The Cultural Authority of Science

Comparing across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas

Martin Bauer, Petra Pansegrau, Rajesh Shukla, Martin W Bauer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367487027
• eBook ISBN: 9781351670715
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The cultural authority of science is the authority that is granted to science in any particular context. This authority is as much a matter of image and perceived legitimacy as of statutory guarantee. However, while authority can be charismatic, based on tradition or based on competence, we would assume that science aims to be an authority of competence. To what extent does science have the last word, or stand above opinion on public issues?

This Indo-European led collaboration aims to map the cultural authority of science, and to construct a system of indicators to observe this 'science culture' based on artefacts (science news analysis) and espoused beliefs and evaluations (public attitude data). Indeed, through a series of studies the authors examine the cultural authority of science in light of the challenges posed by European, Asian, African and American developments and debates. In particular, two main ideas are examined: the 'Lighthouse' model, whereby science is shining into a stormy sea of ignorance and mistrust; and the 'Bungee Jump' model, which demonstrates how science occasionally experiences a rough ride against a backdrop of goodwill.

Presenting expertise in discourse analysis, computer-assisted text analysis and largescale survey analysis, The Cultural Authority of Science will be of interest to a global audience concerned with the standing of science in society. In particular, it may appeal to scholars and students of fields such as sociology of science, science communication, science studies, scientometrics, innovation studies and social psychology.

Part 1
Concepts and theory

1 Image, perception and cultural authority of science – by way of introduction

Martin W. Bauer, Petra Pansegrau and Rajesh Shukla

Modern societies perform and demonstrate their understanding of issues and problems in conferences, opinion polling, scoping exercises, everyday conversations and mass media debates where the sciences are variably granted cultural authority, i.e. opinions expressed with ‘scientific authority’ are taken ‘on trust’, no further questions asked. Science, when enjoying such goodwill, occupies common ground in society; though this is not always and everywhere the case. In this Science, Technology and Society book edition, we examine empirically the state of play of goodwill towards science and the ‘authoritative voice’ which science has across the globe (Walsh, 2013). Our empirical time horizon covers the period of the 1980s to the 2010s, with some glimpses into deeper history.

In the following, we will first explore the meaning of ‘authority’ in general, and the aspiration of a cultural authority of science in particular. Secondly, we will briefly outlines two empirical concepts of the authority of science, the Lighthouse (LH) and Bungee Jump (BJ) model. Thirdly, we examine three trends in the authority of science: general ascendancy, general decline, and social segmentation. Finally, we will review indicators of the authority of science and give a brief overview of the book.

What is authority: top-down or bottom-up?

This volume exploring the cultural authority of science seems hardly the place to raise the fundamental question of ‘authority’. More competent authors have done so. However, let us rehearse some general features of ‘authority’ which are needed for an understanding of the cultural authority of science.

First, authority is beyond violence; it finds legitimation outside of power. From a basis in Natural Law, in tradition, or through ‘sacred’ rituals and procedures, authority is capable of speaking truth to power.

Second, historically tied to hierarchy and granted from ‘upon high’; authority is a mandate of heaven. In modern society though, hierarchy is superseded by functional differentiation of subsystems: the law operating on a code of legality, the economy on money, politics on power, and techno-science on scientific truth and technical efficiency (Luhmann, 1984). Authority falls into the cracks between systems of discourse. Claims to authority can only irritate across discourse boundaries; cannot afford obedience, at most compliance. Herein lies a source of instability, modern authority finds it difficult to be general and universal.

Third, when authority is lost, freedom seems to be gained. However, this is a tragic misunderstanding. Arendt (1958) warned that the absence of authority opens doors for the abuse of power: the opposite of authority is tyranny, not freedom. It is authority of the law, guaranteed outside power, which guarantees freedom of citizens, and also of scientific research.

Fourth, authority means ‘having agency’. The word incorporates the Latin ‘auctor’ for actor. In classical rhetoric, authority makes belief. The authority of the voice arises from the projected character (ethos), rather than in the power of the argument (logos). In court, the presiding judge pronounces on authority and thus substitutes for long arguments, no such arguments are needed for the moment (Eschenburg, 1965); reasons of justification will be provided by the clerks for the record.

Fifth, authority is granted; it involves the act of acknowledgement. For Gadamer (1960), in securing a valid text interpretations, authority is relational, A has authority over B. But this is no subjugation of B by A nor an abdication of reason on the part of B, but a reasonable acknowledgement by B that A has the better insights, stronger arguments or superior judgement. Thus, authority rests in autonomy (Kant’s ‘sapere aude’), daring to make use of reason and judgement. For those who grant authority, it means acceptance of dependency on somebody else’s judgement. This is an act of freedom, rather than ‘blind obedience’. Authority is thus granted by acknowledgement, and it can, therefore, be withheld by B and be lost for A.

