fronteras de la ciencia dilemas recor

8/10/2019 Fronteras de La Ciencia Dilemas RECOR

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FRONTERAS DE LA CIENCIADILEMAS


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Cipriano Barrio AlonsoSantiago Cceres Gmez (Eds.)

FRONTERAS DE LA CIENCIA

DILEMAS

BIBLIOTECA NUEVA

ORGANIZACIN DE ESTADOS IBEROAMERICANOS


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Los autores, 2014 Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, S. L., Madrid, 2014Almagro, 3828010 [email protected]

ISBN: 978-84-16170-84-5Depsito Legal: M-33.223-2014

Impreso en Viro Servicios Grcos, S. L.Impreso en Espaa - Printed in Spain

Queda prohibida, salvo excepcin prevista en la ley, cualquier forma de reproduccin, distribu-cin, comunicacin pblica y transformacin de esta obra sin contar con la autorizacin de lostitulares de propiedad intelectual. La infraccin de los derechos mencionados puede ser consti-tutiva de delito contra la propiedad intelectual (arts. 270 y sigs., Cdigo Penal). El Centro Espa-ol de Derechos Reprogrcos (www.cedro.org) vela por el respeto de los citados derechos

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FRONTERASde la ciencia : dilemas / Cipriano Barrio Alonsoet al. (eds.). Madrid : Biblioteca Nueva, 2014

180 p. ; 24 cm. (Coleccin Educacin, Ciencia y Cultura)ISBN : 978-84-16170-84-51. Ciencia 2. Publicidad 3. Periodismo 4. Investigacin aca-

dmica 5. Ciencias Sociales 6. Salud 7. Interdisciplinariedad001.83 GPS 070 KNTJ659 KJSA 304.2 JHB


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NDICE


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Presentacin, Cipriano Barrio Alonso y Santiago Cceres Gmez ........................ 11

IVISIONES GENERALES

How to protect nature against science?, Friedrich G. Wallner ........................ 23

The dynamics of novelty and needs: dilemmas of new technologies , Harro van Lente ................................................................................................ 31

IILA CIENCIA EN LA INFORMACIN Y LOS MEDIA

Periodismo diletante o ciencia meditica? La metamorfosis del artculo cientfico en noticia de prensa,Carolina Moreno Castro y Ada Gil Prez ..... 47

Publicidad farmacutica. Una forma de informacin fraudulenta sobre medicamentos, Brezo Dez Daz y Agustn Hidalgo Balsera ............................ 59

La proteccin administrativa de la identidad personal: desafos jurdicos y dilemas sociales, Alejandra Boto lvarez ..................................................... 73

IIILA CIENCIA FRENTE A LAS ORGANIZACIONES

La comunicacin del riesgo en las organizaciones pblicas y privadas:

aproximacin prctica ms all del tratamiento periodstico y la in-

vestigacin acadmica, Emilia Lopera Pareja ................................................ 89


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10 ndice

Empresa sostenible y responsabilidad social corporativa. Marco terico, medicin e hiptesis de estudio, Mara Jos Cornejo Caamares ................ 103

Desprofesionalizacin y exigencias ticas de los trabajadores de la ciencia, Francisco Javier Gmez Gonzlez ..................................................................... 115

IVLA CIENCIA FRENTE A LOS CIUDADANOS

Riesgo, salud y campos electromagnticos: qu nos dicen los datos?, Ana Muoz van den Eynde ...................................................................................... 131

Dualidad conceptual de las vacunas comestibles: Alimento VERSUSmedica-

mento, Elena Cebadera Miranda y Montaa Cmara Hurtado ....................... 151Algoritmos hbridos de clasificacin aplicados a la deteccin de casos de cncer de mama en programas de cribado, Francisco Javier de Cos Juez y Fernando Snchez Lasheras ............................................................................... 163

Autores ................................................................................................................. 175


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PRESENTACIN


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Este volumen se configura como continuacin y complemento del anterior-mente publicado en esta misma editorial titulado Fronteras de la Ciencia. Hibrida-ciones(Gonzlez Garca, Lpez Cerezo, 2012). Es continuacin porque sigue ex-plorando el problema de los territorios fronterizos en el mbito del conocimiento,y ms especficamente del conocimiento cientfico, pero es complementario por-que la perspectiva que lo impregna no es como en el anterior la de indagar las po-

sibilidades y consecuencias de la hibridacin entre ambos lados de esas fronteras, sino la de los dilemas que se plantean desde el momento que las fronteras entre dosterritorios, ya estn bien delimitadas o lo sean de forma difusa, son percibidas yaceptadas.

El trmino dilema, cuya etimologa nos indica la existencia de dos premisas,tiene en espaol segn el Diccionario de la RAE (DRAE, 2001) una primera acep-cin sealando que esas dos premisas se invalidan mutuamente, de forma que lavalidez de la primera anula la de la otra o que, por el contrario, la falsedad de unaconstituye la demostracin de la otra; otros diccionarios especializados amplan ydesarrollan esta acepcin (Ferrater Mora, 1989: 203; lvarez, 2000: 184-186).Una segunda acepcin, que es la que mejor se adecua con la temtica de esta obra,tiene un sentido ms amplio y menos rgido y una orientacin ms pragmtica,definindose como duda, disyuntiva, lo que apunta a la necesidad de detenersepara considerar dos alternativas problemticas y valorndolas, suspender el juicio,tomar determinacin por una de ellas o buscar, mediante un cambio de perspecti-va, la posibilidad de soslayarla.

No procede repetir aqu un anlisis del trmino frontera en el mbito del co-nocimiento cientfico pues basta con referirnos al excelente estudio que GonzlezGarca y Lpez Cerezo hacen en la Introduccin al libro arriba citado (Gonz-

lez Garca, Lpez Cerezo, 2012: 9); no obstante s sealaremos algunas caracters-ticas relevantes para nuestro discurso que las fronteras presentan. La aceptacin de


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14 Cipriano Barrio Alonso y Santiago Cceres Gmez

la existencia de una frontera, de una lnea o zona de separacin entre dos camposlleva inmediatamente a la consideracin de establecer y confirmar en cul de esosdos campos estamos situados, cun cerca o lejos nos encontramos de esa marca, siexisten o no caminos que permitan alcanzar el otro lado y si es posible transitar porellos con seguridad, adems de indagar en las consecuencias de cualquier ndoleque conlleve la constatacin de la existencia real o virtual de esa frontera y las queimplique el traspasarla; como puede verse, la existencia de fronteras plantea nece-sariamente dilemas, dilemas que es preciso resolver tanto en lo terico como en lofctico.

Que el conocimiento cientfico delimita fronteras tanto con respecto a lo queno es ese tipo de conocimiento como a las que se pueden establecer internamenteentre los distintos campos o disciplinas que se etiquetan como cientficos es co-

mnmente aceptado aunque pueden encontrarse en las distintas lneas de pensa-miento suficientes diferencias en cmo y dnde se sitan esas fronteras, su natura-leza y justificacin y su estabilidad o permanencia. Dentro de esta diversidad decriterios es tambin generalmente aceptado que el desarrollo de las ciencias conlle-va una expansin de sus fronteras exteriores incorporando a su campo nuevos te-rritorios y posiblemente la aparicin o afirmacin de fronteras internas por laemergencia o consolidacin de nuevas disciplinas cientficas.

Si la previa existencia de fronteras internas plantea dilemas, en algunos casos enel plano terico por ejemplo, si los tomos mantienen su identidad dentro deuna molcula o si las especies deben ser consideradas unidades clasificatorias o

unidades de evolucin; en otros casos se desarrollan en un plano totalmenteprctico por ejemplo, qu expertos deben valorar y qu criterios debe seguir undeterminado proyecto de investigacin y qu cdigos Unesco deben asignrsele.Nuevos dilemas surgen necesariamente en paralelo al desarrollo de la ciencia, y nosolo por la incorporacin de nuevos contenidos, sino porque estos obligan a su veza la reestructuracin de los ya existentes.

Los trabajos que constituyen este volumen analizan en distintos mbitos laproblemtica que generan estos dilemas, y que hemos agrupado en cuatro partes,cuya primera, bajo el rtulo de Visiones generales, recoge las aportaciones deFriedrich G. Wallner y Harro van Lente.

