Seasick on the Third Wave? Subverting the Hegemony of Propositionalism

Harry Collins and Rob Evans (Collins European Union, 2000). They argue that 'the problem of legitimacy' for science has been mistakenly replaced by 'the problem of extension', in which real distinctions between experts and publics are dissolved and 'technical decision-making rights' (as they call them) are thus extended indiscriminately. Their aim of redefining competences for 'technical decision-making' in the public sphere, so as to include practical experience-based expertise alongside 'certified science', would be more inclusive compared with existing boundaries, but more exclusive compared with the apparent assumptions (of infinite 'extension') of the participation in science 'movements'. They use the case studies of Cumbrian sheep farmers (Wynne, 1992) and HIV-AIDS activists (Epstein, 1996) to illustrate this argument. Significantly, and as issues I take up later, for them the public sphere involves an accumulation of completely unrelated 'decisions' about what they define as exclusively 'propositional' decision-questions, such as whether nuclear power, anti-misting kerosene or UK beef is safe,