Scientific American has an interview with sociologist of science, Harry Collins. Collins makes a number of interesting points. Some excerpts follow:
"What's wrong with ordinary people weighing in on scientific subjects?
"It is easy to imagine all sorts of horror stories if we abandon the idea that there are some people who know what they are talking about and some who don't. Most scientific disputes that concern the public are at the cutting edge—the place where things are not completely certain. Examples are the safety of vaccines, the true importance of global warming, the effects of farming genetically modified food crops, and so forth.
"Even now, in the U.K., the relatively dangerous disease of measles is becoming endemic as a result of a widespread consumer revolt against the MMR vaccine about 10 years ago. Parents believe that even though doctors assure them that vaccines are safe, those doctors may be wrong. Therefore, the parents think they are entitled to throw their own judgment into the mix. Quite a few social scientists are pushing this trend hard...
"We believe that you can work out whether someone has the right scientific expertise and experience to make some sensible contribution to scientific debates. It doesn't mean they're right. What you have to do is not sort out the people who are right and wrong; what you have to sort is the people who can make sensible contributions from those who can't. Because once you stop doing that, things go horribly wrong...
"Are evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins fanning the flames in the way that they engage creationists?
"Once scientists move outside their scientific experience, they become like a layperson. I'm not a religious person, but if I want to talk religion with someone, it won't be a scientist; it will be with someone who understands theology (who might be either an atheist or a believer). I believe people like Dawkins give atheism a bad name because their arguments are so crude and unsubtle. They step outside their narrow competences when they produce these arguments...
"How do you distinguish the people who can and can't contribute to a specialized field?
"The key to the whole thing is whether people have had access to the tacit knowledge of an esoteric area—tacit knowledge is know-how that you can't express in words. The standard example is knowing how to ride a bike. My view as a sociologist is that expertise is located in more or less specialized social groups. If you want to know what counts as secure knowledge in a field like gravitational wave detection, you have to become part of the social group. Being immersed in the discourse of the specialists is the only way to keep up with what is at the cutting edge."
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