-interest Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires (''interests'') of one's self. Most times, actions that display self-interest are often performed without conscious knowing. A number of philosophical, psychological, and economi ...

. All human knowledge, as something that exists in the human cognition, must contain some social components in its formation process.

Characteristics

As formulated by David Bloor, the strong programme has four indispensable components: #'' Causality'': it examines the conditions (psychological, social, and cultural) that bring about claims to a certain kind of knowledge. #''

Impartiality Impartiality (also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness) is a principle of justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the mo ...

'': it examines successful as well as unsuccessful knowledge claims. #''Symmetry'': the same types of explanations are used for successful and unsuccessful knowledge claims alike. #'' Reflexivity'': it must be applicable to sociology itself.

History

Because the strong programme originated at the 'Science Studies Unit,'

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, it is sometimes termed the Edinburgh School. However, there is also a Bath School associated with

that makes similar proposals. In contrast to the Edinburgh School, which emphasizes historical approaches, the Bath School emphasizes microsocial studies of laboratories and experiments. The Bath school, however, does depart from the strong programme on some fundamental issues. In the

social construction of technology Social construction of technology (SCOT) is a theory within the field of science and technology studies. Advocates of SCOT—that is, social constructivists—argue that technology does not determine human action, but that rather, human action ...

(SCOT) approach developed by Collins' student

Trevor Pinch Trevor J. Pinch (1 January 1952 – 16 December 2021) was a British sociologist, part-time musician and chair of the science and technology studies department at Cornell University. In 2018, he won the J.D. Bernal Prize from the Society for ...

, as well as by the Dutch sociologist Wiebe Bijker, the strong programme was extended to technology. There are SSK-influenced scholars working in

programs throughout the world.

Criticism

In order to study scientific knowledge from a sociological point of view, the strong programme has adhered to a form of radical

relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...

. In other words, it argues that – in the social study of institutionalised beliefs about "

truth Truth or verity is the Property (philosophy), property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth, 2005 In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise cor ...

" – it would be unwise to use "truth" as an explanatory resource. To do so would (according to the relativist view) include the answer as part of the question (Barnes 1992), and propound a " whiggish" approach towards the study of history – a narrative of human history as an inevitable march towards truth and enlightenment. Physicists

Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal ( ; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works with statistical mechanics and combinatorics. Sokal is a critic o ...

and Jean Bricmont wrote a scathing critique

Fashionable Nonsense ''Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science'' (UK: ''Intellectual Impostures''), first published in French in 1997 as , is a book by physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. As part of the so-called science wars, Sokal an ...

of the Strong Programme in 1997 and its reliance on

social constructionism Social constructionism is a term used in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory. The term can serve somewhat different functions in each field; however, the foundation of this Conceptual framework, theoretical framework suggests ...

. In their view postmodernists on the far left attempted to recast scientific controversy as a political struggle between good (progressivism) and bad (conservatism), a form of Marxist class struggle, one that leads to a dead end that obscures, rather than enlightens. They assert that the main error of the "Strong Program" is to ignore that scientists primarily use nature and mathematicians logic, not social pressures, to validate their findings. They demonstrated that academics such as Feyerabend, Latour, Lacan,

Irigaray Luce Irigaray (; born 3 May 1930) is a Belgium, Belgian-born French people, French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and Cultural studies, cultural theorist who examines the uses and misuses of language in relation ...

, Kristeva (Ch3) and Deleuze regularly attempted to apply nonsensical metaphor from the physical sciences and mathematics to bolster their theories of how scientific agreements were achieved. Markus Seidel attacks the main arguments –

underdetermination In the philosophy of science, underdetermination or the underdetermination of theory by data (sometimes abbreviated UTD) is the idea that evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in re ...

and norm-circularity – provided by Strong Programme proponents for their relativism. It has also been argued that the strong programme has incited climate denial.

Notes

Bibliography

* Barnes, B. (1977). ''Interests and the Growth of Knowledge''. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Barnes, B. (1982). ''T. S. Kuhn and Social Science''. London: Macmillan. * Barnes, B. (1985). ''About Science''. Oxford: Blackwell. * Barnes, B. (1987). 'Concept Application as Social Activity', Critica 19: 19–44. * Barnes, B. (1992). "Realism, relativism and finitism". Pp. 131–147 in ''Cognitive Relativism and Social Science'', eds. D. Raven, L. van Vucht Tijssen, and J. de Wolf. * Barnes, B., D. Bloor, and J. Henry. (1996), ''Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis''. University of Chicago Press. n introduction and summary of strong sociology* Bijker, Wiebe E., et al. ''The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology'' (MIT press, 2012) * Bloor, D. (1991

976 Year 976 ( CMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * January 10 – Emperor John I Tzimiskes dies at Constantinople, after returning from a second campaign against ...

, ''Knowledge and Social Imagery'', 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. utlines the strong programme* Bloor, D. (1997). ''Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions''. London: Routledge. * Bloor, D. (1999). "Anti-Latour," ''Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Part A'' 20#1 pp: 81–112. * Collins, Harry, and Trevor Pinch. ''The Golem at large: What you should know about technology'' (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Latour, B. (1999). "For David Bloor and Beyond ... a reply to David Bloor's 'Anti-Latour',"
''Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A'' 30(1): 113–129.

External links