SOCI 325: Sociology of Science

Agenda

Political economy of science and technology

  1. Administrative
  2. Overview of the next two weeks
  3. Political economy
  4. “Old” vs. “new” science
  5. Intellectual property and globalization

Next two weeks

Science as power

Scientific knowledge in the context of large-scale historical, political, and economic forces.

Still from Dr Strangelove (1964). Black and white image of a man wearing dark glasses with an unhinged grin on his face. He holds a cigarette near his face with one hand, with fingers held stiffly in odd directions.

Today

Political economy of science
Influences of economic and political interests on scientific knowledge production and consumption

Wed Nov 6

Science, colonialism, and postcolonial science studies
Science as result of and support for colonial projects

Mon Nov 11

Scientific racism and the construction of race
Role of science in defining racial categories

Wed Nov 13

Standardization, bodies, and society
Scientific objectification of bodies, especially in the context of gender and disability

Political economy of science and technology

Political economy of S&T

What is the political economy of science and technology?

  • Broadly, the role of poltical and economic interests on the production, transmission, and use of technoscientific knowledge
  • E.g.:
    legal restrictions, funding structures, trade secrets, government partnerships, globalization, …
black and white photo of a small, white, wooden building with a 1940s-style car parked in front. A large sign on the front of the building reads 'LOS ALAMOS PROJECT MAIN GATE / PASSES MUST BE PRESENTED TO GUARDS'

Political economy of S&T

a white-on-black schematic diagram featurina a triangular representation of a map of the world with arrows pointing in various directions and obscure labels such as 'Planetary factory', 'Outsourcing', 'Corporate mercantilism', and 'Gloablization of intellectual property; TRIPS (1994)'

Exerpt from Calculating Empires
A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500 (2003) by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler

“Knowledge economy”

  • “Knowledge economy” is a way of framing technoscientific knowledge in an economic framework
  • Often: economic production that depends on knowledge-intensive labor
  • But also: the treatment of knowledge itself as tangible good that can be produced, traded, shared, etc.
  • Knowledge has value, and is a good to be controlled

Political economy of S&T

The ideal of a "free-market"
knowledge economy

Knowledge economy is often assumed to behave as a free market

  • No exogenous constraints on the hproduction, exchange, or consumption of knowledge

Value of knowledge determined by “market” forces in response to knowledge consumers

  • In a free knowledge economy, scientists are both the producers and consumers of knowledge

Idealized form of technoscientific knowledge production

  • Incentive structures for the producers/consumers of knowledge (eponymy, awards, etc) maintains skepticism and allows only ‘good’ knowledge production to flourish (Merton).

Political economy of S&T

Contemporary STS:
Knowledge economy is rarely a free market

E.g. cannabis research in the U.S.

  • Until very recently (2019), scentific research on cannabis was heavily restricted
  • Only certain scientists were allowed to research cannabis (a ‘Schedule-1’ drug).
  • Only certain research questions were allowed to be investigated (focus on the harmful effects of cannabis).
  • Only one source of cannabis could be used—provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the University of Mississippi.

screenshot of a Rolling Stone article titled 'Why is it so hard to study pot?'

Old vs. new science

Old vs. new science

“Old” science

  • WWII – 1980s (or later…)
  • Focus on solving theoretical and technical problems
  • Basis for existing scholarly disciplines
  • Universities and university research seen as contributing to the public good
  • Funding primarily from governments, especially military
  • “Big science”
  • Origin of contemporary ideals of science as a pure, disinterested enterprise
Photograph of NASA control room in the 1980s. A large room with big screens and rows of engineers and scientists sitting in front of computers

Old vs. new science

Photograph of Elon Musk at a publicity event for his rocket company SpaceX. he is posing in front of a slick looking capsule with the word 'DRAGON' and a decal of a dragon on the side.

“New” science

  • Focus on solving technological applications
  • Encourages cross-disciplinary research
  • Embraces role of non-scientists (industry, government, public) in steering research
  • Funding from industry and government
  • Focus on patents, corporate partnerships, and direct sources of revenue
  • “Academic capitalism”

Old vs. new science

Explaining the shift from
"old" to "new"

Part of a widespread shift in culture affecting government, industry, and universities

  • “Governments are demanding that universities be relevant, universities are becoming entrepreneurial, and industry is buying research from universities.” (Sismondo 2009: 193)

Diminishing focus on ideal of science

  • There is less focus on the modern ideal of science as isolated, disinterested, and universal.

Neoliberalism

  • Change in ideals is part of a larger shift toward market-based institutions.
  • New regime is consistent with historical processes of science supporting dominant global power structures (e.g. enlightenment ideals, colonial control, military dominance).

