Captives of controversy: The myth of the neutral social researcher in contemporary scientific controversies

According to both traditional positivist approaches and also to the sociology of scientific knowledge, social analysts should not themselves become involved in the controversies they are investigating. But the experiences of the authors in studying contemporary scientific controversies—specifically, over the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, fluoridation, and vitamin C and cancer—show that analysts, whatever their intentions, cannot avoid being drawn into the fray. The field of controversy studies needs to address the implications of this process for both theory and practice. Scientific controversies have long excited both the passions of partici-pants and the interest of social scientists. ’ For researchers into the nature of science, controversies have the advantage that social processes normally hidden in laboratories and offices are brought into open view in a dramatic fashion. Assumptions that are normally implicit are challenged by disputants, routine procedures scrutinized, and weak points in arguments attacked. The disadvantage of studying controversies is that they may give an unrealistic picture of the day-to-day operations of normal science (Mulkay, Potter, and Yearley 1983). In any case, controversy analysis is a thriving field of study, no doubt due, in part, to their human drama and social implications. The traditional social science approach to scientific controversies has been to study the social dynamics of science, assuming that there is a scientific truth underlying the debate. Usually one side is believed to be much closer to this core truth, and the task of the social scientist then becomes one of explaining why the other side persists in its claims. The social scientist usually accepts the judgment of the most authoritative scientists about scientific realities