Wallner parte de dos posicionamientos posibles respecto a la ciencia que seconfiguran como dilema: que funciona perfectamente bien, o que es una de lasmayores fuentes de peligros para la naturaleza y la sociedad y considerando la situa-cin de crisis sociopoltica y de la naturaleza, se plantea una nueva ideologa queconsistira en proteger de la ciencia a la naturaleza y a la cultura. El autor realiza unbreve anlisis histrico para comprender las races de la situacin en la que se hallaactualmente la ciencia, partiendo de Descartes, cuyo planteamiento le lleva a con-siderar esencial la relacin entre ciencia y tica y finalizando con la ideologa domi-nante en el sigloxxque reserva para la ciencia una posicin privilegiada y exclusiva,

descartando a la sociedad, en la manipulacin y gobernanza de la naturaleza. Estaposicin privilegiada se apoya en los logros obtenidos por la propia ciencia. Sugie-


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Presentacin 15

re entonces como una posible va de superar el dilema el mecanismo de la strangi-fication1desarrollado en el mbito de la corriente filosfica del Realismo Construc-tivista como proceso de aprendizaje social que permitira tender puentes entre lapraxis cientfica y la praxis social, para resolver los problemas fundamentales a losque se enfrenta una poltica medioambiental efectiva. Por ltimo, plantea unanueva visin de la interculturalidad y la interdisciplinariedad considerando los pro-blemas sobre la generacin de conocimiento, el estatus del concepto de verdaddesde el Realismo Constructivista y finalizando con la explicacin del enlace entrelos conceptos de interdisciplinariedad e interculturalidad una vez establecido quela ciencia es una actividad enraizada en un contexto ms amplio de actividadeshumanas.

Van Lente en su captulo explora de forma preliminar la co-produccin de

necesidades e innovaciones particularizado en el mbito del desarrollo de nuevastecnologas. Los dos planteamientos principales establecen que, o bien el cam-bio tecnolgico estimula nuevas necesidades a partir de cambios sociales provoca-dos por la nueva tecnologa, o bien la necesidad es la madre de la invencin y deldesarrollo tecnolgico que pretende cubrir dicha necesidad. Indica que las necesi-dades no estn preestablecidas, sino que son dependientes de las configuracionessocio-tcnicas y son causa y efecto del cambio tecnolgico. Para establecer estasrelaciones estudia y categoriza varios usos del concepto de necesidad, encontrandocomo tema recurrente que lo que se considera como necesario depende del tiempo(perodo) y del espacio (localidad). As mismo, es central la definicin que de ne-

cesidad establecen los expertos y el mercado. Realiza una revisin de casos que re-construyen cmo las necesidades forman parte del proceso co-evolutivo del cambiotecnolgico encontrando un patrn que comienza con las novedades, pasa por lageneracin de necesidades y, finalmente, alcanza el desarrollo de derechos. Por l-timo, sugiere que la distincin entre necesidades artificiales y reales es confusasiendo la pregunta genuina qu necesidades nos podemos permitir.

La segunda parte agrupa bajo el ttulo La ciencia en la informacin y los me-dialas contribuciones de Carolina Moreno y Ada Gil, de Brezo Dez y Agus-tn Hidalgo y de Alejandra Boto.

Moreno y Gil debaten sobre cmo se transforma el conocimiento cientfico endiscurso pblico y la calidad de la ciencia que se difunde a travs de los medios decomunicacin. El dilema que plantean se centra en determinar si las noticias sobrela produccin de conocimiento cientfico es periodismo diletante en el sentido desaber cultivado como aficionado por parte de los periodistas, sin que suponga unreto particular en su tratamiento (proceso de abajo arriba) o bien es ciencia me-ditica entendida como conjunto de contenidos no necesariamente los ms signi-

1 Proviene de la palabra inglesastrange.Llevara el sentido de hacer extrao un sistema lgico deproposiciones de un micromundo cientfico mediante la transferencia desde su contexto original a

otro micromundo cientfico diferente y determinar cmo funciona en ese nuevo contexto, lo quepermitira conocer ms el sistema de proposiciones.


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ficativos sino los ms atractivos y visibles seleccionados por las propias publicacio-nes cientficas (proceso de arriba abajo). Desarrollan su anlisis a partir de unanoticia atractiva sobre la degradacin cromtica de la pintura de Vincent vanGogh, concluyendo que la compatibilidad entre la excelencia cientfica y el impac-to en los medios de comunicacin es exigua y que existe prdida de flujo informa-tivo en el proceso de transformacin que va desde el artculo cientfico, pasandopor la nota de prensa hasta la noticia periodstica aun cuando esta sea bsicamentecorrecta.

En un problema de comunicacin en un mbito especfico Dez e Hidalgoreflexionan sobre la publicidad farmacutica y el papel que juega en la comunica-cin de nuevos avances cientficos relevantes para el profesional sanitario, dada laescasez de tiempo del que disponen para su formacin y el vaco que existe de in-

formacin relevante, crtica y equilibrada. Siendo conscientes de los diferentes in-tereses sobre salud pblica que presentan los diferentes actores sector farmacu-tico, profesional sanitario, usuarios y administracin y las fuertes sumas de dine-ro destinadas por la industria farmacutica a promocionar su producto, reflejan elcontrol de informacin cientfica realizado por las empresas del sector farmacuti-co. Los autores analizan tanto desde un punto de vista cualitativo como cuantitati-vo la presin que las farmacuticas ejercen para posicionar sus productos, teniendoen cuenta que dicho posicionamiento es vital para la obtencin de beneficios. Asmismo examinan la veracidad de los contenidos de la publicidad encontrando quese produce un elevado porcentaje de fraude y engao entre lo que afirma la publi-

cidad y lo que sostiene la publicacin, que no se cumple ntegramente el Conteni-do Mnimo Informativo que requiere la legislacin y hacen referencia a otros tra-bajos que estudian las alteraciones en los grficos presentados por la publicidad.Concluyen el captulo indicando una batera de medidas que se deben tomar parareducir la influencia negativa de la prctica publicitaria farmacutica.

En el mbito de la informacin y su gestin, pero desde una perspectiva muydistinta, Boto aborda el desafo jurdico que supone la proteccin administrativade la identidad derivada de la existencia de una problemtica sobre robos, o crme-nes de mayor o menor importancia, refleja el dilema que se plantea no ya sobre lanecesidad de llevar a cabo la proteccin de las transacciones jurdicas, financieras ycomerciales para lo que existe unanimidad, sino el derivado de las formas comodicha proteccin se realiza, los instrumentos y la intensidad que se utilizan y, con-cretamente, el debate sobre el desarrollo de bases centralizadas con informacinsensible sobre particulares, recogiendo las diferentes soluciones que se estn apli-cando en diversos pases del entorno.

La tercera parte de libro agrupa las aportaciones de Emilia Lopera, de MaraJos Cornejo y de Francisco Javier Gmez bajo el ttulo La ciencia frente a lasorganizaciones. En ella, en primer lugar, Lopera analiza la comunicacin del ries-go desde el punto de vista de las organizaciones, su tratamiento informativo en el

mundo del periodismo y la investigacin acadmica realizada en el mbito de lasciencias sociales. Considera las caractersticas generales y desafos que presenta la


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Presentacin 17

comunicacin de riesgos para sus gestores tras el estallido de un suceso que provo-ca una crisis. Explica cmo queda imbricada la comunicacin de riesgos dentro delos procesos de evaluacin y gestin de riesgos de las organizaciones. Repasa laevolucin de la comunicacin del riesgo en las organizaciones al interpretar en qudebera consistir la comunicacin. Finalmente, presenta una serie de pautas gene-rales y recomendaciones, a modo de protocolo bsico de actuacin, a la hora deabordar la comunicacin del riesgo tras el estallido de una crisis.

En el segundo de los trabajos de este bloque Cornejo presenta una reflexin sobrela transicin hacia una empresa sostenible y la relacin existente con el concepto deResponsabilidad Social Corporativa. Indica que el concepto de empresa sostenible vams all del implicado por el concepto de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa quepueda estar practicando actualmente una empresa. Presenta una sucinta visin hist-

rica de las distintas concepciones de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa a lo largo deltiempo, reflejando un espectro de posicionamiento de las empresas que va desde lasms reactivas que buscan tan solo cumplir con lo marcado por la legislacin, has-ta las ms proactivas que ven nuevas oportunidades en el marco de la sostenibilidad.Detecta, tambin, un estancamiento en la evolucin del concepto de ResponsabilidadSocial Corporativa sealando diversos factores como causantes. Por ltimo, centra elanlisis en la relacin entre esta y la rentabilidad de la empresa, sealando que losanlisis planteados no son concluyentes pues, por un lado, son reduccionistas y porotro, los resultados de diferentes trabajos no han mostrado ninguna tendencia defini-da. Concluye que se hace pertinente buscar nuevos modelos sugiriendo que los estu-

dios CTS podran aportar su visin de los entornos innovadores y factores culturales.Por ltimo Gmez aborda el tema de la responsabilidad social de los cientficos

desde su relacin con la desprofesionalizacin y la proletarizacin de los trabajado-res en ciencia. Refleja la dinmica desprofesionalizadora desde la consideracin desntomas tales como la disminucin de la distancia entre cliente y cientfico y laoferta de productores cientficos de nivel medio, la prdida de control interno y eluso de la evaluacin externa a la comunidad cientfica como pauta de control y,finalmente, el incremento de la jerarquizacin. Por su parte los sntomas de la pro-letarizacin, enfocada desde el punto de vista de la divisin del trabajo o instaura-cin de un sistema disciplinar y fragmentado, seran la separacin del trabajador delos bienes de produccin y la enajenacin del trabajo cientfico. Estos procesos dedesprofesionalizacin y proletarizacin se traducen, entre otros efectos, en desen-canto de la actividad cientfica, sustitucin del cientfico clsico por el cientfico demercado, costes en trminos de eficacia y desregulacin tica. Por ltimo, proponela promocin de la interdisciplinariedad como camino para la superacin de losproblemas de regulacin tica, si bien no est exento de dificultades.