Intellectual property & globalization

IP and globalization

Intellectual property &
commercialization in science

Intellectual property rights (IPR)

  • Patents, trademarks, copyright, etc.
  • IPR allows scientific and technological knowledge to be treated as property

Historically

  • The current conception of intellectual property is relatively new.
  • IPR has been around for most of the 20th century, but its role in trade and knowledge economies was not regularized until the 1980s.

Shift in scientific incentives

  • Formerly: individual recognition and technical invention
  • Currently: patents and profitability
Scanned page from a patent, dated May 5, 1998 displaying a full-page figure with a long genetic sequence expressed as a series of letters 'a', 'g', 't', and 'c'

Figure 10A from US patent 5,747,282 (1998), covering the human gene BRCA1 linked to breast and ovarian cancer

IP and globalization

Intellectual property rights as a
tool for market control

  • IPR often claimed to promote innovation and competition by ensuring monetary rewards for expensive or risky research
  • Patents on essential drugs, biological species/genes, and ‘common knowledge’ may undermine such benefits

Global control

  • 1994 TRIPS agreement enforces IPR in international trade
  • Imposes Western IPR regime upon the rest of the world, restricting access to beneficial and life-saving technology
  • Facilitates neocolonial exploitation
A large meeting room for the 1998 Geneva Ministerial Conference of the WTO

IP and globalization

Intellectual property from biological sources

Photograph of an outdoor sign reading 'ASGROW AG36X6; ROUNDUP READY 2; X TEND SOYBEANS'. In the background is a field of soybean plants

Species and genes as IP

  • Current global IPR regime allows companies to patent biological organisms (e.g. plants, animals, bacteria) and specific genetic sequences (including human)
  • Controversial in part because patent extends to offspring of organisms
    E.g. Monsando’s “roundup ready” seeds

Bioprospecting & biopiracy

  • Bioprospectors seek out commercially valuable species and genetic material (e.g. seeds and plants)
  • Often use traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples to identify such material, but claim ownership through patents

IP and globalization

Controlling global knowledge systems

Technoscience and state-making

  • Tools of science and technology are fundamental to (neo)colonial processes of global control
  • Regulation, trade, inter-state dependency allow powerful states to dictate what counts as legitimate knowledge

Traditional (Indigenous) knowledge

  • Global IPR regime controlls specific technologies, but also a model of what knowledge is.
    Knowlege that is not owned, isolated, and Modern is not considered legitimate (e.g. Adams 2002)
  • Indigenous technologies and categories redefined through the lens of Modern, Western science
  • “What is considered scientific knowledge in a dependent context is only that which has been made legitimate in the centre. It is then imitated in the periphery through the operation of pervasive dependent social and cultural mechanisms … The fundamental and the basic core knowledge grows largely in the West and is transferred to developing countries in the context of a dependent intellectual relationship”
    (Goonatilake 1993: 260, quoted in Sismondo 2011: 201)

Next class

Science, colonialism, and postcolonial science studies

  • Required:
    Adams (2002)
    Randomized Controlled Crime
  • Supplementary:
    Whitt (1998)
    Biocolonialism and the commodification of knowledge

Image credit

Still from Dr Strangelove (1964). Black and white image of a man wearing dark glasses with an unhinged grin on his face. He holds a cigarette near his face with one hand, with fingers held stiffly in odd directions.

Still from Dr. Strangelove (1964), via rogerebert.com

black and white photo of a small, white, wooden building with a 1940s-style car parked in front. A large sign on the front of the building reads 'LOS ALAMOS PROJECT MAIN GATE / PASSES MUST BE PRESENTED TO GUARDS'

Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1943. US Dept of Energy via National Parks Service

a white-on-black schematic diagram featurina a triangular representation of a map of the world with arrows pointing in various directions and obscure labels such as 'Planetary factory', 'Outsourcing', 'Corporate mercantilism', and 'Gloablization of intellectual property; TRIPS (1994)'

Exerpt from Calculating Empires (2003) by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler

Photograph of NASA control room in the 1980s. A large room with big screens and rows of engineers and scientists sitting in front of computers

Photo credit NASA

Photograph of Elon Musk at a publicity event for his rocket company SpaceX. he is posing in front of a slick looking capsule with the word 'DRAGON' and a decal of a dragon on the side.

Photograph by Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images, via National Geographic

A large meeting room for the 1998 Geneva Ministerial Conference of the WTO

Photo credit WTO

Photograph of an outdoor sign reading 'ASGROW AG36X6; ROUNDUP READY 2; X TEND SOYBEANS'. In the background is a field of soybean plants

Photo by Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting via foodrevolution.org

Goal of today is to situate the following three classes/readings within a political economy framework

TRIPS: Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights 1998 Geneva Ministerial Conference of the WTO