Sixth, authority is the middle way between violence and argumentation. Putting a stop to endless debate, authority needs neither argument nor violence to do so. By implication, any call for more debate challenges authority. Public deliberation always asks: is the claim evidentially true, morally right and truthfully expressed? All three validity claims must be assessed on the strength of arguments and not the authority of the speaker (Habermas, 2001). Thus, the modern ideal of public deliberation sits uneasy with authority.

Seventh, authority rests in perception and lives from symbols, images and representation which are cultivated by pomp and circumstances, but also by competent performance. Images of authority inspire deference (Sennett, 1980). Modern authority is based on prestige arising from effective performance that is put on display (e.g. nobel prizes, University rankings). Authority commands trust, which is the expectation on the part of B that A is delivering; B can count on A, and there is a choice: B trusts A more than she trusts C to deliver the goods, because C carries a greater risk of disappointment. However, we need ‘confidence’ when we do not have a choice. We confide in the police when they exercise a monopoly for security in society; in situations where the police competes with private firms (as in Brazil), we must trust either the police or the firm to deliver safety (Luhmann, 1998). Fiduciary responsibility for common welfare, and the institutional competence to do so, are pillars of trust and reputational authority (Barber, 1993).

Finally, ‘authority’ becomes an issue when no longer taken for granted, when it no longer goes unquestioned. Discussions of authority often invoke a ‘moral panic’ over decline, chaos and disorder in society. We find Arendt (1958) raising the question ‘what is authority?’ and Eschenburg (1965) reviewing the protracted history of this question during a crisis of post-war institutions in the 1950s and 1960s. In the ‘events of 68’, highly educated anti-authoritarian students, encouraged by some teachers, made front against ‘authoritarian personalities’ (Adorno et al., 1950) who continued their careers after having previously enabled the tyrannies of the 20th century.

We can credit the emergence of empirical indicators of ‘trust in authorities’ to these challenges. Social researchers started to observe ‘authorities in society’ as an empirical matter. In the US, the item ‘how much would you say you trust institution x’ entered the General Social Survey (GSS) in 1974. In the UK, Ipsos-MORI publishes the ‘veracity index’ (I believe that x is telling the truth) since 1983. These measures themselves indicate that in modern society it no longer suffices to exert influence top-down by statute; authority is based on reputation and consent. Authority needs to have legitimacy; to be legal is neither necessary nor sufficient.

There has been debate about such measures of public consent and whether they are sufficiently reliable as indicators of authority; if they were too unstable, we could not distinguish method variance from trends (see Turner & Kraus, 1978). This debate continues over subjective indicators of values (Schwartz, 2011) and generalised trust (Lundmark et al., 2016).

In this context, we notice that ‘Scientists, Engineers, Science & Technology, or Techno-Science’ did not figure from start in these indicators. The entry of ‘Science’ in the lists of potentially ‘mistrusted’ actors is itself an index of relevance: the unproblematic needs no metric. Science gets included in the US at start in 1974, in the UK only 1997, in the EU or in Brazil not yet (as in 2018). Direct trust items include ‘do you trust science’ (general trust) or ‘do you believe that scientists are telling the truth’ (veracity, honesty, pathos), or ‘do you believe that scientists have your interest at heart’ (fiduciary trust, virtue, ethos), ‘do you trust that science can solve the problems of climate change’ (epistemic, competence, logos).

In this volume, we will demonstrate that the ‘cultural authority of science’ is indicated in a broader set of questions than asking directly on ‘trust’. A global exercise of measuring the public understanding of science has developed since the 1980s (see Bauer & Falade, 2014; Bauer, Shukla & Allum, 2012). These items will be used to construct indirect measures of public respect for and deference to science. This includes paying attention to and being interested in, giving mind space, imagining and knowing science, bothering to evaluate its impact and getting involved in various ways. However, before we elaborate further on such indirect measures, let us briefly examine the notion of an ‘authority of science’.

The authority of science: legal, social and cultural

We have above identified general features of authority: being acknowledged; it drives a middle way between violence and endless argumentation; tied to hierarchy in a world without hierarchies makes it unstable; grounded outside power, authority is able to speak truth to power and to guarantee freedom; authority is vested in images and perception; accepting authority means deferring judgement; and challenges to authority give rise to a sense of crisis.