El cuarto bloque, con el ttulo La ciencia frente a los ciudadanos, rene lasaportaciones de Ana Muoz, de Elena Cebadera y Montaa Cmara y de Francis-co Javier de Cos y Fernando Snchez donde se presentan diversos casos que inciden

en las relaciones entre la dinmica de la ciencia y la de los individuos en la sociedady en particular frente a la percepcin, asuncin y gestin de riesgos.


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Muoz se plantea el anlisis del riesgo para la salud que suponen los camposelectromagnticos. Parte de la distincin entre peligro y riesgo y del hecho que esteltimo est configurado socialmente. Indica, a su vez, que la percepcin del riesgoque los ciudadanos tienen de una tecnologa concreta depende de mltiples facto-res entre los que se encuentra la posible gravedad de un suceso y otros atributoscomo el carcter de ser personal, directo e inmediato. Analiza la percepcin delriesgo en el campo concreto de los campos electromagnticos tomando como basela informacin de dos eurobarmetros realizados en 2006 y 2010. Realiza un an-lisis estadstico de la informacin buscando las diferencias en la atribucin de ries-go a diferentes factores ambientales, entre espaoles y resto de ciudadanos de laUnin Europea y la estructura de relaciones entre los factores ambientales suscep-tibles de generar riesgos para la salud. Entre las conclusiones a las que llega cabe

considerar que entre los diversos factores medioambientales considerados en lasencuestas del Eurobarmetro, los campos electromagnticos son consideradoscomo de menor riesgo y, adems, ha disminuido durante el lapso de tiempo en quese realizaron los dos eurobarmetros; si bien la preocupacin entre los espaolespor los campos electromagnticos era mayor que en el resto de los europeos en2006 se ha homogeneizado en 2010; finalmente, los datos reflejan una estructuraconceptual subyacente.

Cebadera y Cmara, en su captulo, analizan la aceptacin social de las vacunascomestibles, que son plantas modificadas genricamente para producir determina-dos elementos (plantas factora), como ejemplo de dilema que plantea la vanguar-

dia de la investigacin con repercusiones en los mbitos econmico, social y pol-tico. Parten de la diferente consideracin social de los productos de la biotecnolo-ga aplicados a la salud, que son ampliamente aceptados, y los productos de labiotecnologa aplicados a la alimentacin que cuentan con un importante rechazopor parte de ciertos sectores en el mbito del pblico no especializado. Sealan quelas vacunas comestibles suponen una alternativa econmica desde los puntos devista de la produccin, seguridad, almacenamiento y escalado, siendo, adems, unabuena alternativa para pases alejados de los centros de produccin como puedenser los pases del denominado tercer mundo. La diferencia de la aceptacin proven-dra tanto de la percepcin de ausencia de beneficios directos como de la presenciade ciertos riesgos que deben ser asumidos. A estos dos factores aaden un tercerelemento que favorecera el rechazo que sera la localizacin geogrfica de la pro-duccin prxima al consumidor. Consideran, y esa es su propuesta, que puesto quelas vacunas comestibles presentan tanto un punto de vista alimenticio como unpunto de vista sanitario, su aceptacin se incrementara si el consumidor las perci-biera bajo esta segunda perspectiva.

Por ltimo De Cos y Snchez esbozan el dilema planteado a raz de los resul-tados de diversos estudios sobre la deteccin precoz del cncer de mama. Los resul-tados de dichos estudios reflejan la eficacia de los tratamientos en cuanto a reduc-

cin de mortalidad entre las mujeres, pero ponen en duda su eficiencia por losperjuicios asociados al sobrediagnstico, al sobretratamiento y al coste de dichos


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Presentacin 19

programas que en muchos casos no hubiera sido necesario realizar. Para obtenerms informacin que ayude a la toma de decisin sobre cundo se debe aplicar elproceso plantean la utilizacin de herramientas matemticas para proceder al cri-bado de la informacin almacenada en grandes bases de datos que llevara a la de-terminacin de la forma de proceder con las pacientes. El trabajo presenta de formadescriptiva la utilizacin de tres tcnicas: clusterizacin basada en redes neuronalesauto-organizativas, modelos de clasificacin basados en splines multivariantesadaptativos de regresin y modelos de clasificacin basados en mquinas de sopor-te vectorial. Estas tcnicas permitiran regular el tiempo entre dos pruebas conse-cutivas tendiendo a ampliar los periodos de revisin correspondientes. Concluyenvalorando positivamente la utilizacin de estas tcnicas para la realizacin de loscribados, si bien indican que es necesario seguir investigando en el desarrollo de

algoritmos de clasificacin.Agradecemos el apoyo econmico proporcionado por el Plan Nacional de I+D

(MICINN-12-FF I2011-24582).

Referencias bibliogrficas

lvarez, J. R. (2000), Dilema, en J. Muoz y J. Velarde (eds.), Compendio de epistemolo-ga, Madrid, Editorial Trotta.

DRAE(2001), Diccionario de la lengua espaola, 22 ed., Madrid.Ferrater Mora, J. (1991), Diccionario de filosofa de bolsillo, Madrid, Alianza Editorial.Gonzlez Garca,M. I. Y Lpez Cerezo, J. A. (eds.) (2012), Fronteras de la ciencia. Hibri-

daciones, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva/OEI.


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IVISIONES GENERALES


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How to protect nature against science?Friedrich G. WallnerUniversity of Vienna

The historical roots of Modern Scienceand its self-understanding

The aim of a philosophy of science has to be the creation of a philosophy forscience. This has been the goal and self-understanding of what me and my col-leagues did, when we initiated the movement of Constructive Realism. Philosophy(of science) does not need to say what science is. Yet, to make claims about thenature of science has been the implicit understanding of the task of most of philoso-phy of science in the 20th century.

Todays science is lead by an ideology, that is very problematic. This ideolo-gy will be discussed with the intention to replace it by a new ideology. Two dif-ferent stances towards science can be taken: on the one hand one can say thatscience works perfectly well, so that there is no need for philosophy; on theother hand science has to be rightly seen as one of the main sources of dangersthat more and more threaten to destroy nature and to eradicate cultural tradi-tions. The new ideology that we propose has thus to be able to protect nature(and cultures) against science. To understand todays science and its func-tioning, we have to look back at its historical origins which date back to the 16thcentury, roughly speaking. In the course of the time, science has known a con-siderable development towards the 20th century. The crucial question to beasked here is: from which thinking has todays science evolved? We will try tounderstand this by looking at one, if not the major key figure of the scientific

development, as it has taken place in Europe up from the 17th century onwards,namely at Ren Descartes.


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24 Friedrich G. Wallner

His basic assumption about the world can be summed up as follows: Descartesassumed that nature could be subdivided into simple and clearly introspectibleunits, in other words, into simple particles. He thought of the totality as that of amutual interaction of these particles, processes that can be described in terms ofmechanical principles. An important basic assumption of this mechanistic viewof Descartes is that at the origin of nature as a functioning totality stands God,who has created nature, a nature according to laws and structures that he himselfhas created out of his mind. Besides nature and its governing laws, God has createdhuman minds. Based on this intimate link between the created human mind andGods mind, humans could legitimately claim to investigate and understand hownature works and how it is structured in its totality. It shouldnt be ignored, thatin Descartes philosophy the belief in the existence of God stands out of ques-

tion. Gods existence was the very fundament on which scientific investigationinto nature could be conducted. It is only the existence of Gods mind that guar-anteed that nature is a structured and coherent totality, intelligible to the hu-man mind. If there is a supreme intelligence who guarantees all this and ac-cording to Descartes there is then ethics is part and parcel of the scientificenterprise. If the assumption of Gods existence was dropped, in other words, ifboth the connection between science and ethics or faith, and the structural con-nection between the human mind and nature was disrupted, then nature wouldbe in danger to become the prey of a ruthless exploitation. And even more, theidea of a structured world would not even exist, had there not been this constant

reference to God, even though for us it is hard to believe this, since we usuallyspeak about structures without ever referring to God and his mind as the authorof these structures, not to speak of our ignorance concerning the necessity of theidea of God.

