I read Peter Winch’s book in 1967, and it is one reason I read much less than most sociologists. The words are simple, there are only 40,000 of them, but it took three months to begin understanding it – then it transformed my academic life. Fortunately, no other book has had the same impact.

Winch argues that our concepts and our lives are two sides of the same coin. What he gets wrong is arguing this replaces sociology with philosophy. His insight actually means that when you are doing one you are doing the other. Thus sociologists can watch scientists work and describe new concepts unfolding. Without Winch, I would not have had a career documenting this. The author was once in the audience when I gave a paper at the University of Illinois. I explained how his book influenced me, but as I went on I could see him shifting uncomfortably. It became obvious he did not like the direction in which I was taking his ideas. Clearly, to be really safe it’s best not to read or write anything. Ever.

TWO professors and a whole scholarly journal devote themselves to the public
understanding of science—and that’s just in Britain. Now Jane Gregory and
Steve Miller have added a book, Science in Public. What next? The
public understanding of the public understanding of science? Actually, jokes are
not in order: what it means to “understand” is a deep and fascinating question.
It becomes still more interesting when those in the process of understanding
come by their knowledge in a different way from the natives and
professionals.

And once you have learnt a certain amount about science, when do you stop
being a member of the public and become a participant? We have only to think of
similar situations to answer this question: the plight of immigrants to a
strange country the relationship between art critics and artists, or the science
wars—the battle between scientists and social scientists who comment on
science. All are aspects of the same problem.

Gregory and Miller have chosen a narrower perspective than this by surveying
work on public understanding of science as a subject sui generis, but they still
succeed in revealing its richness. They show, for example, that the “deficit
model” adopted by many of the star players in the movement for the public
understanding of science is itself deficient.

This model is based on the notion that ordinary people should have their
mental spaces filled with enough of the contents of science to make them
appreciate it, believe in it and vote for more of it. But Miller and Gregory
explain that knowing more science does not necessarily mean liking it more. They
explain that knowing more science itself means many different things, among them
knowing more facts or more principles, having a feel for scientific method, and
comprehending how science works in practice, either when it is running smoothly
or when it is caught up in internal or external controversy.

The authors also reveal that there are special occasions when the public
knows more about crucial aspects of a problem than the scientists brought in to
solve it, and how difficult these moments are for the professionals to handle.
Brian Wynne, for example, showed that hill farmers in the northwest of England,
had a better grasp than scientists of how the plume of radioactivity from the
Chernobyl accident might affect their sheep.

Gregory and Miller do sometimes wander around the subject: their book would
have been improved by being shorter and structured around a clear theme. For
example, public understanding activists see their mission as a challenge—a
stance illuminatingly contrasted with that of researchers on the topic, who see
the task as exploring a problem. The two camps tend not to speak to each other,
the former trying to solve what they take to be a straightforward job while the
latter complicate matters without providing guidelines for action. A brief
endnote explores this theme, but it could have shaped the entire book.

This is, however, the only book that sets out these issues clearly and
accessibly. Though it should not be the last book on public understanding of
science, anyone in the business who is unaware of the issues it discusses risks
making a fool of themselves.

Given that we are talking of transmission of knowledge, I must remark on the
Kafkaesque referencing system. For instance, I am reading page 98 and want to
look up reference 65. I turn to the back of the book and find page after page
with the title “References” as the sole identifier. I have to go back to
discover which chapter I am reading. Only chapter titles are given at the top of
the book’s pages, while only chapter numbers demarcate the beginnings of
sections in the references. I have to find the beginning of the chapter to
identify its number, then I have to flick backwards and forwards in the
reference pages until I find the beginning of a section with that chapter
number.