Against reductionism: On the complexity of scientific temporality

Abstract

There are two kinds of often intertwined arguments accounting for innovative appraisals of the current developments in scientific landscape. The first maintains that science is not in any way different from other social realms and can be characterized by unprecedented dynamization (or acceleration) observable on various levels and in different dimensions that constitute scientific activities. The second position, often stemming from the first, is exemplified in our analysis through critical engagement with Dick Pels’s notion of ‘unhastening science’. Pels’s position holds that it is essential for science to ‘slow down’ in order to, among other things, fulfill its socio-economic and cultural role, if not live up to its raison d’être. In this article, we problematize this binary view and argue for a more nuanced perspective advancing the temporal complexity of scientific knowledge production. By drawing on historical examples, specifically Andrew Pickering’s notion of temporal emergence grounded in his study of Donald Glaser’s invention of the bubble chamber, and by developing our temporal reading of Bruno Latour’s Pasteurization of France, we carve out three interactive categories capturing the temporal dynamics of science production: experimental, cognitive and institutional temporalities. We subsequently argue that science production is underpinned by agentic synchronization of these temporalities. Drawing on our argumentation in conclusion, we oppose the popular tendency to understand time in science in a reductive sense.

Inevitability, contingency, and the epistemic significance of time

“…However, even though the conceptualizations of academic time have gone well beyond the simplistic “fast versus slow” dichotomy toward much more elaborate and complex categorizations (e.g., Bruyninckx, 2017; Vostal et al, 2018), one thing has remained the same ever since Pels’ call for “unhastening” science, and that is the ever-present perception of a genuine conflict between the externally forced changes within the structure of academic time on the one hand and academia’s fundamental goal of producing reliable knowledge and contributing to scientific (and thus social) progress on the other. The recent collection of articles on academic temporality from the leading scholars in the field, Universities in the Flux of Time (Gibbs et al, 2015), is indicative of this attitude, as basically all the articles that somehow inquire into the epistemic impact of these changes express a certain discomfort in this regard and warn against the possibly disruptive effects of the temporal changes within academia on the process of scientific knowledge production.…”

“…How do the temporal conditions of scientific work enter the “mangle,” and how can they affect scientific research not merely on the level of practice (i.e., as inhibiting or stimulating it) but on the genuinely epistemic level (i.e., as affecting what kind of knowledge is being produced)? Vostal et al (2018) provide an illustrative example by their pluralist reconceptualization of scientific temporality in terms of three distinctive temporal clusters—experimental, cognitive, and institutional—and even more importantly by their concept of “agentic synchronization.” According to their claim, the relationship between scientists and the temporal conditions of their work is not by any means asymmetrical in the sense that scientists are simply passive victims to the forces of acceleration, as often portrayed. On the contrary, scientists should be regarded as “temporal agents” who can actively and, for the most part, intentionally manage the temporal aspects, demands, and pressures of their work.…”

“…Far from being deterministic, however, this process involves what the authors describe as “temporal intentionality,” that is, a certain maneuvering space allowing for multiple possible ways of achieving stabilization and therefore also multiple different trajectories of scientific development. In their own words, “maneuvering, (un)bending, (dis)connecting, responding and reacting to (re)routing and (re)orienting both expected and unexpected tempos of experimental, cognitive, and institutional nature constitute a fundamental feature in the process of scientific knowledge production” (Vostal et al, 2018: 799). Another example of how such “temporal juggling” can affect the very content and direction of scientific research is suggested by Bruyninckx (2017) whose ethnographic study of three research facilities develops an image of scientific research as an activity which is structured across multiple temporal registers that do not necessarily unfold synchronously and that are therefore in need of constant “synchronization” (which involves multiple strategies of “timework”) in order to maintain organizational stability as well as maximum efficiency.…”

“…In other words, the analyses of scientific temporality seem to focus on the temporal features of various scientific practices —either by categorizing their several temporal dimensions and “timescapes” (e.g. Felt, 2016; Vostal et al, 2018) or by dissecting the temporal conflicts therein, such as the conflict between “process time” and “project time” (Ylijoki, 2015, 2016)—without delving deeper into the actual epistemic level of the matter.…”

“…1.For the most recent contributions, see e.g., Bruyninckx, 2017; Felt, 2016; Gibbs et al, 2015; Smith, 2015; Vostal, 2015; Vostal et al, 2018; Ylijoki, 2015, 2016. For an STS analysis of time outside of the context of scientific practice, see most prominently Wajcman, 2015; Wajcman and Dodd, 2017.…”