We recognise in the sciences and their institutions many of these features. Speaking truth to power and performing freedom is a high aspiration of scientists in society. However, at the heart of this authority of science, there is a contradiction. The history of science is rich in stories of science challenging and unshackling itself from the authorities of superstition, religion, ideology and state control. There is an anti-authoritarian attitude running in scientific methodology, captured in the 17th-century motto of the Royal Society ‘nullius in verba’, take nobody’s word for it. Arguments from authority are to be ignored; the business of science is facts demonstrated under the eyes of peers. This ethos includes a misconceived rejection of rhetorical language (see Feyerabend, 2016). Thus, anti-authoritarian science seeking authority seems contradictory (Luhmann, 1996, p. 23). There is a similar paradox in law, which struggles to include a right to resistance: how can there be a right to break the law without undermining the rules of law (Pottage, 2013).

Functional differentiated, modern society has several and competing authorities. With legal authority, we mean the authority bestowed by constituted law. Though guaranteed by statute, reputation and performance still count. Lawyers and judges worry about the reputation of the whole system. In Europe, the medieval debates over ‘Church and State’ resulted in various settlements between state and religion. So, for example, the Anglican Church is constitutional in the UK, and their bishops have guaranteed seats in the House of Lords; no other religion is granted such a role. On the whole, legal authority seems jealous, tolerating no other authority. By contrast, science tends not to enjoy such exclusivity, while its freedom is protected under human rights, freedom of speech, or universities inheriting jurisdiction under the law.

With social authority, we mean the fact that trust in science is confined to a subgroup of society. The voice of science is only recognised in a particular social milieu. While an actor has authority in that group, they are not recognised elsewhere. For example, religious leaders have authority in their congregation; outside of which less so. While the Rabbi might have authority in the Jewish community, outside he or she might be unknown. Equally, the Pope might have little tracking among non-Catholics, where the Church has lost its privilege.

With cultural authority, we designate a generally acknowledged authority. An institution might have a trajectory through all types of authority. It seems that the Papacy has moved from an absolute authority (pre-modern Europe) to a social authority (only for confessional Catholics), to a cultural authority with a global profile. Some people might argue that the loss of legal authority could be a pre-condition of cultural authority. With these considerations, we are now able to define better the cultural authority of science.¹

Science has no statutory privileges in modern societies; there are not guaranteed seats in the Upper Houses of the world’s parliamentary democracies. Technocracy is nowhere a constitutional form of government; rather a temporary temptation and aberration. Scientists, if not elected by popular vote, can be called as ‘experts’. This gives rise to the regulatory science of risk management (Jasanoff, 1990) which becomes the fifth branch of state after government, parliament, courts and the media. In most countries, the position of a ‘Scientific Advisor’ to government is a role that comes and goes. Also, science has authority in court, e.g. when DNA evidence or psychological testing is granted the status of ‘objective’ evidence. In our discussions of scientific authority, we revisited the Indian notion of a ‘scientific temper’, a key idea of secular nation building on the subcontinent. This idea refers to an aspiration for all Indians to grant cultural authority to science. It makes scientific evidence the third constraint on public choices after preferences and tradition; but it can be misused to buttress ‘technocracy’ (see Raza, this volume; Kilnany, 1997, p. 180).

The cultural authority is, therefore, an aspiration as much as it is a social fact in any society, to be an institution of general repute able to speak truth to power. The state of play of cultural authority of science is thus an eminently empirical matter, but also subject to polemical claims and counterclaims, which include over-stating the case of an ascendancy or of a moral panic over the decline in the reputation of science in society. The recent alarms over a ‘Post-Truth Society’ where fake-news rules the information diet of the average member of the public, signals concern over the loss of authority over basic facts, such as global warming, crime rates or the economic prospect of the nation. That famous politician’s throwaway of 2016, ‘we had heard enough of experts’, strikes a sinister note across Europe and beyond (Bauer, 2018).

The political control over science has increased since in the 1970s following the neo-liberal call that ‘science is too important to be left to scientists’. Academic self-regulation is considered ‘rent-seeking’ and substituted by fiscal steering; state funding is reduced and substituted by private R&D investments. Loss of autonomy comes from external justifications. Scientific research is now justified only by utility. Systems of accountability and performance i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures, tables, boxes and appendices
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements or credits list
• Part 1 Concepts and theory
• Part 2 Mediated authority – comparing the science news flow
• Part 3 Perceived authority – cross-sectional and longitudinal
• Part 4 Inferred assumptions: comparing the culture as frame of reference
• Part 5 Conclusion
• Index