12 March

Sometimes a book can help change a life. Latour’s Science in Action was one of those, for me. Always hated the title, it sounds so boring, but it’s one of the most revolutionary books of our time, it can change how you see the entire world. One thing Latour (and also Toulmin) describe is how science shifted to a legal model of knowing. A laboratory is really just a courtroom for objects, where they’re put through repeated trials to ‘prove facts’. That’s not an analogy, it was literally the introduction of the legal model of knowing, into science. At school we’re taught that this is just how science is, but it hasn’t been like this for most of our history. After the vicious wars of the 16th and 17th century, people wanted ways to have more certain knowledge, rather than having to argue. The scientific laboratory and ‘method’ was the direct result of that. Facts on trial. It’s unravelling now, with ‘fake news’ and kangaroo courts. Certainty has been lost, and that should teach us that certainty is not a given, ever. Science could actually be liberated by moving away more from this legal model.