Jalbert+on+the+Muddle


 * Overview**

Popularly introduced by Charles Lindblom in 1959 in the study of political systems and the complexities of policymaking, the “muddle” or “muddling through” is a theory that challenges the belief that systems of decision making (sociological, political, and scientific) are somehow concrete or based on a prescribed method. Instead, the muddle highlights the process by which decisions are made as a conglomeration of individual practices, belief systems, and the influence of social and cultural capital.

One of the more interesting applications of the muddle is in the field of science and technology studies. In particular, how it can be applied to common assumptions about how facts are established, and what structures must be in place for them to endure in scientific traditions. This challenges the notion that science is produced in a “pure” form and uses a critique popularized by social constructionism.


 * Key Concepts**

Fortun and Bernstein, in their 1998 publication, “Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century,” outline four tactics for analyzing modern science in social constructionist terms:

1. __Facts are not found, but made__: the establishment of a scientific fact should not be viewed as a logical step of scientific discovery. Fact creation evolves out of a scientific method based on a spectrum of individualized practices of //experimentation//, each with embedded bias. The competition of biased views in the scientific community works towards general agreement of what constitutes a fact in order to continue the collective project of inquiry at hand.

2. __Theory and language authenticate science__: Certain traditions within science, such as publicly witnessed experiments and the process of publishing experimental findings, can have the effect of substituting subjective observations of the scientist for objective claims of discovery.

3. __Science is never neutral__: Experimentation, and the scientists who conduct them, are driven by the tradition of conceptual trajectories from which they have been trained (Fortun and Bernstein call this the //sign-force//). Choosing scientific problems are impacted by one’s habitus as much as by poorly articulated but well attuned modes of practice. This latter point is often referred to as what Michael Polanyi called //tacit knowledge//: "A scientist can accept, therefore, the most inadequate and misleading formulation of his own scientific principles without ever realizing what is being said, because he automatically supplements it by his tacit knowledge of what science really is, and thus makes the formulation ring true." (Polanyi pg.179)

4. __Facts and theories are judged__: The relative worth of a suggested scientific theory or fact is determined by a complex process of evaluation on the part of the individual scientist, the scientific community, as well as a larger sociopolitical system. This process is conducted in a milieu of small-scale scrutinizing steps and considerations Fortun and Bernstein call, "judging assemblages," in which scientists negotiate their work among, "charged yet contingent relationships within power/knowledge assemblages." (Fortun and Bernstein, pg.148)


 * Two Examples from the works of Bruno Latour:**

Inscription devices, or the tools of articulation, can manifest many of the above processes of the muddle. While scientists are familiar with the behavior and kludged output of their devices, they nevertheless remain key to making convincing arguments for a wider public who must judge the relevance of their work:

Robert Boyle. //New Experiments Physico-Mechanical//. Oxford: Thomas Robinson, 1662.
 * 1. Robert Boyle’s gas law**

__From Bruno Latour's //We Have Never Been Modern://__ //"Boyle and his colleagues abandoned the certainties of apodeictic reasoning in favour of a doxa. This doxa was not the raving imagination of the credulous masses, but a new mechanism for winning the support of one's peers. Instead of seeking to ground his work in logic, mathematics or rhetoric, Boyle relied on a parajuridical metaphor: credible, trustworthy, well-to-do witnesses gathered at the scene of the action can attest to the existence of a fact, the matter of fact, even if they do not know its true nature. So he invented the empirical style that we still use today (Shapin, 1984)."//

Engraving of Louis Pasteur (1822- 95), French biologist, performing his anthrax vaccination experiment at Pouilly-le-Fort in 1881.
 * 2. Louis Pasteur’s bacteria?**

__From Bruno Latour's //Give me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World://__ In discussing how laboratory studies might trace the origins and influence of judging assemblage, such as Pasteur's ability to define and stabilize the definition of a disease across the European continent, he claims: //"Look at the inscription devices. No matter if people talk about quasars, gross national products, statistics on anthrax epizootic microbes, DNA or subparticle physics; the only way they can talk and not be undermined by counter-arguments as plausible as their own statements is if, and only if, they can make the things ttrey say they are talking about easily readable. No matter the size, cost, length, and width of the instruments they build, the final end product of all these inscription devices is always a written trace that makes the perceptive judgment of the others simpler."//


 * References**

Lindblom C.E.. (1959). //The Science of Muddling Through//. Public Administration Review 19:79-88.

Latour B. (1993). //We Have Never Been Modern//. Harvard University Press.

Latour, B. (1983). Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World.

Shapin S. and Schaffer S. (1985). //Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life//. Princeton University Press.

Polanyi, M. (1958). //Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy//. Routledge.