The 19th century has known radical changes. One important change was thecontinuing differentiation of the whole of science into particular scientific disci-plines. What favoured this stage of development of science was the separation of theidea of nature as a pure mechanism from the idea of God. Nature was decreasinglyconsidered as the creation of one supreme creator. As a consequence of the absenceof the idea of nature as divine creation with a purpose, science became reduced tothe output of bare results. Thenceforth, the structure of nature was considered theobject of scientists alone, and the negation of any purpose of nature was nowan open invitation to consider nature as susceptible to arbitrary manipulations,regardless of any ethical considerations or responsibilities towards human societies.

This reduction of the originally Cartesian conception of science to the concep-tion of science as manipulation of nature with the goal of mere outputs can becalled nihilistic. What we mean here by nihilism is the ideological tendency to fa-vour one aspect of a thing over all other aspects. This can be considered an attitudevery much characteristic of much of European thought. In our precise and promi-

nent case, todays ideology of science is nihilistic, and it became so in the 19thcentury, by leaving out all aspects of Cartesian science and retaining only the idea


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How to protect nature against science? 25

of nature as a pure mechanism, that can be understood, manipulated and governedby science alone. This finally amounted to the idea of science as having its solefulfilment in the reproduction of nature.

In the 20th century, mechanism was considered as an ideology to be replaced,and sciences started conceiving of their own activity in purely instrumental terms.The former assumption of nature as a mechanism was replaced by the assumptionthat science can not make definite statements about the objects of investigation.The scientific depiction of nature was considered to be adequate, if it was sufficientfor science to function, as long as it works! The reasoning behind this was coun-terfactual: if the depiction of nature was inadequate, science would not work. Yet,since it worked, the depiction of nature was adequate. This kind of governance andcontrol over nature is one-sided, because it is commanded by scientists alone, where-

as the society has no say. If we take a look at the general global situation, namelysocio-political and ecological crises, we are confronted with the necessity to inte-grate or even put into power the society, so that new rules to govern scientific re-search can be set. But how can this be done? Wouldnt this require a society, whichis able to understand and govern science?!

Suggestions for a new environmental policy

Today, we are facing serious fundamental problems to find an effective envi-

ronmental policy. First, science and its application in technology stand in a relationwhich is still not grasped by politicians. This problem can only be solved, if scien-tists have learnt to understand and explain what they are doing in a communicableway.

Secondly, we are confronted with an inherently political problem, namelytodays problematic status of democracy. In our times, most politicians make deci-sions that are no longer based on personally worked out concepts. Rather, the de-cisions taken by our politicians are often dependent on the opinions of statisticalmajorities. As a consequence, democratic deficiencies also affect any possible civilright movements in a negative way and are thus another obstacle to tackling prob-lems of environment in a more serious and effective way.

Thirdly, even ethical commissions have a problematic character. Instead of re-flecting on ethics proper, they have adopted the habit to follow practical programsand goals, lead by political ideologies. Their status should be critical and reflexive,but instead, ethical commissions have come to be mere juridical consultants,telling scientists what is compatible and what is not compatible with the existinglegislation, thereby not coming up to their ethical duty towards societies.

It is illusory to believe that a simple committee could be installed, reflecting onscience and its activities from without, watching over these or giving the scientist a

ready-made catalogue with rules of action, how to guide ones scientific activitiesand how to set goals in a more ethical way.


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Science as we conceive it, can not be organized and conceived in a hierarchicalway anymore. A radical change of the inner organization of the universities has totake place. We have already said that strangification can make scientists becomeaware of the limitations of applicability of their discipline, that is, they can be-come themselves aware of the ethical problems entailed by the microworlds theyhave invented. While on the one hand to one discipline other disciplines are test-beds by which that discipline can learn something about itself, on the other hand thelife-world the social world we are embedded in, and where actions take placeis the touchstone for the acceptability of technologically applicable microworlds.

A bridge over the increasingly larger gulf between scientific praxis and socialpraxis can only be built, if both scientists and politicians give up this idea, that,either social life is subjected to the consultancy by scientific experts, or science has

to be put under the survey of society. In both cases, certain human activities domi-nate over others, thus raising again the unsolvable problem of the hierarchy ofsciences.

The (ethical) legitimation of science can only be done by scientists themselves,namely from exposing themselves to discussions with other scientists, and fromreflecting then upon their own science and the ethical implications that they werenot explicitly aware of before they entered the process of strangification. Strangifi-cation is thus a process of social learning. Its only by learning about oneself fromothers, that the bonds of society can be held together.

A new Vision of Interdisciplinarity and Interculturality

For the bigger part of the 20th century, philosophy of science set the goal togive a logical and epistemological legitimation of science and in the case thisseemed possible to thereby discriminate between science and non-science. Whatseemed to have evaded those philosophers of science was the fact that their ques-tions and tasks were more and more irrelevant to the factual situation of science.To an increasing extent scientists legitimized their science on their own. Philoso-phers of science that stand outside of this activity certainly can not legitimize theactivity of science from without. Still, science can not be surrendered to itself. Inthe past few decades, scientists have lost touch with the object of their investi-gation. Eventhough they can perfectly well communicate with scientists of thesame discipline, they do not really know what they are describing. In other words,they are unable to translate their formal language into some commonly shared andunderstandable everyday language.

What scientists actually produce are models. If a scientist produces something,and he can not really say what he is describing, doesnt that sound very alarming?Thus, we come to the conclusion, that science is in a paradoxical situation: despite

constantly producing a large amount of output, scientists feel a growing inabilityto articulate this output, even to themselves. If one is unable to tell what one is


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doing as a scientist, how can one speak any longer of knowledge? The paradox isthus: science generates information, but, at the same time, it is increasingly lackingknowledge. The situation can be compared to that of my grandmother, though thesituation of science is of course much more dramatic: my grandmother knew manyhousehold remedies, and she was able to use the right one for the respective dis-ease to be cured. Still, it was more of a habit or an implicit know-how. As a matterof fact though, her remedies were at least as effective as those prescribed by a doc-tor. Nevertheless, I would not say, that she effectively had any knowledge. She wasprobably not able to tell what exactly she was doing and which processes thoseremedies induced in a body. Yet, her remedies worked. The situation in science hasbecome very much the same: as long as it works... Knowledge, though, meansprecisely to not only be able to do something, but to be aware of and to be able to

explain to one-self and to others what one is doing, in a way that transcends thelinguistic confines of ones activities without altogether dissolving the specificity ofthat discipline. In short, one could say that knowledge is insight plus a know-howabout how to become aware of this insight and make it communicable. Knowl-edge is the process of making insights explicit and, thereby, making them suscepti-ble to modification and improvement.

The irony of the Western intellectual history has been that the claim for totalexplanations and for reductions of diversities has lead to the isolation of disci-plines. Constructive Realism tried to solve this deficient situation of insular contextsby working out a methodological approach that can reconcile and thus transform

the hitherto exclusive concepts of relativism on the one hand, and universalism orreductionism on the other hand. False instrumental (self-)understanding has leadto a considerable and threatening shift in the function of the scientists. A scientistis no longer someone, who tries to acquire knowledge. One has to consider himrather as an engineer of data, an engineer of information management. What is atstake is nothing less than the ancient claim of European science, its commitmentto achieve knowledge. Where did this tendency originate? We must first keep inmind that important distinction, which exists between various forms of science.There is not only European science. There is Chinese science, Indian science, thescience of Latin America, etc. This global fact has been overlooked. Europeanscience has been mostly considered in the West to be the only real science, becauseit was supposed to be the only absolutely rational scientific system. Why is it thatwe so easily share this belief? Apparently, if we look at todays world, we notice thatscience seems to be very efficient, productive, and that it eventually found its wayto the major cultural centres of our planet: you can study physics at New Delhi, atPeking, etc. At first, this sounds paradoxical: Westerners think of European scienceas being more rational than other sciences, in fact as being the only real science. Yetdespite its global success and its recognition, European science has reached thecrucial point, where it risks to definitely lose its main trait, its commitment to

knowledge. The reasons why science has approached this watershed can be foundin the last one hundred years. For instance, the history of physics and in gener-


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al, the history of science made the important point that the development ofphysics has never been a progressive and continuous development towards an everincreasing degree of rationality. In this sense, it has taught us that, for instance,Newtonian physics is in no way less rational than the Einsteinian Theory of Rela-tivity. The opinion that science is moving throughout history towards more ratio-nality is based on a misconception and misperception of science. Another impor-tant development in the past century has been the introduction of the observer-problematic into the field of physics, while in the Geisteswissenschaften(more orless equal to what you call the humanities) the inclusion of the observer has beenvery common. Many scientists have been afraid of this, because they think that theintroduction of the observer into a theory will entail the dissolution of the com-mitment of their science. As a consequence many of them are against any coopera-

tion with scientists from the field of history or sociology, as they fear that the latterwill proceed very much in the spirit of the above-mentioned explanatory interdis-ciplinarity, contesting the scientists claim of rationality.

