Why Do Historians of Economics Hate Social Studies of Science?

This was the title of one of the plenary session held in the 2008 HES conference. At the bar were: Esther-Mariam Sent who explains that lots historians of economics hate SSK and that it was neither nice nor very clever. Tim Leonard who said something but I can remember what exactly. Ivan Moscati who talks about his disbelief in SSK and that it was being clever to do history of economic analysis and heterodox economics. Ross Emmet who made a case for the linguistic turn. Steve Medema who said that as an editor as well as a human being he believed in diversity in opinions. Although I am simplifying a lot (which is not nice for the participants), one could grasp that I was not impressed by the general tone of the interventions - as well as by most of the remarks made by the public. And because this post was inspired by a lunch discussion I had just after the session with Pedro and Floris, I would use Q&A to explain my point of view.

Why? Simply because I think that the real issue was not really put on the table.

What is the real issue, then? Historicity.

What do you mean by that? The bare fact that as an historian of economics, I am convinced that what is really important when speaking of my working method is history, not economics or social science.

What do you mean by that (again)? I mean that as an historian of economics, I am constructing historical narratives and that to construct (what I believe) meaningful narratives I sometime refer to the social constraints that exist on the actors of science/economics (social class,  culture, etc.) and other times I believe that it is necessary to refer the theoretical discussions the scientists actually had and take for granted that it is what matters.  In other words, as an historian of economics I do not love nor hate social studies of science or economic analysis, there are tools that I find sometimes useful and at other times irrelevant. When they are useful I certainly like them, but when I believe them not pertinent in my narrative, I dislike them.

So I suppose that you believed that this session was not pertinent? Exactly. I would go even further, I believe it was to some extent counter-productive. When listening to the interventions, I felt that most of us were simply recreating an old and uninstering debate about what is more important in the development of economics: the internal (history of economic analysis) of the external (SSK) factors? Let me ask you something: when you are writing a paper on the history of economic analysis, do you sincerely believe that your hand is guided only by your social/cultural background?

No I don’t. OK, now, on the other hand, don’t you believe that this social/cultural background of you has no bearing on the topics you have chosen or the perspective in which you consider them?

Yes I do. You have said all that there is to it, young blood.

You are right, let’s go do some papers of HISTORY of economics now, because this is what I need to get me a (good) position.

Shopping

Biotechnologies reshape our relation to “nature”. All sorts of living organisms are engineered and marketed, it is now almost trivial even to remark it. Yet, I am still struck when I meet the most banal form of genetically modified organisms. As the linked page shows, it is not just about a model-organism: the JAX laboratory highlights the “key features” of the commodity, informs you of its availability, provides technical support, all with a price tag. With sales in July?

The economic logic is so much intertwined with the biological material that I feel that the story of the commodification of living organisms, well studied in the history of biology (eg, here or here), might find a place in the history of economics as well.

Longing for a romantic turn

When scientists explore new areas language is vivid, sparkling, different. Take Laboratory Life. It lures historians and philosophers of science into a new direction, but above all joyfully plays with ‘order’ and ‘disorder’, with ‘scientist’ and ‘observer.’ As much as it is science it is art: history of science can be a novel of life. But then fields grow older, the analytics get in and all prose and poetry is rigorously slashed until nothing but a formal skeleton remains. The recently published Handbook of Science and Technology Studies is such a book. Science studies has matured. Where enchanted children drew sketchy impression of that magnificent world now grumpy old publish-or-perishers formalize and classify a depressing world in endless reiteration. I protest.

 

It is time for a romantic turn in history and philosophy of science. Science is tantalizing, impossibly incomprehensible and beautiful. Let us no longer formalize what cannot be formalized or dissect what should be regarded in its entirety. Let us seek to express science and scientists. Let us not understand, but experience.

 

Disseminate

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “dissemination” as:

“The action of scattering or spreading abroad seed, or anything likened to it; the fact or condition of being thus diffused; dispersion, diffusion, promulgation.”

A conference jointly run by the European and Japanese societies for the History of Economic Thought, borrows the term for the “Dissemination of Economic Ideas”:

The conference aims at
- investigating how economic ideas developed and spread across national borders (within Europe, Asia, and the US);
- studying the implications of the novel ideas with respect to the ways in which certain economic and social problems were perceived;
- investigating the policies that were derived from the new perspectives assumed and tools adopted;
- studying the impact of the new ideas on the formation of institutions;
- elaborating these aspects in particular with regard to the age of enlightenment, historicism and the interwar period.

The farming metaphor suggests even some: “cross-breeding taking place right now” between Japanese and Western economics.

