Having now been immersed in two different scientific fields (ecology and epidemiology), I find it a little ridiculous when people try and characterize who a scientist is and what as scientist does. The scientists I’ve worked with in both ecology and epidemiology are so different–mostly because they have different priorities and different sets of problems–that I can’t imagine trying to reconcile them into one idea of what a scientist is. And given that ecology and epidemiology are both biological sciences, I can only imagine the differences are only stronger when you leave the realm of biology.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from these attempts to discover who scientists are and what they do. Steven Shapin has a long history of looking into scientific research as a social phenomenon, most famously in the book Leviathan and the Air Pump where he and co-author Simon Schaffer looked at the battle to define what knowledge was between English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and Irish scientist (or what would have been called natural philosopher in the day) Robert Boyle . Whenever I read Shapin I find things I disagree with and little nuggets of great ideas that I had never thought about before. Shapin put out an article a couple days ago in the now web-only Seed magazine called The identity of the modern scientist is, in every possible sense, a work in progress. Here’s a clip:

Scientists, perhaps to a greater degree than any other sector of society, get to define what the world is like. They may not always be the most highly rewarded people in our communities, but they are among the most influential: When reality speaks, it speaks through them, and what we know about the world, we know because we have found grounds to recognize their competence and to trust them or the institutions they represent.
Our understanding of who these men and women are is central to the authority of modern science, and if, as seems to be the case, there are emerging problems with that authority, then a clarification of the scientist’s identity is in order. It’s not so easy, however, to know exactly who the scientist is. Public perception of the scientist probably owes much to the idea of mastering something known as the “scientific method” (even though there is no consensus on what exactly this consists of), but we also define scientists through some notion of integrity — an independent voice speaking truth to power. So any perceived problems concerning scientists’ moral makeup are of great consequence: Scientists without credibility are culturally impotent, and science without credibility is a meaningless enterprise.

(you can read the rest here)

(image from Damned Good Technician)