Background
Harry M. Collins was born on June 13, 1943, in the United Kingdom.
(Taking a radical interpretation of the Kuhnian concept of...)
Taking a radical interpretation of the Kuhnian concept of paradigm incommensurability, the authors begin by discussing the difficulties of gaining access to the ideas of communities with different rational categories, and then define the subject area of parapsychology, offering a review of the relevant literature. After exploring parapsychology’s compatibility with science, physics, psychology, and quantum theory, the authors move on from this predominantly theoretical framework and devote the middle section to an empirical study of metal bending. They conclude with an examination of the results, analyze diverse interpretations, and investigate the consequences for the idea of the scientific revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/Frames-Meaning-Construction-Extraordinary-Science/dp/0415474566
1982
(This fascinating study in the sociology of science explor...)
This fascinating study in the sociology of science explores the way scientists conduct, and draw conclusions from, their experiments. The book is organized around three case studies: replication of the TEA-laser, detecting gravitational rotation, and some experiments in the paranormal.
https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Order-Replication-Induction-Scientific/dp/0226113760
1985
(In Artificial Experts, Collins explains what computers ca...)
In Artificial Experts, Collins explains what computers can't do, but he also studies the ordinary and extraordinary things that they can do. He argues that the machines we create are limited because we cannot reproduce in symbols what every community knows, yet we give our machines' abilities by the way we embed them in our society. He unfolds a compelling account of the difference between human action and machine intelligence, the core of which is a witty and learned explanation of knowledge itself, of what communities know and the ways in which they know it.
https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Experts-Knowledge-Intelligent-Technology/dp/0262531151
1990
(Through a series of intriguing case studies including the...)
Through a series of intriguing case studies including the study of relativity, cold fusion, the "memory" in worms, and the sex life of lizards, this book debunks the view that scientific knowledge is a straightforward outcome of competent theorization, observation, and experimentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Everyone-Should-About-Science/dp/0521356016
1993
(In The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technol...)
In The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch likened science to the Golem, a creature from Jewish mythology, a powerful creature which, while not evil, can be dangerous because it is clumsy. In this volume, the authors consider the Golem of technology. In a series of case studies, they demonstrate that the imperfections in technology are related to the uncertainties in the science. The case studies cover the role of the Patriot anti-missile missile in the Gulf War, the Challenger space shuttle explosion, tests of nuclear fuel flasks and of anti-misting kerosene as a fuel for airplanes, economic modeling, the question of the origins of oil, analysis of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the contribution of lay expertise to the analysis of treatments for AIDS.
https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Large-Should-about-Technology/dp/0521012708
1998
(What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans d...)
What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans delegate actions to machines? In this book, Harry Collins and Martin Kusch combine insights from sociology and philosophy to provide a novel answer to these increasingly important questions.
https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Actions-MIT-Press/dp/0262526522
1998
(So far the "Science Wars" have generated far more heat th...)
So far the "Science Wars" have generated far more heat than light. Combatants from one or the other of what C. P. Snow famously called "the two cultures" (science versus the arts and humanities) have launched bitter attacks but have seldom engaged in constructive dialogue about the central issues. In The One Culture?, Jay A. Labinger and Harry Collins have gathered together some of the world's foremost scientists and sociologists of science to exchange opinions and ideas rather than insults. The contributors find surprising areas of broad agreement in a genuine conversation about science, its legitimacy and authority as a means of understanding the world, and whether science studies undermines the practice and findings of science and scientists.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Culture-Conversation-about-Science/dp/0226467236
2001
(According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly ...)
According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation. When stars explode or collide, a portion of their mass becomes energy that disturbs the very fabric of the space-time continuum like ripples in a pond. But proving the existence of these waves has been difficult; the cosmic shudders are so weak that only the most sensitive instruments can be expected to observe them directly. Fifteen times during the last thirty years scientists have claimed to have detected gravitational waves, but so far none of those claims have survived the scrutiny of the scientific community. Gravity's Shadow chronicles the forty-year effort to detect gravitational waves while exploring the meaning of scientific knowledge and the nature of expertise.
