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Never Pure
Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority
Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings.
Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings.
Shapin's essays collected here include reflections on the historical relationships between science and common sense, between science and modernity, and between science and the moral order. They explore the relevance of physical and social settings in the making of scientific knowledge, the methods appropriate to understanding science historically, dietetics as a compelling site for historical inquiry, the identity of those who have made scientific knowledge, and the means by which science has acquired credibility and authority. This wide-ranging and intensely interdisciplinary collection by one of the most distinguished historians and sociologists of science represents some of the leading edges of change in the scholarly understanding of science over the past several decades.
564 pages, Paperback
First published April 21, 2010
11 people are currently reading
320 people want to read
About the author
Steven Shapin
14 books39 followersShapin was trained as a biologist at Reed College and did graduate work in genetics at the University of Wisconsin before taking a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
From 1972 to 1989, he was Lecturer, then Reader, at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, and, from 1989 to 2003, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, before taking up an appointment at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard. He has taught for brief periods at Columbia University, Tel-Aviv University, and at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. In 2012, he was the S. T. Lee Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
He has written broadly on the history and sociology of science. Among his concerns are scientists, their ethical choices, and the basis of scientific credibility. He revisioned the role of experiment by examining where experiments took place and who performed them. He is credited with restructuring the field's approach to “big issues” in science such as truth, trust, scientific identity, and moral authority.
"The practice of science, both conceptually and instrumentally, is seen to be full of social assumptions. Crucial to their work is the idea that science is based on the public's faith in it. This is why it is important to keep explaining how sound knowledge is generated, how the process works, who takes part in the process and how."
His books on 17th-century science include the "classic book" Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (1985, with Simon Schaffer); his "path-breaking book" A Social History of Truth (1994), The Scientific Revolution (1996, now translated into 18 languages), and, on modern entrepreneurial science, The Scientific Life (2008). A collection of his essays is Never Pure (2010). His current research interests include the history of dietetics and the history and sociology of taste and subjective judgment, especially in relation to food and wine.
He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and he has written for Harper's Magazine and The New Yorker.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 10, 2014
The historical understanding of science is absolutely shaped by moral understanding, historical time, social context and philosophical ideals.
Bacon urged that, "ornaments of speech, similitudes, treasury of eloquence, and such like emptiness be utterly dismissed." In other words, just the facts, please without the passions.
And yet, scientific discoveries are shaped by the scientist, his manner of living, his social understanding, whether they lived in public spaces or in relative obscurity, how he moved about in the course of the day. For example, who was Charles Darwin, who was Sir Isaac Newton? Does it matter that of one of these men he said that his, "guts were noisy and smelly?"
This book is full of great historical insight and fascinating details of the history of science and of the (mostly men) who made science happen. I found the account of Robert Hooke fascinating. I was intrigued by the Industrial Scientist and the concern about their conflict of interest. And most especially interesting were the chapters on dietetic philosophy.
It matters that the following quote is by Celsus and that he lived in the 1500's, " drink two glasses of wine a day; never drink ten a day; and there's no good in having any wine free days."
Ten glasses a day is fine, but don't make a habit of it!
Or by La Rochefoucauld during the 1600's, "To keep well by too strict a regimen is a tedious disease in itself." By this two things were meant: 1. It was not pleasant for your body, 2. It was a socially unacceptable way of living.
I mean, would that go over today as sound science? And yet is was relevant and observed in their day.
I would say it is not so much a 'read for pleasure' sort of book as it is an historical account of science and the people who made science history. I did find the book interesting and if ever you needed a book for research purposes concerning the history of science, this would be a great resource.
Bacon urged that, "ornaments of speech, similitudes, treasury of eloquence, and such like emptiness be utterly dismissed." In other words, just the facts, please without the passions.
And yet, scientific discoveries are shaped by the scientist, his manner of living, his social understanding, whether they lived in public spaces or in relative obscurity, how he moved about in the course of the day. For example, who was Charles Darwin, who was Sir Isaac Newton? Does it matter that of one of these men he said that his, "guts were noisy and smelly?"
This book is full of great historical insight and fascinating details of the history of science and of the (mostly men) who made science happen. I found the account of Robert Hooke fascinating. I was intrigued by the Industrial Scientist and the concern about their conflict of interest. And most especially interesting were the chapters on dietetic philosophy.
It matters that the following quote is by Celsus and that he lived in the 1500's, " drink two glasses of wine a day; never drink ten a day; and there's no good in having any wine free days."
Ten glasses a day is fine, but don't make a habit of it!
Or by La Rochefoucauld during the 1600's, "To keep well by too strict a regimen is a tedious disease in itself." By this two things were meant: 1. It was not pleasant for your body, 2. It was a socially unacceptable way of living.
I mean, would that go over today as sound science? And yet is was relevant and observed in their day.
I would say it is not so much a 'read for pleasure' sort of book as it is an historical account of science and the people who made science history. I did find the book interesting and if ever you needed a book for research purposes concerning the history of science, this would be a great resource.
April 17, 2013
A collection of miscellany by Steven Shapin, one of the most clear-thinking and innovative scholars of science studies around. I'm not sure I'd recommend every essay in this volume for the general reader, but Shapin's commentary on the science wars is priceless, and the essays in the sections of the book on scientific methods, places, and persons are elegant summaries of insights developed in full-length books that are often a more difficult slog. In these essays Shapin's wit and playfulness shine through, as when he buries a recipe for "fricasee du poulet epistemologique" in a footnote to a serious essay on philosophical dietetics.
June 30, 2022
I'm not sure what I read that referenced this, but I'm glad I came across it just at the right time. This is a set of reasoned arguments that explain the history of why we think the way we do about science and scientists. Very dense and academic, but also surprisingly readable. I just wish it focused a bit more on modern views of science and how it changed over time instead of focusing so much on the past, though that is the author's expertise. Must find more like this.
May 10, 2013
For my LJ review check out the following:
Science & Technology
Science & Technology
Want to read
August 20, 2015a wild title.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews