Bøker av Harry Collins

This is a collection of poetry and flash fiction focusing on working life and animals, from fables about magic rabbits to alien invasions and everything in-between. If that sounds like your nine-to-five, you're in the right place.

The internet is changing the way knowledge is made and understood. It is a change from making knowledge via face-to-face interaction to making knowledge via remote interaction. The authors of this book believe that this change, if left unchecked, could be disastrous for the long-term future of pluralist democracy and the very idea of truth itself. The book explains what the change is, why it is so dangerous, and what needs to be done to stop it.That such dangers are real is made clear by recent events, which include the storming of the US Capitol in January 2020 by rioters unwilling to believe the election result, and the many similar 'controversies' around the Covid-19 pandemic.The argument is built in three stages, starting with the fundamental role of face-to-face interaction. The key element of this first section is a classification of the different features of face-to-face interaction. This combines extensive research in the sociology of science with insights from other fields, to identify the ways in which face-to-face interactions enable the formation of societies. That starts with primary socialisation, through which we learn the objects that make up our reality, and extends into secondary socialisation and other forms of learning. In all cases, trust in others, grounded in face-to-face interaction, is crucial, with science providing both the exemplary institution of knowledge production and the hard case upon which the irreducible need for face-to-face interaction is established.The authors then examine the development of remote communication and provide a systematic analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. This comparative element is important: face-to-face communication is not always good and remote communication is not always bad. Indeed, much of modern society would be impossible without remote communication. There is, however, a limit to how far face-to-face interaction can be replaced. This is illustrated with case studies, drawing on the wide experience of the authors, that examine what happens in settings where remote communication might seem to be preferable, and showing that, despite its apparent advantages, it cannot reproduce all the functions of face-to-face interaction.The third and final stage of the argument applies this analysis to the problems facing democratic societies. The authors show that social media enables users to create an 'illusion of intimacy' and to deploy remote communication to promote misinformation and distrust on an industrial scale. These developments are linked to the rise of populism, and the risk it poses to more pluralist forms of democracy characterised by institutional checks and balances. Drawing on the virtues of face-to-face communication, the authors argue that the 'conservation of democracy' depends on citizens understanding the long-term consequences of an over-reliance on remote communication. They conclude, therefore, by returning to the themes set out at the start of the book, namely the crucial role played by trust in modern societies and the importance of face-to-face interactions in reproducing that trust, and the democratic institutions in which it should be invested. All this should be part of the civic education of the future and is of immediate importance to politicians and social and political scientists among others.

Pluralist democracy is characterised by respect for minority choices and a system of checks and balances that prevents power being concentrated in one group, while populism treats minorities as traitorous so as to concentrate power in the government.

A fascinating account, written in real time, of the unfolding of a scientific discovery: the first detection of gravitational waves.

How technologies can get it wrong in sports, and what the consequences are-referees undermined, fans heartbroken, and the illusion of perfect accuracy maintained.

According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation. When stars explode or collide, a portion of their mass becomes energy that disturbs the very fabric of the space-time continuum like ripples in a pond. But proving the existence of these waves has been difficult; the cosmic shudders are so weak that only the most sensitive instruments can be expected to observe them directly. Fifteen times during the last thirty years scientists have claimed to have detected gravitational waves, but so far none of those claims have survived the scrutiny of the scientific community. "Gravity's Shadow" chronicles the forty-year effort to detect gravitational waves, while exploring the meaning of scientific knowledge and the nature of expertise.Gravitational wave detection involves recording the collisions, explosions, and trembling of stars and black holes by evaluating the smallest changes ever measured. Because gravitational waves are so faint, their detection will come not in an exuberant moment of discovery but through a chain of inference; for forty years, scientists have debated whether there is anything to detect and whether it has yet been detected. Sociologist Harry Collins has been tracking the progress of this research since 1972, interviewing key scientists and delineating the social process of the science of gravitational waves.Engagingly written and authoritatively comprehensive, "Gravity's Shadow" explores the people, institutions, and government organizations involved in the detection of gravitational waves. This sociological history will prove essential not only to sociologists and historians of science but to scientists themselves.

Much of what we know we cannot say. And much of what we do we cannot describe. For example, how do we know how to ride a bike when we can't explain how we do it? These abilities, which we are unable to articulate, were labeled "tacit knowledge" by chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi. This book analyzes the term, and the behavior, in detail.

This study in the sociology of science explores the way scientists conduct, and draw conclusions from, their experiments. The book is organized around three case studies: replication of the TEA-laser, detecting gravitational rotation, and some experiments in the paranormal.