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Shadow-Search-Gravitational-Waves/dp/0226113787
2004
(A creature of Jewish mythology, a golem is an animated be...)
A creature of Jewish mythology, a golem is an animated being made by man from clay and water who knows neither his own strength nor the extent of his ignorance. Like science and technology, the subjects of Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch's previous volumes, medicine is also a golem, and this Dr. Golem should not be blamed for its mistakes - they are, after all, our mistakes. The problem lies in its well-meaning clumsiness. Dr. Golem explores some of the mysteries and complexities of medicine while untangling the inherent conundrums of scientific research and highlighting its vagaries.
https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Golem-Think-about-Medicine/dp/0226113671
2005
(What does it mean to be an expert? In Rethinking Expertis...)
What does it mean to be an expert? In Rethinking Expertise, Harry Collins and Robert Evans offer a 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?
https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Expertise-Harry-Collins/dp/0226113612
2007
(Much of what humans know we cannot say. And much of what ...)
Much of what humans know we cannot say. And much of what we do we cannot describe. For example, how do we know how to ride a bike when we can't explain how we do it? Abilities like this were called "tacit knowledge" by physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, but here Harry Collins analyzes the term, and the behavior, in much greater detail, often departing from Polanyi's treatment. In Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, Collins develops a common conceptual language to bridge the concept's disparate domains by explaining explicit knowledge and classifying tacit knowledge.
https://www.amazon.com/Tacit-Explicit-Knowledge-Harry-Collins/dp/022600421X
2010
(To ordinary people, science used to seem infallible. Scie...)
To ordinary people, science used to seem infallible. Scientists were heroes, selflessly pursuing knowledge for the common good. More recently, a series of scientific scandals, frauds, and failures have led us to question science's pre-eminence. Revelations such as Climategate, or debates about the safety of the MMR vaccine, have dented our confidence in science. In this provocative new book, Harry Collins seeks to redeem scientific expertise and reasserts science's special status.
https://www.amazon.com/Are-Scientific-Experts-Human-Frontiers/dp/0745682049
2014
(Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog brings to life science's effo...)
Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog brings to life science's efforts to detect cosmic gravitational waves. These ripples in space-time are predicted by general relativity, and their discovery will not only demonstrate the truth of Einstein's theories but also transform astronomy. Although no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected, the previous five years have been an especially exciting period in the field. Here sociologist Harry Collins offers readers an unprecedented view of gravitational wave research and explains what it means for an analyst to do work of this kind.
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Ghost-Big-Dog-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B00HSOJ9KS
2014
(A fascinating account, written in real-time, of the unfol...)
A fascinating account, written in real-time, of the unfolding of scientific discovery: the first detection of gravitational waves. Scientists have been trying to confirm the existence of gravitational waves for fifty years. Then, in September 2015, came a "very interesting event" (as the cautious subject line in a physicist's email read) that proved to be the first detection of gravitational waves. In Gravity's Kiss, Harry Collins - who has been watching the science of gravitational wave detection for forty-three of those fifty years and has written three previous books about it - offers a final, fascinating account, written in real-time, of the unfolding of one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries ever made.
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Kiss-Detection-Gravitational-Waves/dp/0262036185
2017
(We live in times of increasing public distrust of the mai...)
We live in times of increasing public distrust of the main institutions of modern society. Experts, including scientists, are suspected of working to hidden agendas or serving vested interests. The solution is usually seen as more public scrutiny and more control by democratic institutions - experts must be subservient to social and political life. In this book, Harry Collins and Robert Evans take a radically different view. They argue that, rather than democracies needing to be protected from science, democratic societies need to learn how to value science in this new age of uncertainty. By emphasizing that science is a moral enterprise, guided by values that should matter to all, they show how science can support democracy without destroying it and propose a new institution - The Owls - that can mediate between science and society and improve technological decision-making for the benefit of all.
https://www.amazon.com/Democracies-Need-Science-Harry-Collins/dp/1509509615
2017
(How technologies can get it wrong in sports, and what the...)