This fear is probably not unjustified. There is an element that has to be presentin each observation: love, love for the object of your investigation. This will soundscandalous to scientists, and they will object: How can you ask for love in science!Science takes an objective, distant look at things, love is a subjective approach to athing! Why is this reaction so? According to the early 20th century sociologistMax Weber, we are convinced that we must structure in an arbitrary way in sci-ence, that is, we think we have to structure things in a way such as an absolute mind

would structure them: absolutely, which means totally detached from any affectionfor the objects thus structured. This, I think, is really the core of European science:this idea that to do science is to describe the world as if one was an absolute mind,as if one was the supreme Divine intelligence: God. As we have seen in the case ofDescartes mentioned above, the influence of religion on science can not be over-emphasized. This aspect can best be understood, if we consider the situation ofChinese science. The idea or concept of an absolute and pure mind, detached fromany involvement into the matters of life, is not existent in Chinese culture. Thisfundamental aspect of science is excluded from, or rather ignored in the discourseof European science: that science is linked to human activity. It perfectly mirrorsthe Christian conception of the omniscient God who remains detached from whattakes places in the world. God has been assumed to be a pure intelligence that doesnothing else but simply watch and judge without dirtying his hands. Descriptionand the segregation of theory and praxis are just the two sides of the same coin.Science invents models, but what do these models do? The question really is whatwe do with these models, not what these models depict. They dont depict anythingoutside of themselves. They play a certain role in the context of human activity,they have an effective function. The function of these models or constructs is toreplace something of the given world. These constructs, or microworlds, are often

born in imagination, and they are used then to structure a selected set of data.Eventually they are applied technologically, thus generating new artificial realities,


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the sum of which is what we commonly call culture, or what we in ConstructiveRealism call Realitt(as opposed to Wirklichkeit,the given world, or actuality,as we have seen above). This conception of science as the invention of constructsaccomodates the fact that science modifies the world, whereas the traditional con-cept of science as description, mirroring the world, can not bridge the gap that ititself has created by discriminating so-called pure theory and so-called pure praxis.

Are the false forms of interdisciplinarity not precisely such judgements fromwithout? The meaning of love is thus very simple and is practised by the verymethodology of strangification: Who hasnt got love for the object of a scientificdiscipline and for the discipline itself, if not the practising scientist himself! And isexplanatory interdisciplinarity not sometimes maybe the result of a malevolentgaze through which a certain scientist perceives other disciplines?!

Another question that remains open in this context is that of what to make withthe concept of truth. What is the place of truth in this new understanding of sci-ence as it is conceived by Constructive Realism? In traditional philosophy, truth hasmostly been thought about in a general sense. This was based on the misconceptionof knowledge as image of the world: if thinking was the production of images of theworld, then knowledge was the production of images, that stand in a certain, defin-able relation to the given world. In scientific praxis, the question of truth is altogetherfutile. Working scientists rarely use the term truth. Since we discard the traditionalview on science, the concept of truth either becomes meaningless, or it is trans-formed. This is not easy to grasp, since traditionalists will object that truth can only

make sense in an absolute sense, and that, for instance, an operational, contextualunderstanding undermines the very meaning and function of truth as it was held byphilosophers throughout the greater part of the European intellectual history. Yet theconcept of truth, if it is worth to be held or rather, if it is to not be defused,can only be made sense of, if it is acknowledged as having a purely operationalfunction, that varies with the specific context in which it is used. A proposition canonly be called true with respect to the conditions under which it is used. As a matterof fact, this can be easily understood if we imagine the following thought experi-ment: I can say that it is true that if I add one thing and another thing, I get twothings. Yet, this holds only if we make clear the circumstances under which this sen-tence is true, namely if we make explicit the presupposition that we are talking aboutthings that are stable and impermeable. In the context of permeable things though,say two droplets, the same statement would not be true anymore: if I merge one dropof water to another drop of water, I will still have only one drop of water.

Now that we have claimed that science has to be conceived of as an activityrooted in the broader context of human activities within a culture from which itcan not be completely dissociated, we have to proceed to explain what exactly is thelink between both the concept of interdisciplinarity and that of interculturality.

What can we learn from strangification to have a better form of interculturality?

As we have seen already, interdisciplinarity was traditionally conceived of inthe way that one leading science was influencing both the way problems were


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posed and the methods that were used in other scientific disciplines. This misconcep-tion of interdisciplinarity, which has not ceased to cause ravage in the scientificlandscape has had its analogue in intercultural affairs. The link between both is notone of mere analogy though. Deficits in interdisciplinary and in intercultural re-alities are tied together, and the origins of this fatal link can probably be found inthe intellectual colonization that was practised ever since the time of the Jesuits upfrom the late 16th century. Since that time, the negative effects of false interdisci-plinarity, notably the idea of a science dominating other sciences, have not ceasedto permeate and influence the way interculturality was conceived of and practisedby Western politics. The problem of interculturality is the same: the relations be-tween the European culture and other cultures have been dominated by theassumption, that European culture is the dominant and best culture, and thus

the structuring framework within which other cultures can be judged.Todays call for more tolerance has been a somewhat panic and weak solutionto the problems posed by the violent domination of one, the Western, culture overso many different cultures. Real tolerance, though, is not a simple moral questionof attitude. If we want to conserve the manifold and irreducible variety of cultures,we have to find a way how to preserve another culture and at the same time containour own culture. A merely passive tolerance will not be able to stop the unifiedculture that we, as the totality of cultures, are moving towards right now. Hereagain, strangification might be the solution to this otherwise inescapable scenario.

We have to become aware that we can strangify our own cultural beliefs by another

culture and thereby learn more about our own culture. Even more, the existence offoreign cultures is an indispensable condition for us to understand our own cul-ture. While the call for tolerance often preaches only a negative form of relativism,strangification is a positive form of relativism (a relationalism, a Vernetzung),because strangification consists not in a spontaneous, unreflected self-limitation,but rather self-limitation itself is the effect of our learning from a cross-borderexperience. Other than with forms of negative relativism, where each culture isflagged down to lead an insular existence and to not communicate with his neighbourunless with an artificial folksy curiosity, the positive and strangified relativism ofreal interculturality consists in a self-experience in an alien land. If I go to China,I do not expect to be able to adopt and to understand the Chinese lifestyle. I wouldnot learn it in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I can learn a lot more about myself, if Ibecome aware of the presuppositions of my own culture, that are thus revealed.


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The dynamics of novelty and needs:dilemmas of new technologies

Harro van LenteSocrates Professor University Maastricht

Associate Professor Innovation Studies, Utrecht UniversityCopernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation

PO Box 80125, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands

Introduction

According to the old wisdom, need is the mother of invention. Given the scarceresources and the unsatisfied needs, human ingenuity comes with appropriate andwelcome solutions.

Yet, historical studies of technical and societal change also shows that needs are

malleable: what is needed now, is not the same as what was needed a century ago.So, while needs may be the mothers of invention, needs have mothers as well andone of them is invention. This holds for technological systems, as Frdric Graber(2007) has described in his case study of water supply in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Paris. It holds also for individual purchases, as many authors have alreadyobserved. Ten years ago, I did not need a digital camera. Today, I need a digitalcamera and many firms would be more than happy to satisfy my need. Twentyyears ago, I did not need a mobile phone. Today, I need a mobile phone and manyfirms would be more than happy to satisfy my need. Two hundred years ago, therewas no need for bicycles. Today, I need a bicycle and many firms would be more

than happy to satisfy my need.


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32 Harro van Lente

Two things are at stake here: the production of novelty and the production ofneeds. In this chapter I will first address some key insights about the dynamicsof socio-technical change and discuss what history and innovation studies have tooffer here. The argument is that the creation of novelty not only introduces newproducts, processes and systems, but also new socio-technical arrangements and, inthe end, new societies including patterns and standards of life. The second part willaddress the malleable nature of what is defined as necessary or luxury, of what isneeded, which apparently depend on time and place. The definitions and expres-sions of need highlight the dominant patterns of life and point potential con-sumers to items they might need and want. To need a mobile phone is not just atoken of an immature mimetic desire; it is also a token of a changed social settingthat expects or even requires people to be connected. In a Foucauldian sense, to

need a mobile phone is an internalization of the disciplining force of modernsocieties.This chapter then boils down to a series of questions. When needs are not

pre-given, but dependent upon socio-technical configurations, and, in fact, bothcause and effect of innovation, a range of issues come to the fore. How to understandthe co-creation of both needs and innovation? What is the relationship betweenpromising and needed? How are the ambiguities of need expressed in the risingrole of users in innovation studies? How do expectations and needs figure in attemptsto steer, or modulate, ongoing socio-technical transformation, that is, Technology

Assessment in all its varieties? Such questions have gained further salience in the

light of the encompassing concern for sustainability, where notions of needs areoften used as cornerstones, since the famous Brundtland (1987) definition ofsustainable development as a development that meets the needs of the presentwithout compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs(p. 45).

