Two bugbears of contemporary life are demolished at a stroke. We cannot know how to eliminate acid rain, for instance, unless we understand that sulphur is a cause of it. Scientists may bristle at the notion that all they do is spin yarns, but Brown intends no slight to the status of science. His aim is to show that knowledge making is a social accomplishment, achieved by the scientific community incessantly in conversation with itself. Scientists attempt to convince their colleagues of the validity of their findings by talking, lecturing, writing, publishing and e-mailing stories that describe, justify and promote their work.
Scientific knowledge emerges as whatever the practitioners of science judge to be the best stories.
Problems arise only when scientific experts move beyond the bounds of their special competence in a bid to influence public policy, he argues. Thus we have amoral scientism in one sphere and irrational moralism in the other, with little confluence of the two in reasoned public moral action. The trouble is, wishing doesn't make it so. As Brown knows only too well, governments and industry find it inordinately useful to be able to draw on scientific findings to legitimise controversial political policies or entrepreneurial activities. As a result, these institutions are unlikely to want to confine technical discourse to a more limited sphere of influence.