I don’t want to claim that a call for papers should be a model of precision. Still, I will take these statements to uncharitably interrogate this model of communication of ideas.

Who does what in a dissemination? If there is a planting of the idea-seed, who is the farmer and what is his gain in the harvest? If there is no farmer, then there must be a wind carrying the idea-seed over Persia, the mountains, the deserts, the plains of Asia, and across the sea to Japan. The aerial seed-idea makes root nowhere else but Japan. So what about soil characteristics?

“Dissemination” raises many questions but I am not sure they are the right ones. Surely, the questions should be taking us to consider the agency of these processes, the interests of the involved, their interactions, political, and cultural conflicts. Instead, we are directed toward the seed-idea, as if of itself it could tell us something.

Why can’t we be friends?

Lot long ago, natural scientists saw social theory critics as dangerous subversives, undermining science authority. The armistice was first settled in the UK. Social scientists were invited to cooperate with government and big science to engage a suspicious public. The exemplar was Labour’s risky GM Nation Debate.

The cooperative seems productive. At Harvard, Sheila Jasanoff set up a Science and Democracy Network, to examine the dialogue between experts and publics. The first academic output is Designs on Nature. But the impact of the effort is best assessed by scientists’ willingness to replace the words “truth” and “objectivity” with such social mush as “trust,” “persuasion” and “morality.”

Having fun with brains

The July 2007 issue of Scientific American has an article by Michael Shermer of Skeptic.com, its title “The Prospects for Homo Economicus.” The article is a short indictment on the rational economic man, stating that “thousands of experiments in behavioral economics since [Kahneman and Tversky founded the field in 1979] have demonstrated that most of us are highly risk averse.” The curious bit about the article is not the introductory tribute to the Nobel economics, but what follows.

Shermer visited UCLA and got into a fMRI scanner to be subject of an experiment by Russ Poldrack and Craig R. Fox. Jason Zweig, journalist for Money magazine and author of Your Money & Your Brain (in that order), also got into a scanner numerous times as way of investigative journalism.

Because I doubt neuroscientists are keen to study journalists as ideal subjects (college students are cheaper and have model brains), my guess is that journalists are asking to be stuck in. Being “the body” (”the brain”) surely enhances journalists enthusiasm for the field of neuroeconomics. There is actually a testable hypothesis here, lets look at their dopamine levels.

Besides, one might dispense with elaborate, cognitive explanations. Neuroeconomics is sexy science journalism because it is about looking at thought decision, peeling off bodily veils, surely this of itself newsworthy.

Good news is news

Last week I gave a seminar at UC-San Diego’s Science Studies Colloquium Series. The subject was economics @ Business Week. My previous experience with talking to a science studies audience had been luke-warm, supportive but not enthusiastic.

At UCSD I was greeted with a well attended room. As I spoke, eyes were wide open (even my akward jokes worked). At the end I got a lively and useful Q&A. So, what’s the deal? Is it sunny Southern California that prepares the mind for the history of economics?

Science studies - UCSD is not a department but a subject unit joining sociologists, historians, communication scholars and philosophers. The setup trains the mind for diversity. Michael Bernstein, author of Perilous Progress, was writing about economics before becoming Dean. There are labor and economic sociologists at hand. Charles Thorpe is working on subjects related to neo-liberalism. The unit is headed by Steven Epstein, whose Impure Science is on my “favorites” reading list, and who has just published another award-winning book: Inclusion.
Whatever the explanation, it was well good.

A BIG event

Something exciting is happening in London. At the University College of London and at the London School of Economics, a subtle but significant shift in the history and philosophy of science is being proposed. The themes of the past have generally been experiment and proof, the new turn is towards “evidence.” Instead of science made and restive, it’s science forever mobile. Evidence moves in multiple spaces of use, semantics and epistemology. Science is a great traveler, explorer, conquerer and tourist.

On the 13th and 14th of December the British Academy hosts a conference titled: “Enquiry, Evidence and Facts: An Interdisciplinary Conference.” There the insights of the UCL and LSE groups can be sampled. For those at easy reach of London and with deep pockets to pay the pricey attendance fee, it ought not to be missed.

Place

The idea of a blog came to Floris and Tiago, on June 8th 2007, at the Young Scholars’ dinner table. The event was the opening reception of the History of Economics Society Meetings at Mason Hall, George Mason University, USA.

The blog became a certainty 13 days later, at Restaurant Escale à Saïgon, Paris, France, during the History of Recent Economics Conference. Floris and Tiago were joined by Loïc.

What does this (nano) history tell us about place? Academics migrate with the seasons and dinner tables are sites of conspiracy.