This chapter thus explores a range of related questions and mobilizes a broadrange of literatures. So, it cannot do more than present some first sketches. It willconclude with a research agenda for further explorations.

Creation of novelty

According to the German philosopher of technology Arnold Gehlen (1904-1976), humans differ from animals by their state of vulnerability and their needycondition. As humans miss fur to warm their bodies, strength to defend themselvesagainst predators and speed to catch prey, the species of homo sapienshad to rely ontechnology: clothing, housing, weapons. Technology, then, is the extension of thebody, and instrument, because humans have bodies with disabilities: a Mngelwesen.Clothing is the extension of the skin, the artificial fur, shovels are the extension of

the arms and knives the extension of teeth and nails. This instrumentalist visionof technology, although philosophically contested, is by now a well established and


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The dynamics of novelty and needs... 33

common-sense notion. It fuels the self image of engineers and provides legitima-tion for firms who come up with ever new products. When new technologies aresold and used, the argument is that firms just cater for the needs of mankind. Andnew technologies, then, are seen as yet another step towards the fulfillment of theneedy condition of humans. The fact that they are used and recognized simplyreinforces the initial assumption that it was needed in the first place.

New technologies, thus, seem to be the next step in the ever continuing strug-gle of man against nature. Yet, in socio-historical studies of technical change, otherdynamic comes to the fore. Here, the dramatic impact of new technologies isemphasized. While innovations may bring new elements, they also disturb custom-ary patterns and forms of live. The economist Joseph Schumpeter characterizedthe role of innovation in economic structures as creative destruction: building

new opportunities, demolishing established industries. In James UtterbacksMastering the Dynamics of Innovation (1993),anoverview is given waves of inno-vation that change the face of an industry. With examples as the sector of televisions,typewriters, and flat glass, he demonstrates a particular pattern. In a first phasevarious models abound and new firms compete on the basis of yet another model.Users are not sure what the new product is, how to use it and what features wouldmatter to them. In its first decade, for instance, the typewriter was seen as a strangeintruder, occupying the no mans land between printed text and personal letters. Itis, as sociologists of technology would say, a monster, a hopeful monstrosity. Cul-turally and organizationally, such a newcomer is both disturbing and exciting.

Criteria to judge its performance have not yet been stabilized, so it is difficult tocompare the various models. This is a period with a lot of product innovation anda lot of uncertainty about appropriate requirements, it is what Utterback labelsas the fluid phase. The period ends when a convergence in models occurs andregularities in use and preference. Under such conditions a dominant design mayoccur, which embodies the collective learning in what the new product is and howto use it. At the other extreme, in a mature market, competition is no longer aboutmodels, but about cost and quality. In this specific phase, competition is domi-nated by economies of scale and the number of competitors has fallen sharply.Typically, an oligopoly will occur: a competition between 5 to 8 global firms. Betweenthese two phases a transition phase will take place, in which R&D has shifted fromproduct to process innovation.

The study of innovation also stresses that new products alone will not do thejob. Recognized innovators like Thomas Edison, Henri Ford or Steve Jobs did notstart working from signals of need, but from visions about a new system thatcould work, provided a mass market would buy the products and services. In hisvoluminous Networks of Power, the historian Thomas Hughes describes in detailthe strategies of Thomas Edison to build new empires. I have the right vision, hesaid and sought ways to enroll others in his plans: politicians, financers and con-

sumers. George Eastman (1854-1932) had the vision to turn the delicate anddifficult art of photography into a mass market. As one of the obstacles was the


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34 Harro van Lente

handling of glass plates and the employment of light-sensitive emulsions, he soughtfor alternatives and found cellulose, a sturdy, yet bendable new material. With cellu-lose it was possible to avoid plates and have a roll instead, inside a box that only themanufacturer needed to open. The customer could simply use the camera andwhen the box was full, return it to the manufacturer, who would develop thephotos and send the box with a new roll. You push the button, we do the rest.He branded his products as Kodak, who became the world leader in photographyfor almost a century, until it was surprised by the next wave of innovation: digitalphotography.

According to innovation studies, new product thus need new markets and bigfirms indeed tend to spend as much on R&D as on marketing. The sociology ofexpectations takes one step further into another, contrasting account of technologi-

cal change (Van Lente, 2012; Van Lente, 2000; Borup et al. 2006). On the basis ofcirculating and shared expectations researchers, technologists and firms decidewhat options to take and routes to follow. The central idea here is that progress isgiven and that engineers and firms are keen to discern the next step. So, when anew option is seen as promising, its priority will rise and it will figure on the re-search or firm agenda. And when this is the case, further development is manda-tory. The promise will then be used as guideline and even as measuring stick toassess the strategy and progress of research and development. Hence, the promisehas been transformed into requirement. It is not a matter of pre-defined problemsor articulated needs, but a matter of ongoing technical change driven by promises

in which actors cannot afford to miss the next generation of technologies. In otherwords: a technological promise is the mother of invention.

The dynamics of expectations has been reinforced by the stress on promisingtechnologies in science and technology policy. In a search for an alternative to thetraditional divide between basic and applied science, and the everlasting questwhich needed more attention and money, the notion of strategic science and tech-nology became fashionable from the mid-1980s onwards. Strategic science hasbeen defined as basic science with the promise that it will be useful for society, inthe end. Due to a strategic turn in science and science policy, promises about fu-ture use become the yardstick and they contribute to the actual development andcoordination at all levels of science. Consequently, we may speak of a prospectivestructure in which researchers, firms and science policy have to operate, in particu-lar in converging technologies. Novelty, thus, is not created by needs, but bypromises.

Creation of needs

It is timely to consider in more detail the idea of need. How do needs figure

in accounts of innovation? As memorized above, need is the mother of invention,according to the old wisdom. When an innovation is successful, it is so because


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there has been a need for this. This need can be latent, that is, the need may beunrecognized by the user and even by the producer. By the time a new productreaches the market, the user might sense a need to purchase it. In logical sense, thisis a dubious reasoning, a tautology, as there are no independent indications of thepurchase and the imputed cause of the purchase, the need. Yet, the reasoning ispowerful and very common. In cases of latent needs reminding the customer ofhis or her need is useful. Sometimes this is so-called demand articulation.

Peter Drucker, one of the most influential authors on business puts it like this:There is one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer (p. 37). Ina standard text book on consumer behavior Blackwell et al. write: Consumer mo-tivation represents the drive to satisfy both physiological and psychological needsthrough product purchase and consumption. (p. 255). They discuss the followinglist (Ch.8): physiological needs; safety and health needs; the need for love andcompanionship; the need for financial resources and security; the need for plea-sure; social image needs; the need to possess; the need to give; the need for infor-mation; the need for variety.

Many more lists circulate. The most well-known ordering has been given byMaslow (1954), who placed the need for self-actualization on top. What a mancan be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization [...]It refers to the

desire for self-fulfilment, namely for one to become actualized in what one is po-tentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more

agenda building

Promise to requirement production of novelty

activitiesin protected spaces

requirements& task divisionpromising options

Figure1.Creation of novelty: from promise to requirement


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36 Harro van Lente

what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. (Maslow1954, p. 383). See Figure 2. The hierarchy holds some plausibility but be contestedeasily with many cases, e.g. a hunger strike for the sake of conscience or politicalstatement.

Decoufl, A. and N. Schwartz (1974) have pointed to the general difficultiesrelated to the concept of need in innovation studies. Still, one of the buildingblocks of our understanding of innovation processes and systems is the conceptof need. When an innovation is successful, the argument goes, there must havebeen a need for this, albeit latent. On the other hand, it is also well-known thattechnological change can incite new needs. For instance, in his seminal book onDiffusion of InnovationsEverett M. Rogers (2003) notes that A need is a state ofdissatisfaction or frustration that occurs when ones desires outweighs onesactualities (...) An individual may develop a need when he or she learns that aninnovation exists. Therefore, innovations canlead to needs, as well as vice versa.(p. 164)

The notion of needs figures in many strands of research. A brief list is given inTable 1.

Cultural critics and social philosophers, on the other hand, claim that the in-novation race is detrimental. Here the idea is that a distinction can/should be made

between real or genuine needs and artificial needs. (Ellul, 1964). In sustainabilityquestions and debates we see the same deadlock / dead end: when one is not

Figure2.The famous hierarchy of needs, according Maslow 1954

Self-

Actualization

Self-EsteemNeeds

Love andRelationship Needs

Biological Needs

B(bein

g)needs

D(deficiency)needs

Security Needs


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prepared to question the need of people (need of mobility, luxury), no much progressseems to be possible.

