Beach Haven

References
​Hess, David J. 2016. Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized Publics, and Industrial Transitions. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.

Review by Michael Beach

In this work, David J. Hess looks at controversial issues that involve “complex scientific and technological issues that can provoke sharp divisions in public opinion” (Hess 2016, 1). As a way to examine the role of scientific and technological expertise Hess includes specific topics to include climate change, industrial pollution, nanomaterials, technologies of surveillance, and products of molecular biology. It’s safe to say these topics are both ongoing and controversial. Although he looks at the political issues themselves, the point of the work is to look at epistemological perspectives by and about scientists and technologists involved in these specific focus areas.

One example of an area Hess examines is depicted in the chapter 3 title; “The Politics of Meaning: From Frames to Design Conflicts” (Hess 2016, 79). The controversial topics noted above are not the focus of this chapter so much as the setting. The focus is on how researchers tend to frame the arguments and issues that need attention, and the cultural factors that influence their analysis. How does one create an analysis (breaking down ideas into parts) then move towards a meaningful synthesis (understanding the way the parts interact)? Designing an approach to both analysis and synthesis is where many human factors can cause variation in approach that also cause variation in artifacts produced in the process. This variable process is what causes many of us who are not experts in a given controversial topic such as climate change to put stock in one political position or another using ‘science’ as one of our arguments in favor of a given position. An example Hess shares relates to high emissions by buses. The bus depots that have the highest pollution emission concentrations tend to be in lower-income parts of cities. He gives examples of studies conducted in specific cities that linked income with bus depot locations. These studies further linked low-income neighborhoods with predominantly African American residents. Yet, one needs to examine the details about bus usage, historical demographic changes in neighborhoods, and other similar factors. “More generally, the analysis of race and design in the urban transit system suggest a need for methodological caution” (Hess 2016, 91). Studies have often suffered criticism in the process of going from the general the specific (analysis), then applying the specific to the general (synthesis). Humans are making decisions all along the process of what to examine and what to ignore in collecting data. Then humans are making decisions all along the process of which variables and data are relevant and which are not. In the language of statistical analysis, what information is statistically significant, and how does one define statistically significant? How much variability in data is acceptable to call something ‘significant’? The subjectivity is ultimately what has led to an erosion of confidence by some in scientific expertise. 
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References
​Schrank, Delphine. 2015. The Rebel of Rangoon: A Tale of Defiance and Deliverance in Burma. New York: Nation Books.

Review by Michael Beach

The pro-democracy struggles in Burma lasted decades. This book looks closely at a handful of specific people who participated during the 1980s through the first decade of the 2000s. Their names are Nway, Nigel, Grandpa, and Aung San Suu Kyi. The last of these was the face of the movement who had popular support in several national level elections. Aung was very visible and attracted international news attention. The others were unknown to the world, or even the larger movement seeking to topple the autocratic powers that led to many of the problems that are common to that style of government. Delphine Schrank shares specific stories of four specific revolutionaries and how each of their experiences were at time parallel, and other times were entwined. Each had their personal losses caused by violence in the process. Several suffered through prison time as political prisoners.

While sharing their stories, the author is able to move their individual stories along while sharing the larger narrative. Major events are depicted from the perspective of historical fact as documented in news stories and official documents. The individuals followed also have their own narrow experience during each of those major events. For example, there was a migration of sorts of many of the revolutionaries temporarily left Rangoon, or the Insein Prison system to gather just over the river in Dala. “In Dala, the only structures built to last, aside from an orphanage and a school, were the pagodas” (Schrank 2015, 131). The pagodas Schrank describes as tourist traps designed to give visitors a place to leave Rangoon during the day, spend some money for the ambiance, then retreat back across the river to their respective hotels. For the revolutionaries, Schrank says, Dala became a ‘city of exiles’ that evolved into a ‘city of wraiths’.
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Each of the characters (real people, not created by the author) shared specific tactics used for communication, and their shifting support of each other or the larger movement. At times several were accused of using their position for personal benefit, and the author shows that this may be true to some degree, yet they also participated with personal sacrifice. The book is a look at real humans who act like real humans in a large political struggle with individual experience. 

References
Ezrahi, Yaron. 1990. The Descent of Icarus: Sceince and the Transformation of Contemporary Democracy. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.

​Review by Michael Beach

The author has looked at the cross-section of science and politics since the 1960s. In this work, Yaron Ezrahi considers the role of scientific expertise in the policy process within modern ‘liberal-democratic’ states. He shares examples of the ascension of science as an authoritative voice in coming to ‘objective’ conclusions. Over time, other factors came to have as much or more influence in policy. Since experts of similar credential don’t always agree, and some change their perspective over time, public policy makers have come to view expertise as one area of consideration when forming public policy, not so much as the area of consideration. The lowering of scientific authority from preeminence to that of one more voice of many is its descension. Science is more generally understood to have both objective and subjective components, often with ‘dueling experts’ on opposite sides of a policy question.

Ezrahi examines both political process and its relationship with scientific process. The work is divided into three sections. The first examines the political functions of science. It is followed by a look at dilemmas that arise between private persons and public actions. This includes those who act as scientific experts, but also those who create policy, and the rest of us who vote in a democratic society. The final section takes deep dive into effects caused by the privatization of science in the United States specifically.

One interesting thread for me as a reader was the author’s look at machines as a metaphor in scientific and policy processes. For example, machines can be viewed as helpful and positive, or out of control. In the first, we have influence and benefit from mechanistic processes. They create a fair and equal environment. In the second, those not directly inside the machine are powerless and fall victim to its seemingly mindless path. Where one falls in the machine metaphor as benevolent or apocalyptic, depends a great deal on the specific country or culture with which one is surrounded. 
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