Table Of ContentNINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR:
SCIENCE BETWEEN UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA
SOCIOLOGY OF THE SCIENCES
A YEARBOOK
Editorial Board:
G. B6hme, Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt
N. Elias, Universities of Leichester and Bielefeld
Y. Elkana, The Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, Jernsalem
L. Graham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
H. Martins, University of Oxford
E. Mendelsohn, Harvard University
H. Nowotny, European Centre for Social Welfare Training
and Research, Vienna
H. Rose, University of Bradford
Claire Salomon-Bayet, University ofP aris
T. Shinn, Centre National de la Recherche Scientijique, Paris
P. Weingart, University of Bielefeld
R. D. Whitley, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester
Managing Editor: R. D. Whitley
VOLUME VIII - 1984
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR:
SCIENCE BETWEEN
UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA
Edited by
EVERETT MENDELSOHN
Harvard UniJlersity, Dept. of the History of Science, Cambridge, Mass.
and
HELGA NOWOTNY
European Centre for Social Welfare Training and Research,
and UniJlersity of Vienna, Austria
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
UI
A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER " ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Nineteen eighty-four: science between utopia and dystopia.
(Sociology of the sciences: a yearbook; v. 8)
Includes index.
1. Utopias - Congresses. 2. Progress -Congresses.
3. Science - Social aspects - Congresses. 4. Social sciences -
Congresses. I. Mendelsohn, Everett. II. Nowotny, Helga.
III. Title: 1984. IV. Series: Sociology of the sciences; v. 8.
HX806.N56 1984 335'.02 84-13387
ISBN-13: 978-90-277-1721-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6340-5
001: 10.1007/978-94-009-6340-5
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland
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All Rights Reserved
© 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
Biography of Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
PART I
Introduction
HELGA NOWOTNY - Science and Utopia: On the Social Ordering
of the Future 3
PART II
Science and Utopia in History
J. C. DAVIS - Science and Utopia: The History ofa Dilemma 21
HERBERT BREGER - Elias Artista: A Precursor of the Messiah
in Natural Science 49
MICHAEL WINTER - The Explosion of the Circle: Science and
Negative Utopia 73
PART III
Socialism, Science and Utopia
K U R T B'<\ YE R T Z - From Utopia to Science? The Development of
Socialist Theory between Utopia and Science 93
LOREN GRAHAM - Bogdanov's Red Star: An Early Bolshevik
Science Utopia III
vi Table of Contents
PART IV
Utopias in Practice
CHRISTINE WOESLER DE PANAFIEU - Automata: A Masculine
Utopia 127
AANT ELZINGA and ANDREW JAMISON - Making Dreams Come
True - An Essay on the Role of Practical Utopias in Science 147
PETER WEINGART - Eugenic Utopias: Blueprints for the Ration-
alization of Human Evolution 173
JAMES FLECK - Artificial Intelligence and Industrial Robots: An
Automatic End for Utopian Thought? 189
PART V
Utopian Modes
INGO GRABNER and WOLFGANG REITER - Meddling with
'Politicks' - Some Conjectures about the Relationship between
Science and Utopia 235
EVEL YN FOX KELLER - Science and Power for What? 261
Y ARON EZRAHI - Science and Utopia in Late 20th Century
Pluralist Democracy, with a Special Reference to the U.S.A. 273
Epilogue
W. H. AUDEN - Vespers 291
Name Index 295
Subject Index 299
PREFACE
Just fifty years ago Julian Huxley, the biologist grandson of Thomas Henry
Huxley, published a book which easily could be seen to represent the prevail
ing outlook among young scientists of the day: If I were a Dictator (1934).
The outlook is optimistic, the tone playfully rational, the intent clear - allow
science a free hand and through rational planning it could bring order out of
the surrounding social chaos. He complained, however:
At the moment, science is for most part either an intellectual luxury or the paid servant
of capitalist industry or the nationalist state. When it and its results cannot be fitted
into the existing framework, it and they are ignored; and furthermore the structure of
scientific research is grossly lopsided, with over-emphasis on some kinds of science and
partial or entire neglect of others. (pp. 83-84)
All this the scientist dictator would set right. A new era of scientific human
ism would provide alternative visions to the traditional religions with their
Gods and the civic religions such as Nazism and fascism. Science in Huxley's
version carries in it the twin impulses of the utopian imagination - Power
and Order.
Of course, it was exactly this vision of science which led that other grand
son of Thomas Henry Huxley, the writer Aldous Huxley, to portray scientific
discovery as potentially subversive and scientific practice as ultimately en
slaving. Julian Huxley's If I were a Director presented science as key to the
utopian ideal, brother Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) presented
science as key to the dystopian nightmares.
The specter of a society planned entirely within the framework of rigorous
scientific methods and conforming to their strict codes of rationality has
haunted and guided many visions of the future for both science and utopia.
Yet, the reality of the drama of the scientific enterprise unfolding in societies
that were eagerly waiting for their redemption through scientific means has
unfolded in its own, often unforeseen ways. Science and technology have
become at once victims of their past successes and heroes of their unanti
cipated failures.
vii
Everett Mendelsohn and Helga Nowotny (eds.). Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science between
Utopia and Dystopia. Sociology of the Sciences. Volume VIII. 1984. vii-ix.
© 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
viii Everett Mendelsohn and Helga Nowotny
The debates on the two faces of science and technology continue with
seemingly endless variation of one common theme - the good and the bad.
Was the building of the atom bomb a success or a failure of modern
science? Will the new achievements of genetic engineering be accepted as
positive or problematic? Why the lingering public feeling that science and
related technologies are partially responsible for the vanishing natural environ
ment and the persuasive pollution by-products of science-based industries?
While the computer revolution races on is there substance to the fear that
too much knowledge, too easily accessible might be socially harmful?
Scientific-technological achievements have changed our relationship not
only to the material world around us but more importantly, to ourselves.
Control has been extended inward and outward, yet the old question remains,
who is in control. Utopian dreams have been vindicated and dystopian night
mares confirmed. The dialogue of the Utopist and the Arcadian, captured
so vividly by W. H. Auden in the twilight mood of Western civilization, is
likely to continue with the two talking at each other via computer terminals.
While today's utopian dreams - muted, fragmented, individualized -
linger on, now invariably tied to the constraints imposed by science and
technology, achievements in those areas directly affecting the human condi
tion demonstrate at last that there is no short path to a utopian future. In
fact, Western impatience had to learn what the old sages always knew: it is
the way, the path that matters, more than the (technological) result. The
changing relationship of science and utopia, retraced in some of its intricacies
in this volume, show precisely this unsolved dilemma: while a retreat into the
past is not possible, even our most powerful tools cannot assure a future
constructed in certainties. We are left to cope with uncertainties. Science and
technology remain the tools to reduce some of them, even while creating new
ones, thus leaving us confronted with a future of our own making.
This volume began with a small colloquium organized at the Wissenschafts
kolleg zu Berlin in February, 1982 when one of us (H.N.) was there as a
Fellow. The final editing was achieved as the other one of us (E.M.) returned
to Berlin as a Fellow in autumn 1983.
All (but one) papers were presented at a conference called explicitly
for that purpose in December, 1982 at the Zentrum fur interdisziplinare
Forschung in Bielefeld, F.R.G. The ZIF - which had been host to another
Preface ix
group working on utopias of the 17th and 18th centuries - is to be thanked
for providing substantial support also for our endeavours.
Valerie Lester, then of the Department of the History of Science, Harvard
University, contributed significantly to the process of editing the papers and
preparing them for publication.
Our students at Harvard University and at the University of Vienna shared
in the process of discussing ideas presented here and injected the essential
twin ingredients of any discussion on this topic - enthusiasm and scepticism.
Berlin, October, 1983 EVERETT MENDELSOHN
HELGA NOWOTNY
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS OF THE CONTRIBUTORS
KURT BAYERTZ is working at the Science Studies Unit of the University of
Bielefeld. His main interests are in the philosophy of science and social
history of German science (especially its use as philosophy or ideology) in
the nineteenth century. He is currently doing research on ethical problems of
biomedical technologies. His publications include Wissenschaft als historischer
Proze(3 (W. Fink, Miinchen, 1980), and Wissenschaftstheorie und Paradigma
begriff(J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1981).
HERBERT BREGER holds a diploma in mathematics and a doctorate in
sociology. At the Leibniz-Archive in Hannover, he is working at the edition
of Leibniz' mathematical and scientific correspondence. Research interest:
History, philosophy and sociology of science. Recent publication: Die Natur
als arbeitende Maschine: Zur Entstehung des Energiesatzes in der Physik
1840-1850 (Frankfurt/New York, 1982).
J. C. DAVIS is Reader in history at the Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand. His Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian
Writing 1516-1700 was published by Cambridge University Press in 1981
(paperback edition 1983). He is presently working on constitutionalism and
utopianism in early modern Europe and on radicalism in the English Revolu
tion.
AANT ELZINGA is Lecturer at the Department of Theory of Science,
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, and ANDREW JAMISON is
Lecturer at the Research Policy Institute, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden.
YA RON EZRAHI is Senior Lecturer of Political Science, Hebrew University
of Jerusalem; Ph.D. Harvard University; Fellow, Center of Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (1977-78). Two forthCOming volumes
are studies of the interrelations between science and democratic political
culture.
Everett Mendelsohn and Helga Nowotny (eds.), Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science between
Utopia and Dystopia. Sociology of the Sciences, VIII, 1984. xi-xiv.
© 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Description:Just fifty years ago Julian Huxley, the biologist grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, published a book which easily could be seen to represent the prevail ing outlook among young scientists of the day: If I were a Dictator (1934). The outlook is optimistic, the tone playfully rational, the intent cle