In the literature we find long discussions on the distinctions between basicneeds and non-basic needs, and on the distinction between needs and wants.(Soper 2006, Doyal and Gough 1991). A recurrent theme is the idea that what isconceived of as needs depends on the historical period and the locality:

Any rigorous conceptualisation of social determination and need dissolvesthe idea of absolute need. And a thorough-going relativity applies to time as wellas place. The necessities of life are not fixed. They are continuously being adaptedand augmented as changes take place in a society and in its products. Increasingstratification and a developing division of labour, as well as the growth of power-ful new organisations, create, as well as reconstitute, need. Certainly no standardof sufficiency could be revised only to take account of changes in prices, for thatwould ignore changes in the goods and services consumed as well as new obliga-tions and expectations placed on members of the community (Townsend, 1979:17-18, cited in Ytrehus, 2001).

This is contested by Doyal and Gough (1991) in their influential Theory ofHuman Needs.In spite of all the relativistic differences, they seek to establish prin-ciples to define universal needs. The ground from which they start is the idea ofparticipation in social life. Here two notions follow: physical health and autono-my; both are a starting point for a minimum of participation in social life. Thestress on objectivity of needs not only leads away from (cultural) relativism but alsofrom the idea that needs are individual expressions. Here the distinction is madebetween wants and needs, a distinction elaborated by Theodore Rivers (2008).This brings me to a tentative definition, that does not start from the assumed source

of needs but from the actions that are inspired by needs: something is needed if,when lacking, it invokes a sense of loss and incites efforts to repair.

Table1.Needs in research

Discipline Discussion

psychology and biology the famous layers of needs, Maslow, latent needs, needs andimitation, conspicuous consumption

anthropology needs in the fabric of social life

cultural studies relativistic accounts of needs

political philosophy and history the distribution of needs, philosophy of needs, need as a moderninvention, scarcity

economics preferences as starting point, as intentional black box

innovation studies demand articulation, user-producer


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Ytrehus (2001) gives a distinction between the i) positivist tradition, assumingthe possibility to objectively measuring needs, ii) the market oriented tradition,equaling needs with expressed preferences of economic agents, iii), the cultural tra-dition, stressing the relativity of needs and finally, iv),the universal standards tradi-tion, who embed needs in a broader understanding of social and cultural participation.One of the most developed typologies of need is from Max-Neef, see Table 2.

Intermezzo: the case of cows

The term needs is surprisingly absent in innovation studies. A literature searchreveals that the notion of needs is used in the case of children, adolescents, ani-mals, elderly and patients. This suggests that the needs of normal subjects (i.e.

middle-aged adults) are seen as private terrain, whereas it is allowed to speculateabout the needs of non-normal subjects, such as children, patients or animals.In some of those areas the use of need as cornerstone of innovation is extensively

developed, for instance about the housing of cows. Many models exist to derivehousing specifications from the needs of cows. In their article on Behavioral needsof the transition cow and considerations for special needs facility design NigelCook and Kenneth Nordlund explain it as follows:

We believe that to improve the health and well-being of dairy cattle in modernfree stall facilities, we must provide for the needs of each cow so that she can behave

as a herding animal, eating with the herd, resting with the herd, and socializingwithout fear (Cook et al.,2004, 496).

Table2.Max-Neefs definitions of need

Basic Need Satisfaction of needs Dissatisfaction of needs

Subsistence Satiated, repleted Hungry

Protection Sage In danger, anxiety Affection Love, being loved Hate, indifference

Understanding Intellectual well-being, smart, clever Intellectual frustration, dumb, stupid

Participation Belonging, related, involved Lonesome, isolated, forsaken

Leisure Playful, relaxed Boredom/bored, weary, stressed

Creation Creative, inspired Uninspired

Identity Self-assured, confident, positive self-image Uncertain, insecure, negative self-image

Freedom Free, independent Entangled, chained, bounded, captured, tied

Source:Max-Neef, 1992, cited in Jackson et al.2004.


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From this they derive many requirements for housing types. For people, suchan approach is rare. See what nice political programme follows when we replacecow with human being, stall facilities with living environment, and herd withsociety and, for the sake of gender she with they:

We believe that to improve the health and well-being of human beings inmodern free living environments, we must provide for the needs of each humanbeing so that they can behave as a member of society, eating with society, restingwith society, and socializing without fear.

It is, on the one hand, a noble intention. On the other hand, is it uncomfort-able, and even suspicious to hear about a distinction between the we and thehuman beings. It is an utopian intention, to have explicit ideas about the goodlife, about the needs that express and underpin the good life, andto seek to real-ize them. The utopian tradition, as has been pointed out by many authors, isstrong in the modern political thinking (Kumar, 1987). Apparently, needs requireto be subjectively owned (Soper, 2006).

The case of Internet

A recurrent theme is whether and how what is conceived of as needs depends on

the historical period and the locality. Central here is the institutional definition ofneeds by experts or markets. In the case of the rise of the Internet, we can reconstructhow needs are part of the co-evolutionary process of technical change. While thecoverage in mass media had a peak around the turn of the century, the adoption andvisibility continued. It can be traced how the use of Internet became the standard. In1996, the fear was that those who used Internet had an undeserved head start.

Its clear that via Internet a very selective group gains a head start in thehousing market. The most wanted houses are already gone by the time off-linersreceive their housing paper. This is the bugbear of the growing use of information

technology by the government and semi-governmental institutions (NRC news-paper, 13-09-1996).

A few years later, the ones not using Internet were seen as the source of prob-lems: The coming years the difference between haves and have-nots of [ICT]will continue to grow. Therefore, it is necessary that traditional forms of commu-nication will continue to exist (NRC newspaper 13-12-1999).

And, eventually, Internet was declared as a necessity, even more so than a re-frigerator.

Dutch population cannot do without the Internet [...] research by TNS/NIPO and webwereld.nl shows. It was a confirmation of what everyone already


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felt. [...] Internet is more important than a refrigerator. The Internet replaced thefridge and the television as the most important household appliance (NRC news-paper, 26-11-2005).

Recently, on January 24 2013, Reuters reported that the Federal Court of Justicein Karlsruhe declared the right to claim compensation from service providers if theirInternet access is disrupted, because the Internet is an essential part of life. Theoccasion was a case of a man who had been disconnected from telephone, fax and In-ternet from the end of 2008 to early 2009. He had already been compensated for theformer two, but now also insisted on compensation for not having Internet. This wasgranted. The Internet plays a very important role today and affects the private life ofan individual in very decisive ways. Therefore loss of use of the Internet is comparableto the loss of use of a car, a court spokeswoman told Germanys ARD television.

Users and technology assessment

Thus far, the reasoning in this paper leads to the following propositions: needsare parts of forms of life; forms of life are dynamic; new technologies express andmodify forms of life; new technologies express and modify needs; new needs mayturn into rights. Together, this gives rise to the following scheme on how needs areproduced in ongoing socio-technical transformation.

experimentationand learning

selection

meaningsbackgroundfor novelty

excitement &curiosity

stabilized life forms

including needs

domesticationand appropriation

production ofnovelty

Production of needs

Figure3.Production of needs


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Needs should be central but disappear quickly in academic accounts. In eco-nomic accounts of innovation the only relationship is to preferences, which arenot further scrutinized, as they are assumed to stem from rational, free customers.This contradicts the way consumers are approached as spoiled children with mal-leable wishes, in the same ambivalent way as in democracies citizens are, on theone hand seen mature and rational the cornerstone of ideological legitimationand, on the other hand, seen as receptive to balloons with slogans and free hats.

Traditionally, in critical studies of (technical) progress needs of ordinarypeople have been defended vis--vis the logic of technological progress. The lastdecade a new twist has been given to this: the role of users in innovation. Users,according to the proponents of this approach, are important sources of creativity,necessary ingredients of legitimacy and are needed for any stable social embedment

of new technologies. Inspired by accounts of the creative role of lead users in medi-cal appliances (Von Hippel, 2001), a range of studies has introduced and empha-sized the various ways in which users enter the scene of innovation (Douthwaiteet al. 2001). A blind spot here is the uncritical appraisal of involvement per se. Aslong as user involvement is intensified, developments are seen as good. This tendsto be an uncritical embracement of what users think are their needs. But what ifthe wishes of users are childish, harmful and immature?

The same blind spot for the ongoing production of needs can be located inTechnology Assessment. TA approaches (Constructive TA, Participatory TA,Strategic TA) seek to enrich and broaden technological development by reflection

and participation of stakeholders. While this is very useful and wise, what is missingis a countervailing power to the ongoing production of novelty with its ownneeds production. Therefore, I plead for a TA that starts not with new technologi-cal options but from notions of the good life, and investigate how (old and new)technologies may support these. (See Figure 4 and 5).

