Metascience as the Social Hygiene Movement of Science Studies – Bart Penders

Abstract:

Metascience and its more activist sibling, scientific reform, seek to rebuild public and peer trust for embattled fields or disciplines through the proposal, development and testing of new bureaucratic procedures for experimentation and publication in science. In the expanding STS universe, metascience is a qualitatively different addition, located outside of the HPS sphere and drawing concepts and methods primarily from psychology and epidemiology.

Metascience’s tendency to build procedures and infrastructures is primarily motivated to keep things out of scientific practice: researcher degrees of freedom, bias, social, political and economic influence and more. This lecture explores how the 19th-century hygienist movement can serve as a metaphor for contemporary scientific reform, in which reformers act as “procedural hygienists.” Drawing on Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger, I will argue that just as the hygienists sought to impose order and cleanliness on the physical environment, today’s reformers aim to purify scientific procedures, addressing concerns of pollution in the form of bias, error, and opacity.

I will draw attention especially to the role of statistics as part of procedural hygiene. In both 19th century hygienist movements and in contemporary scientific reform movements, they are used to quantify and display contamination, purify data, assert authority and legitimacy, and build trust. They also come with the risk of epistemic injustice and the opacity of the moral agenda underpinning definitions of purity. To this end, I will ask how metascience is positioned relative to an expanding STS.

This event is part of our summer semester 2025 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.

To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.