Rethinking Expertise

Harry Collins, Robert Evans

University of Chicago Press, Sep 15, 2008 - Social Science - 160 pages

What does it mean to be an expert? In Rethinking Expertise, Harry Collins and Robert Evans offer a radical new perspective on the role of expertise in the practice of science and the public evaluation of technology.

Collins and Evans present a Periodic Table of Expertises based on the idea of tacit knowledge—knowledge that we have but cannot explain. They then look at how some expertises are used to judge others, how laypeople judge between experts, and how credentials are used to evaluate them. Throughout, Collins and Evans ask an important question: how can the public make use of science and technology before there is consensus in the scientific community? This book has wide implications for public policy and for those who seek to understand science and benefit from it.

“Starts to lay the groundwork for solving a critical problem—how to restore the force of technical scientific information in public controversies, without importing disguised political agendas.”—Nature

“A rich and detailed ‘periodic table’ of expertise . . . full of case studies, anecdotes and intriguing experiments.”—Times Higher Education Supplement (UK)

Contents

• INTRODUCTION: 1
• Ubiquitous and Specialist Expertises: 13
• Metaexpertises and Metacriteria: 45
• THREE Interactional Expertise and Embodiment: 77
• Experiments on Color Blindness Perfect Pitch and Gravitational W: 91
• FIVE New Demarcation Criteria: 113
• CONCLUSION Science the Citizen and the Role of Social Science: 134
• APPENDIX Waves of Science Studies: 143
• Bibliography: 147
• Index: 155

About the author

Harry Collins is distinguished research professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise, and Science at Cardiff University. He is the author of, most recently, Gravity’s Shadow and, with Trevor Pinch, Dr. Golem, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Robert Evans is reader in sociology at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Rethinking Expertise; Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series
• Authors: Harry Collins, Robert Evans
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2008
• ISBN: 0226113620, 9780226113623
• Length: 160 pages
• Subjects: Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects; Social Science / General; Social Science / Sociology / General