Thinking about the good life is as old as the philosophical tradition. It is morethan providing wish lists, it is a specification of what really matters, and entailsmore than what the text book of Consumer Behaviorrecalls: Roper Starch World-wide, a market research firm, has been surveying Americans about what they con-sider the good life to be for more than 20 years. In the 1970s, people defined thegood life as including a steady job, a home, a good marriage, and a college educa-tion for their children. Today, the list is twice as long. It now includes a swimmingpool, travel abroad, a second car, and money lots of it (Blackwellet al., 2001,p. 241).

Conclusion

In this paper I explored how needs interfere with innovation. On the one

hand, needs appear to be central in innovation, as new products and systems areseen as fulfilling needs. On the other hand, needs tend to disappear from innovation


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re-active TAexperimentation

and learning

stabilized life formsincluding needs



selection

meaningsbackgroundfor novelty


Figure4.Traditional Technology Assessment

Figure5.TA and the good life

experimentationand learning

stabilized life formsincluding needs



life forms ofthe good life

selection

meaningsbackgroundfor noveltyincentives

for novelty


pro-active TA


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discourses, in spite of the recent attention to the role of users, or users rep-resentations and demand articulation. The phenomenon that I am interested in isthe continuous creation of needs and the rendering out-of-date of needs in theongoing dynamics of socio-technical change. How do we know what needs are,what is their position in the waves of innovation? The dynamics of expectationsframework, that sees the production of novelty as starting from promises, is ahelpful way to give a place to needs in innovation. It appears that the lack of at-tention to the ongoing production of needs is also apparent in traditional Technology

Assessment, that tend to be reactive to new emerging technologies. Starting froma deeper reflection on what we really need, a more pro-active TA should be possi-ble. These questions are pressing in the light of sustainability. The distinctionbetween real or genuine needs on the one hand, and artificial needs on the other

is misleading. Therefore, the question whether needs are real or artificial is not veryhelpful. The relevant and sensible question posed by the rise of new technologiesis: which needs can we afford?

Acknowledgement

I thank the participants in the symposium Frontiers of Science: Dilemmas andChallenges in the Forefront of Research (Oviedo, 29 October 2012) for theirfeedback on a version of this paper. I thank Bart Gzik for discussions about needs

and about the rise of Internet in The Netherlands; he also pointed me to the news-paper quotes.

References

Blackwell, R. P. W., Miniardand J. Engel(2001), Consumer Behavior, Mason, Ohio,South Western Thomson Learning.

Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K. and Van Lente, H. (2006), The sociology of expec-tations in science and technology, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 18

(3-4), 285-298.Brown, N. and Michael, M. (2003), A sociology of expectations: Retrospecting pros-

pects and prospecting retrospects, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management,15(1), 3-18.

Brown, N., Rappert, B. andWebster, A. (2000), Contested futures a sociology of prospec-tive techno-science,Aldershot.

Brundtland Commission(1987), Our Common Future, United Nations World Com-mission on Environment and Development, 1987.

Cook, N.andNordlundK. (2004), Behavioral needs of the transition cow and consider-ations for special needs facility design, Vet Clin Food Anim,Vol. 20, 495-520.

Decoufl, A. and SchwartzN. (1974), The concept of needs: a survey of illusions,Futures,16-25.


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Douthwaite, B., Keatinge, J. D. H. and Park, J. R. (2001), Why promising technolo-gies fail: The neglected role of user innovation during adoption, Research Policy,30 (5),819-836.

Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1991),A theory of human need, New York, Guilford Press.Drucker, P. E. (1954), The Practice of Management, New York, Harper & Row.Ellul, J. (1964), The technological society,New York, Vintage Books.Graber, F. (2007), Inventing needs: Expertise and water supply in late eighteenth- and

early nineteenth-century Paris, British Journal for the History of Science,40 (3), 315-332.

Jackson, T.,JagerW. and StaglS. (2004), Beyond insatiability needs theory, con-sumption and sustainability, in L. A. Reisch and I. Roepke, The Ecological Economicsof Consumption, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 79-110.

Kumar, K. (1987), Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times, Basil Blackwell.

Maslow, A. H. (1943), A theory of human motivation, Psychological Review, 50 (4), 370-96.Max-Neef, M. (1992), Development and human needs, in P. Ekins and M. Max-Neef(eds.), Real-life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation, New York, Routledge,p. 197-213.

Rivers, T. J. (2008), Technologys role in the confusion of needs and wants, Technologyin Society,30 (1), 104-109.

Rogers, E. M. (2003), Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, New York (5thedition).Soper, K. (2006). Conceptualizing needs in the context of consumer politics,Journal of

Consumer Policy,29 (4), 355-372.Townsend, P. (1979), Poverty in the United Kingdom,London, Allen Lane and Penguin

Books

Utterback, J. M. (1993),Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation,Harvard Business SchoolPress;Van Lente,H. (2000), Forceful futures: From promise to requirement, in N. Brown, B.

Rappert and A. Webster (eds.), Contested futures. A sociology of prospective techno-science(pp. 43-64), Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing.

(2012), Navigating Foresight in a Sea of Expectations. Lessons from the Sociology ofExpectations, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Vol. 24 (8), 789-802.

Von Hippel, E. (2001), Perspective: User toolkits for innovation,Journal of Product In-novation Management, 18 (4), 247-257

Ytrehus, S. (2010), Interpretation of housing needs A critical discussion, Housing,Theory and Society, 17 (4), 166-174.


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IILA CIENCIA EN LA INFORMACIN

Y LOSMEDIA


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Periodismo diletante o ciencia meditica?La metamorfosis del artculo cientfico

en noticia de prensa1

Carolina Moreno Castro y Ada Gil PrezUniversitat de Valncia y Universidad Politcnica de Valencia

Planteamiento y estado de la cuestin

En este captulo analizaremos los aspectos ms relevantes de la publicacin deuna noticia cientfica en una seleccin de diarios de informacin general, desde elpunto de vista de la retrica de la divulgacin. El objetivo del presente trabajo esexponer y debatir a lo largo de las siguientes pginas cmo se transforma el cono-cimiento cientfico en discurso pblico y cmo se mide la calidad de la cienciaque se difunde a travs de los medios de comunicacin. Para ello, hemos seleccio-nado un artculo cientfico sobre el descubrimiento de una reaccin qumica cau-sante de la degradacin del color de las pinturas de Van Gogh, que fue noticia en

su momento. A partir de la lectura del artculo cientfico y de las noticias publica-das en la prensa, hemos formulado dos hiptesis de partida. La primera hiptesisque trataremos de confirmar es que en el mundo del periodismo actual a la hora depublicar una noticia cientfica que implique un cierto nivel de complejidad por eluso de tecnicismos y de trminos monosmicos, no existe un modelo de trabajocientfico que resulte un desafo impublicable. Esto es, los medios de comunica-cin no consideran que difundir conocimiento cientfico sea un reto especfico,

1 Este trabajo ha sido realizado en el marco del proyecto de investigacin:Anlisis de las campaas

institucionales en el caso de la vacunacin contra el virus del papiloma humano(CSO2011-25819), finan-ciado por el Plan Nacional de Investigacin de I+D+I del Gobierno de Espaa.


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48 Carolina Moreno Castro y Ada Gil Prez

que haya que tratar de manera rigurosa, y atendiendo, en cierto sentido, a las es-trictas normas internas de publicacin de los trabajos cientficos. Los medios trans-mutan la complejidad2de un trabajo cientfico erigiendo un elemento que sea ab-solutamente meditico y que, en la mayora de los casos, ni siquiera se tratara delo ms sobresaliente de la investigacin. La segunda hiptesis est vinculada con lostemas que las revistas cientficas seleccionan y envan a las redacciones, a travs delos comunicados de prensa. Estos temas son los que denominamos bajo el eptetode ciencia meditica y que, generalmente, no constituyen un conocimiento ver-daderamente relevante para la comunidad cientfica, sino que se trata de trabajospuramente atractivos y visibles.

El nmero de noticias difundidas sobre ciencia y tecnologa no aumenta, desdehace una dcada, en los espacios informativos, a pesar de la oferta multicanal y

multiplataforma. Sin embargo, s que se producen y difunden contenidos cientfi-cos en los medios audiovisuales a travs de programas de entretenimiento, como yasucede desde hace unos aos con otras noticias de actualidad de marcado gneroinformativo. Los temas de actualidad se estn incardinando, hibridando y adaptan-do en espacios que no simbolizan su ecosistema natural. En 2001, Brodie et al.analizaron cmo las temticas sobre salud estaban siendo difundidas en los progra-mas de entretenimiento, especialmente a travs de series de televisin, como ER(Urgencias).En las conclusiones del estudio consideraron que las series de entrete-nimiento eran un soporte idneo que permitan aprovechar algunas oportunidadespara promocionar las polticas pblicas gubernamentales, de tal forma que se po-

dan transmitir mensajes sobre salud que mejoraran la calidad de vida de la ciuda-dana y, en ocasiones, salvar sus vidas. En la mayor parte de los trabajos publicadosen los que se

fronteras de la ciencia dilemas recor

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