How technologies can get it wrong in sports, and what the consequences are - referees undermined, fans heartbroken, and the illusion of perfect accuracy maintained. Good call or bad call, referees, and umpires have always had the final say in sports. Bad calls are more visible: plays are televised backward and forward and in slow motion. New technologies - the Hawk-Eye system used in tennis and cricket, for example, and the goal-line technology used in English football - introduced to correct bad calls sometimes get it right and sometimes get it wrong, but always undermine the authority of referees and umpires. Bad Call looks at the technologies used to make refereeing decisions in sports, analyzes them in action, and explains the consequences.
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Call-Technologys-Referees-Technology/dp/0262035391
2017
(Recent startling successes in machine intelligence using ...)
Recent startling successes in machine intelligence using a technique called 'deep learning' seem to blur the line between human and machine as never before. Are computers on the cusp of becoming so intelligent that they will render humans obsolete? Harry Collins argues we are getting ahead of ourselves, caught up in images of a fantastical future dreamt up in fictional portrayals. By dissecting the intricacies of language use and meaning, Collins shows how far we have to go before we cannot distinguish between the social understanding of humans and computers.
https://www.amazon.com/Artifictional-Intelligence-Humanitys-Surrender-Computers/dp/1509504125/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Artifictional+Intelligence%3A+Against+Humanity%27s+Surrender+to+Computers&qid=1605162208&sr=8-1
2018
(A concise, accessible, and engaging guide for students an...)
A concise, accessible, and engaging guide for students and practitioners of sociology. In Forms of Life, Harry Collins offers an introduction to social science methodology, drawing on his forty-plus years of conducting high-profile sociological research. In this concise, accessible, and engaging book, Collins explains not only how to do sociology (the method) but also how to think about sociology (the meaning).
https://www.amazon.com/Forms-Life-Method-Meaning-Sociology/dp/0262536641
2019
(The rise of populism in the West has led to attacks on th...)
The rise of populism in the West has led to attacks on the legitimacy of scientific expertise in political decision making. This book explores the differences between populism and pluralist democracy and their relationship with science. Pluralist democracy is characterized by respect for minority choices and a system of checks and balances that prevents power being concentrated in one group, while populism treats minorities as traitorous so as to concentrate power in the government. The book argues that scientific expertise - and science more generally - should be understood as one of the checks and balances in pluralist democracies.
https://www.amazon.com/Experts-Will-People-Society-Populism-ebook/dp/B07Z1BZDLP
2019
Harry M. Collins was born on June 13, 1943, in the United Kingdom.
Harry Collins is a distinguished research professor of sociology and director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise, and Science at Cardiff University. He is researching the sociology of gravitational wave detection, expertise, fringe science, science and democracy, technology in sport, and a new technique - the Imitation Game - for exploring expertise and comparing the extent to which minority groups are integrated into societies.
His teaching career also includes the positions as a visiting professor at California Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego, a visiting research fellow at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Cornell University, an affiliated research scholar of Cambridge University, and visiting positions at Xerox PARC and Princeton University.
In addition, Collins is also the author of books that cover the sociology of scientific knowledge, artificial intelligence, the nature of expertise, and tacit knowledge. In his 1985 book, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice, Collins examines the validity of the experimental method through case studies surrounding the controversy over gravity wave detection experiments and examples of replication experiments concerning paranormal effects. In the book, Collins maintains it can never be clear whether a second experiment is done sufficiently well to count as a check on the results of the first. He also claims, that some further test is needed to test the quality of the experiment - and so forth.
