Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice

TLDR

H M Collins, director of the Science Studies Centre at Bath University, authors a book that examines how order is maintained and altered in scientific practice. The book centers on three empirical studies—building TEA‑lasers, detecting gravitational radiation, and conducting paranormal experiments—to illustrate scientific work. The analyses reveal that replication and induction are intertwined, with scientists’ institutional ties shaping research choices and influencing laboratory outcomes, thereby illustrating how reproducible findings emerge amid scientific controversy.

Abstract

H M Collins is co-author of the widely acclaimed Frames of Meaning Director of the Science Studies Centre at Bath University. He continues his work in the sociology of science with this book, a fascinating study of both the maintenance and alteration of order within science. Three original studies of scientific work -- the building of TEA-lasers, the detection of gravitational radiation, and experiments in the paranormal -- form the core of the book. They brilliantly demonstrate the interlinked problems of replication and induction in the actual day-to-day practice of science. As one of the foremost proponents of the 'relativist' view of science, Collins convincingly illustrates how the individual scientist is tied to a whole variety of institutions and networks in the wider society and how these constrain research choices and influence laboratory outcome. Changing Order is a masterful, often witty, account of how one set of facts rather than another emerges from sometimes bitter controversy; and it shows how replicable results are induced in the untidy but normally private world of scientific practice.