Unsettling scientific stories: expertise, narrative and future histories

令人不安的科学故事：专业知识、叙述和未来历史

• 批准号: AH/M005534/1
• 负责人: Amanda Rees
• 金额: $ 76.29万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FM005534%2F1
• 关键词: Unsettling; scientific; stories; expertise; narrative

C P Snow was wrong, and as a novelist, he should have known better. Famously, his 1959 Rede lecture argued that Western culture privileged the humanities at the expense of the sciences, to the extent that ignorance of the sciences could be worn as a badge of honour by the intellectual elite. This position fundamentally fails to appreciate the extent to which modern Western intellectual culture - literary, artistic and material - has been underpinned and inspired by the sciences both in theory and in practice. Both the producers and consumers of popular culture have engaged enthusiastically and critically with new scientific knowledges and the social possibilities and problems they raise, and nowhere is this engagement more visible than in the variety of imagined futures that modernity has produced. This project will examine how these futures evolved over the course of the long, technological 20th century, beginning in 1887 with the publication of de Ferranti's design of the Deptford Power Station (the beginning of large scale electricity generation in the UK), and continuing to the publication in 2007 of the International Panel on Climate Change's 4th Assessment Report (which put the existence of anthropogenic climate change beyond reasonable doubt). At its heart are three detailed case studies, which explore how new scientific developments conditioned cultural understandings of the present and constructions of the future through three important periods of modernity. We begin with the optimism and excitement of the innovations in physics and experimental cultures during the late Victorian/early Edwardian period, move on to look at the ways that discoveries in the biological sciences in the high modernity of the inter- and post-war period changed conceptions of humanity and nature, and end as modernity falters at the turn of the century in the face of environmental and resource crises, alongside the new understandings of ecological sciences and complexity. The case studies are contextualised and enhanced by three additional studies which will develop a broader understanding of how publics engage with science fictions and speculative science futures. They will explore how science was presented in popular periodicals through this long 20th century; consider how past visions of the future help us to understand contemporary social choices; and examine how contemporary science fiction writers and readers are anticipating the future now, in the face of the emergent scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, challenging issues about energy futures, and new possibilities engendered by genetic manipulation. These context studies will also provide the resources that will inspire a dialogue between the project researchers and the wider interested publics, both lay and expert, conducted through an interactive website and science fiction reading groups, which will enable these publics to comment on and critique both the process and results of this research. In this way, the project will not just make scientific and technological ideas and information more widely available to the democratic citizenry, it will produce better academic conclusions as a result of public involvement. In sum, drawing on traditions in history and sociology of science as well as studies of popular culture, we will show how science has been a source of unsettling social change as new knowledge opens up new possibilities, anticipations and hopes - but also new fears, conflicts and unintended consequences. At the same time, we explore how fiction and culture more broadly has unsettled scientific certainties by making science a source of entertainment, wonder and pleasure, and enabling readers and publics to challenge expert knowledges by asking difficult questions about the ethical, social and political implications of the futures opened up by scientific innovations.

C·P·斯诺错了，作为一名小说家，他应该更清楚。著名的是，他在1959年的雷德演讲中辩称，西方文化以牺牲科学为代价，给予人文学科特权，以至于对科学的无知可以被知识精英戴上一枚荣誉徽章。这一立场根本没有认识到现代西方知识文化--文学、艺术和物质--在多大程度上得到了科学的理论和实践的支持和启发。流行文化的生产者和消费者都热情地和批判性地接触到新的科学知识及其带来的社会可能性和问题，这种接触在现代性产生的各种想象的未来中最为明显。这个项目将考察这些未来是如何在漫长的科技20世纪的过程中演变的，从1887年德·费兰蒂发表德普特福德发电站的设计(英国大规模发电的开始)开始，一直到2007年国际气候变化专门委员会第四次评估报告的发表(该报告将人为气候变化的存在排除在合理怀疑之外)。其核心是三个详细的案例研究，探索新的科学发展如何通过三个重要的现代性时期来制约对现在和未来的文化理解。我们从维多利亚时代末期/爱德华七世早期物理学和实验文化创新的乐观和兴奋开始，接着看看在战前和战后高度现代性时期生物科学的发现如何改变了人类和自然的概念，并随着现代性在世纪之交面临环境和资源危机而步履蹒跚，以及对生态科学和复杂性的新理解而结束。这些案例研究是通过另外三项研究来结合和加强的，这三项研究将发展对公众如何参与科幻小说和投机性科学未来的更广泛的理解。他们将探索在漫长的20世纪里，科学是如何在流行期刊上呈现的；思考过去对未来的展望如何帮助我们理解当代社会选择；并研究当代科幻作家和读者如何预测未来，面对关于人为气候变化的新兴科学共识，关于能源未来的挑战性问题，以及基因操纵带来的新可能性。这些背景研究还将提供资源，鼓励项目研究人员与更广泛的感兴趣的公众之间进行对话，包括通过互动网站和科幻阅读小组进行的非专业和专家公众之间的对话，这将使这些公众能够对这项研究的过程和结果发表评论和批评。通过这种方式，该项目不仅将科学技术思想和信息更广泛地提供给民主公民，而且还将因为公众参与而产生更好的学术结论。总而言之，我们将借鉴历史学和科学社会学的传统以及对流行文化的研究，展示科学如何成为令人不安的社会变化的根源，因为新知识带来了新的可能性、预期和希望--但也带来了新的恐惧、冲突和意想不到的后果。与此同时，我们探讨了小说和文化如何在更广泛的范围内颠覆了科学的确定性，使科学成为娱乐、奇迹和快乐的来源，并使读者和公众能够通过提出关于科学创新开启的未来的伦理、社会和政治影响的棘手问题来挑战专家的知识。

项目成果

Reimagining climate futures: Reading Annihilation

重新构想气候未来：阅读《湮灭》

• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.12.001
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Geoforum
• 影响因子: 3.5
• 作者: Iossifidis M

The End of the End of the Earth

地球的尽头

• DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.31.1.0206
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Utopian Studies
• 影响因子: 0.2
• 作者: Garforth L

Green Utopias: Environmental Hope Before and After Nature

绿色乌托邦：自然前后的环境希望

• 发表时间: 2017
• 作者: Garforth, Lisa

The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science

帕尔格雷夫二十世纪和二十一世纪文学与科学手册

• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Chambers AC

The Evolution of Planet of the Apes: Science, Religion, and 1960s Cinema

《猩球崛起》的演变：科学、宗教和 20 世纪 60 年代电影

• DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.28.2-3.3399
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture
• 作者: Chambers A