Reflections On Cognition And Ethics Of Big Science

Studies for the concepts of Big Science and its related fields began in 60s last century,after Manhattan Project,with the rapid development of NASA and Quantum Physics Laboratory.American physicist,the Nobel Laureate,Steve Weinberg first brought forward the concept of Big Science,he thought the technology entities such as particle accelerator and space shuttle is the feature of Big Science,all those artifacts should be used the national power to build.Weinberg also see the Big Science as a historically inevitable but pathological thing,he warned scientists and the public to watch out the " triple diseases-journalitis,moneyitis and administrati-tis of Big Science.After Weinberg,another physicist,Derek Price let the concept of Big Science become more general,by the works of scientometrics.Unlike Weinberg,Price did not take the meaning of Big Science for granted,he explicitly desired to elucidate what can distinguish the present phase of Big Science as something new,something different from the preceding age of Little Science.Price acknowledged that Big Science had brought qualitative changes like a great deal of administration,organization and politicking.Price argued that "we have not been sufficiently scientific in analyzing a whole set of regularities"in the growth of science." Clearly,he envisioned Big Science primarily as a scientific phenomenon:science itself was a measurable entity and Big Science was simply a quantitatively different signal on the historical screen of scientific progress.The first chapter discusses the Big Science and its revolution.After 1980s,not only a few scientists felt worried about Big Science,but some historians of science,philosopher of science and sociologists of science joined this field and began to study it.They also show a negative view to it,think Big Science may reverse science.They study the concept in different ways and some theories were well-received such asMode-2 of Production of Knowledge,Postacamemic Science and Technoscience.The Mode-2 of Production of Knowledge is very different from the mode-1,Mode2 is not just a new mode of knowledge production,it is also a formula for a possible new research culture.In Mode 2,knowledge is produced by teams of researchers networked across a wide range of organizations.The diverse working conditions of these researchers cannot be disregarded.Those who are on short term contracts of employment are not in a strong position to show independence of mind.We even can find mode-2' s prototype in the early civilization,from medicine,engineering,agriculture,especially the machinery manufacture.Traditional academic science has always worked on "Darwinian" principles.Scientists undertake research and offer results on innumerable different problems.Knowledge advances in unforeseen directions by the retention of the small proportion of these results that survive rigorous testing.It is a very wasteful process in detail,and seldom produces outcomes that perfectly fit our current needs.It just happens to be extraordinarily effective at generating remarkably reliable knowledge.Postacademic science will continually strive to improve on this process.It will try to push the process in desired directions by strongly favoring research on particular problems.It may thus be very effective in overrunning disciplinary frontiers,in order to construct detailed local maps of potentially useful areas.However,postacademic science could become so obsessed with accountability,performance monitoring,contractual scrutiny,and other forms of"quality control" that it sacrifices the quality of the procedures themselves to their sheer quantity.The concept of Technoscience was introduced by Gilbert Hottois,later Bruno Latour,Donna Haraway,Andrew Pickering and Don Idhe developed it.Technoscience normally means technology combined with the science and society,Technoscience recognizes that scientific knowledge is not only socially coded and historically situated but sustained and made durable by material(non-human)networks.Technoscience states that the fields of science and technology are linked and grow together,and scientific knowledge requires an infrastructure of technology in order to remain stationary or move forward.In other word,technoscience is about the mundane,the material,the symbolic and meaningful power.From the view of philosophy of science,the concept of big science and its evolution has challenged the objectivity of value in mainstream philosophy of science.All different views show a reality that today's science is no longer value-free,but combined with political power,commercial interests,mass cognition closely.But the mainstream philosophy of science still firmly believe that today's science is value-free,so it caused serious problem.Big Science after end of 20th century shows another form,the commercialization of academic science.The origin of this refers to a range of social factors.In the past 20 years,we studied it with sociology,history and economics ways,but not philosophy.Commercialization brings the problems of science rationality,problem about the relationship between the invention and discovery,and the challenge to Merton's scientific ethos.Now the scientific community had build new academic rule,which means though commercialized context is very different from Merton's context,it also different from the social constructionism context.Commercialization of science has had an unprecedented influence on science,so today's philosophy of Science should turn to focus on the science as practice.We can rediscover the rationality of science and rebuild the impression of science,This is the main content of the second chapter.The third chapter talks about a strange phenomenon in technological innovation field,the "Theranos phenomenon",The commercialization of academic science promotes the vigorous development of science and technology innovation,with the success of Silicon Valley,society began to encourage universities to become an economic entity,to commercialize their research and transforming basic knowledge into innovative products in the market.However,in science and technology entrepreneurship today,we often find a strange phenomenon.American company Theranos is a typical case,such companies do not have the scientific basis and technical conditions,but they are good at making up a story for high finance.Finally they will fall and lose all,left waste of different social resources.In conclusion,this paper reviews the Big Science and its development,focuses on the cognitive and ethical problems brought by science under the context of commercialization,discussed the involvement of commercial capital of science,and the challenge to philosophy and ethic.Philosophy of science should no longer play with language games,and turn to practice,which is the way to serve science and benefit the human.