Accounting for Error: How Scientists Construct their Social World when they Account for Correct and Incorrect Belief

Abstract

There is an asymmetry in the procedures used by natural scientists to account for `correct belief' and for `error'. Correct belief is treated as the normal state of affairs, as deriving unproblematically from experimental evidence, and as requiring no special explanation. Errors are seen as something to be explained away, as due to the intrusion of non-scientific influences. An elaborate repertoire of interpretative resources is employed in accounting for error. Asymmetrical accounting for error and for correct belief is a social device which reinforces the traditional conception of scientific rationality and which makes the community of scientists appear as the kind of community we, and they, recognize as scientific.

These conclusions are based on a detailed analysis of interviews with researchers in an area of biochemistry.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall, New York.

Gilbert, G. N. and Mulkay, M. (1980). `Contexts of Scientific Discourse', in Knorr, K. D. et al. (eds.), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, Reidel, Dordrecht (269-294).

Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills and London.

Lyman, S. M. and Scott, M. B. (1970). A Sociology of the Absurd, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York.

Mulkay, M. (1979). Science and the Sociology of Knowledge, Allen and Unwin, London.

Mulkay, M. (1981). `Action and Belief or Scientific Discourse?', Philosophy of Social Science 11 (163-171).

Pollner, M. (1974). `Mundane Reasoning', Philosophy of Social Science, 4 (35-54).

Schutz, A. (1972). The Phenomenology of the Social World, Heinemann, London.

Woolgar, S. (1976). `The Identification and Definition of Scientific Collectivities', in Lemaine, G. et al. (eds.), Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines, The Hague, Mouton; Chicago, Aldine (233-245).