Controversy and the problems of parapsychology

The "sociology of errors" that the positivist approach to controversy produces is familiar to us. We in the parapsychological community, as dissenters to the mainstream scientific worldview, have frequently been subjected to this form of analysis--not so much from sociologists of science as from hardened members of the skeptical community. You can also see the outlines of this type of argument applied to experiencers in some of the work Jerome Tobacyk had done on belief in the paranormal, in a series of studies Harvey Irwin (1993) called the cognitive deficits approach to the study of belief in the paranormal. Irwin and others who study the psychological correlates of belief within the community of parapsychology know that the topography of belief is much more complicated than Tobacyk's (Tobacyk & Pirttilae-Backman, 1992) "psychology of error" approach would allow (and indeed, even Tobacyk's more recent research provides support for this complexity). Likewise, many science analysts assert that the topography of controversy is much more complicated than a sociology-of-error approach would allow.

The Group Politics Approach

Martin and Richards (1995) characterized the second approach used by science studies analysts as the "group politics approach" (p. 511). This approach, pioneered by Dorothy Nelkin (1971, 1972, 1975, 1992, 1995), "focuses on the groups involved in the controversy (governments, laboratories, disciplines)" (Martin & Richards, 1995, p. 511). From this approach, the resolution of controversy is "a process of conflict and compromise involving various groups contending in a political marketplace" (p. 511). Martin and Richards also wrote, "There are a number of theoretical frameworks for proceeding with a group politics study. A commonly used one is resource mobilization, in which the focus is on how different groups mobilize and use a range of 'resources,' including money, political power, supporters, status, belief systems, and scientific authority" (p. 511). In this kind of analysis, the epistemic content of a scientific controversy is merely one more tool used by the combatants to bring closure to the controversy and to restore or overturn the balance of power, retaining or reallocating resources.

Analysts who use this approach buy into Merton's third scientific norm, which claims that the average scientist is fundamentally disinterested, therefore--it is implied--objective. When specific interests are identified as operating in the controversy at hand, the group politics analyst will talk about the scientist as having been drawn into the "politicization of expertise." Studies of this sort usually focus on scientific disputes that occur in the realm of public policy (see, e.g., Nelkin, 1995) or within the courtroom where a focus on politics and power to the exclusion of all else can be useful. Applied to a specific scientific controversy occurring within a discipline or across local boundaries of related disciplines, however, the group politics approach does not seem to be quite as useful, particularly if it is used to the exclusion of other approaches.