Captives and Victims: Comment on Scott, Richards, and Martin

Scott, Richards, and Martin (1990; SRM) are almost entirely right in their description of the dilemma in which analysts of scientific controversies find themselves. In particular, they are right in saying that the analyst will be thought of by participants as being on the side of the underdog. Thus however neutral the analyst intends to be, the work will always be drawn into the debate. Only SRM's conclusion-that attempting to be neutral is pointless-is wrong. The argument needs to be set in context; the problem they describe is a dilemma of the social sciences as a whole, not just the sociology of scientific knowledge. It is a commonplace among sociologists that attempts at neutral analysis are seen as subversive by dominant ideologies. For example, it is in the interest of states to minimize and disguise social and economic problems. Sociologists who suggest-through the most neutrally intentioned research-that things are worse than they appear, are branded as ideologically motivated subversives. This is what gives teeth to the idea that sociology is a critical discipline. The dominant ideology's tactic is easily understood. It is a piece of labeling. The effect is to reduce the legitimacy and potency of the research as well as the discipline as a whole. For sociologists to accept the label voluntarily is for them to reduce the legitimacy of their own work. I cannot believe that SRM would want this if the topics were poverty and unemployment rather than the nature of parapsychology or vitamin C. This, then, is to set SRM's remarks in a wider political context, but there is also the matter of the logic of the social sciences. Though this may seem a heretical statement for a sociologist of scientific knowledge, we need to distinguish between the politics and the methodology of our work. That is, while as analysts we can understand that all science is in a broad sense political, as researchers we need to keep this knowledge in a separate compartment. Just as, as analysts, we would not use our findings