Collins is also the author with Trevor J. Pinch of three books that use the analogy of the golem to describe science. A Jewish mythological creature, the golem is a magical giant that grows and has the potential to both help people and be innocently dangerous because of its clumsiness. In the first book, The Golem, the authors focus on the controversial nature of the scientific method. Since science is practiced by human beings, they suggest, it is fallible and marked at times by ambition and corruption. As a result, science is not always the last word on a subject in terms of the "facts" it produces since much depends on data collection processes and the often-subjective interpretation of data.
In The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology, Collins and Pinch turn their attention to issues surrounding technology. They discuss what "expertise" really is and how good or successful a technology actually is compared to what is advertised, as in their example of the accuracy of the "Patriot" missiles used in the first Gulf War between the United States and Iraq. Other case studies include the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the explosion of the United States space shuttle Challenger in the 1980s.
Working again with Pinch, Collins examines the medical establishment in Dr. Golem. Here the authors view medicine as a body of expertise, rather than a combination of logic and fact. Collins and his coauthor look at topics from fake doctors to the placebo effect and alternative medicine. In 2001, Collins coedited a book with Jay A. Labinger that incorporates both sides of the "science wars" debate. In The One Culture? A Conversation about Science, the editors present a series of essays and responses concerning science and the sociological study of science. Written mostly by physicists and sociologists, the writings focus on various core issues involving scientific claims and their reliability, integrity, and authority.
Collins, who studied gravitational waves for several decades as a layman, brought this knowledge to his 2004 work, Gravity's Shadow. Over the course of three decades, Collins was able to place himself inside groups of gravitational wave researchers, to interview prominent scientists in the field and to attend their meetings and conferences. Archives were put at his disposal, and in the end, he was able to boost knowledge of his subject every bit as keen as practicing scientists in the field.
Harry Collins is a known sociologist as well as an outstanding educator. He is considered to be one of the genuine innovators of the sociology of scientific knowledge. For his research and writing, he received numerous awards. In 1985 the British Computer Society Specialist Group in Expert Systems awarded him with a prize for technical merit. In 1997 he received the John Desmond Bernal Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science for contributions to the social studies of science. For the book The Golem, Collins received the Robert K. Merton Book Prize from the American Sociological Association (1995). This book was also named the book of the year by Emory and Henry College.
(Taking a radical interpretation of the Kuhnian concept of...)
1982(Through a series of intriguing case studies including the...)
1993(What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans d...)
1998(In The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technol...)
1998(What does it mean to be an expert? In Rethinking Expertis...)
2007(How technologies can get it wrong in sports, and what the...)
2017(A creature of Jewish mythology, a golem is an animated be...)
2005(Recent startling successes in machine intelligence using ...)
2018(In Artificial Experts, Collins explains what computers ca...)
1990(This fascinating study in the sociology of science explor...)
1985(A fascinating account, written in real-time, of the unfol...)
2017(The rise of populism in the West has led to attacks on th...)
2019(Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog brings to life science's effo...)
2014(According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly ...)
2004(We live in times of increasing public distrust of the mai...)
2017(A concise, accessible, and engaging guide for students an...)
2019(So far the "Science Wars" have generated far more heat th...)
2001(To ordinary people, science used to seem infallible. Scie...)
2014(Much of what humans know we cannot say. And much of what ...)
2010Harry Collins was a participant in the "science wars," a dispute between scientists and sociologists who, like Collins, chose to study the process by which scientists reach their conclusions. He is regarded by many as one of the most radical critics of natural science and scientific expertise. On the other hand, he is also a defender of science and the difficulties it faces in coming up with answers and proofs. Collins embraces the notion of the social construction of science. In other words, he favors the idea that in many cases scientists do less discovering about what is in nature than imposing their own conventional ideas on it. Collins believes that science does not differ in kind from other social practices and does not enjoy any special cognitive or methodological privileges. For him, scientific knowledge is socially constructed and science is but one social and cultural form of life amongst others and does not provide the rest of the culture with rational and transcendental foundations.
Quotations: "It seems to me that science endangers itself by promising too much. Science and technology are evidently fallible and its continual failures are always on display. To promise revelation is to risk disillusion and an anti-science reaction."
