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which had as members many of the strongest critics of phrenology, was
dominated by the upper classes. Reasons for these correlations are somewhat
opaque, but Shapin claims that they are related to connections between
phrenology and reform movements.
Cantor makes a number of criticisms of Shapin s study: (1) Class mem-
bership is not a clear-cut matter, and so the membership in the societies in
question may not be easily identified as being along class lines. In addition,
on some interpretations there was considerable overlap in membership of the
two societies, raising the question of the extent to which the Phrenological
Society could be considered an outsider s organization. (2) Shapin does
not define conflict precisely, and so does not demonstrate that there was
significantly more conflict between classes in Edinburgh in the 1820s than
there had been at some other time. (3) While the overall picture of member-
ship of the two societies may look different, they had similar percentages of
members coming from some professional groups. To make this point vivid,
Cantor calls for a social explanation of the similarity of composition of the
two societies. A correlation may not be evidence for anything.
While Cantor s criticisms of Shapin are specific to this particular account,
they can be applied to other interest-based accounts. Many historical studies
follow the same pattern: They identify a scientific controversy in which the
debaters on each side can be identified. They identify a social conflict, the
sides of which can be correlated to the sides of the debate. And finally, they
offer an explanation to connect the themes of the scientific debate and
those of the social conflict (e.g. MacKenzie 1978; Jacob 1976; Rudwick 1974;
Farley and Geison 1974; Shapin 1981; Harwood 1976, 1977).
Exactly the same problems may face many internalist accounts, but are
not so apparent because the posited social divisions and conflicts often seem
natural to science and technology, and so are more immediately convincing
as causes of beliefs. Conflicts between physicists with different investments
in mathematical skills (Pickering 1984), between natural philosophers with
different models of scientific demonstration (Shapin and Schaffer 1985), or
between proponents of different methods of making steel (Misa 1992) involve
more immediate links between interests and beliefs, because the interests are
apparently internal to science and technology.
Steve Woolgar (1981) has developed a further criticism of interest-based
explanations. Analysts invoke interests to explain actions even when they
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52 Strong Programme and Sociology of Knowledge
cannot display a clear causal path from interests to actions. To be persuasive,
then, analysts have to isolate a particular set of interests as dominant, and
independent of the story being told. However, there are indefinitely many
potential interests capable of explaining an action, so any choice is under-
determined. Woolgar is criticizing social realism, the assumption that aspects
of the social world are determinate (even if aspects of the natural world are
not). Woolgar, advancing the reflexive part of the strong programme, points
out that accounts in STS rhetorically construct aspects of the social world,
in this case interests, in exactly analogous ways as scientists construct aspects
of the natural world. STS should make social reality and natural reality
symmetrical, or should justify their lack of symmetry. Actor-network theory
attempts the former (see Chapter 8; Latour 1987; Callon 1986). Methodo-
logical relativism adopts the latter strategy (Collins and Yearley 1992).
Interest-based patterns of analysis thus face a number of problems:
(1) analysts tend to view the participants in the controversy as two-
dimensional characters, having only one type of social interest, and a fairly
simple line of scientific thought; (2) they tend to make use of a simplified
social theory, isolating few conflicts and often simplifying them; (3) it is
difficult to show causal links between membership in a social group and
belief; and (4) interests are usually taken as fixed, and society as stable, even
though these are as constructed and flexible as are the scientific results
to be explained.
Despite these problems, STS has not abandoned interest-based explana-
tions. They are too valuable to be simply brushed aside. First, interest
explanations are closely related to rational choice explanations, in which
actors try to meet their goals. Rational choices need to be situated in a
context in which certain goals are highlighted, and the choices available
to reach those goals are narrowed. The difficult theoretical problems are
answered in practical terms, by more detailed and cautious empirical work.
Second, researchers in STS have paid increasing attention to scientific and
technical cultures, especially material cultures, and how those cultures shape
options and choices. They have emphasized clear internal interests, such as
interests in particular approaches or theories. As a result, researchers in STS
have shown how social, cultural, and intellectual matters are not distinct.
Instead, intellectual issues have social and cultural ones woven into their very
fiber. Within recognized knowledge-creating and knowledge-consuming
cultures and societies this is importantly the case (see Box 5.3), but it is also
the case elsewhere. Third, while situating these choices involves rhetorical
work on the part of the analyst, this is just the sort of rhetorical work that
any explanation requires. Woolgar s critique is not so much of interests, but
is a commentary on explanation more broadly (Ylikoski 2001).
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Strong Programme and Sociology of Knowledge 53
Box 5.2 Testing technologies
A test of a technology shows its capabilities only to the extent that the
circumstances of the test are the same as real-world circumstances.
According to the finitist argument, though, this issue is always open to
interpretation (Pinch 1993a; Downer 2007). We might ask, with Donald
MacKenzie (1989), how accurate are ballistic missiles? This is an issue of some
importance, not least to the militaries and governments that control the
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