Chapter 1: Toward a Public Intellect on Science

Should the 'public' 'understand' science?
What should the public understand?
Science needs connoisseurs
Good intentions alone are not enough.
Science on the Test
An inconvenient truth
Resisting the Merchants of Doubt

Chapter 2: Researchers with the Right Qualities

Gender and Science
True researchers
The composition of a true researcher
demobilization?

Chapter 3: Science and Values: How Can We Slow Down?

Under the dominance of evaluation
Who are your colleagues?
'Science', a compound that must be dissolved
Contrast
symbiosis
Slow down…

Chapter 4: Ludwig Fleck, Thomas Kuhn, and the Challenge of Slowing Science

Chapter 5: "Another Science Is Possible!" An Appeal for Slow Science

Chapter 6: Cosmopolitics: Civilizing Modern Practice

Absence of guarantee
political ecology
Civilizing politics

Translator's Note

It has been driving and mobilizing us to quickly distinguish and choose between this or that.
An appeal to 'normal science' and a timely suggestion aimed at all modern practices.

Let's first take a brief look at a review of Isabelle Stangers's "Another Science Is Possible," published in an online journal in February 2018.
The reviewer quotes part of a review by a pharmacology professor at an American university in Times Higher Education as a criticism of Stangers' book.
“As a pharmacologist, I would like to vehemently dispute the argument that we should once again slow down science, while patients on the one hand are dying waiting for new treatments to be approved by following all the rules and procedures.” (2017) The reviewer questions whether the pharmacology professor has read the entire book carefully, but paradoxically describes his objections as evidence that confirms much of Stangers’ diagnosis.
The pharmacology professor's argument is nothing more than a typical misreading of Stangers' 'other sciences'.
The topics covered in the six chapters of this book all expose the potential for such misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
Stangers's practice of activating the imagination as a philosopher's mission seems to be to show a way of thinking that consciously deviates from the success formula of 'fast science' (or 'fast scholarship'), which has been granting authority to a single fact (evidence) by cracking solid common sense and disturbing boundaries.

Is fast science a badge of honor from the past?

It takes a lot of time to create scientific knowledge.
It's not something you can do alone.
This is not only the case in fields where experimental verification is essential.
That's why you might not initially be convinced by Stangers' basic position.
But as the book repeatedly emphasizes, fast and slow are not a matter of speed.
In fact, we should look at the case of Justus von Liebig, the chemist who first modeled fast science, and the contrast between the slow science that the author speaks of.

In the entry on 'Chemistry' in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopaedia, chemist Gabriel Francois Venel described chemistry as a 'madman's' passion.
He was a steer, a metalworker, and a pharmacist.
He wrote that it takes a lifetime to acquire practical knowledge and skills in the subtle, complex, and often dangerous chemical operations involved in the many arts and techniques of chemistry.
In contrast, students in Liebig's laboratory earned their doctorates after four years of intensive training.
But they learned nothing about these numerous traditional skills and techniques.
Instead, we used only purified and well-identified reactants and standardized experimental procedures, and learned only the most up-to-date methods and techniques.
Page 176

Liebig's university laboratory, which established this system, has become a common model in universities today.
His invention of 'fast chemistry', which he held as a founder, contributed greatly to the creation of a new chemical industry on the other hand.
In other words, he is the founder of the concept we call today the 'linear model'.
This linear model is accompanied by the famous 'goose that lays the golden eggs' metaphor.

It is in the best interest of industry to distance itself from academic research and ensure that the scientific community has the freedom to ask its own questions.
Because only scientists can judge at each stage which questions will be fruitful, which will lead to rapid cumulative progress, and which will end up as mere collection of empirical facts without any results.
If industry tries to ask its own questions, it is killing the goose and losing the eggs.
Page 177

As time passes, leaving behind Liebig's era, the fast-moving scientific model has long since returned like a boomerang, threatening the goose.
There are other properties besides the linear relationship or closeness between pure science (which does not exist, but we will call it that for convenience) and applied science or university research labs and industry.
Since the advent of the "knowledge economy," rapid science has made competition for recognition of "excellence" a prerequisite for academic survival, and this competition revolves around the rare resource of publication in top-tier academic journals.
The author is very critical of this mainstream academic journal's approach to evaluation, arguing that it is not only closed but also produces cascading negative consequences, ultimately raising fundamental questions and concerns about whether this system is truly sustainable for science itself.

How can we slow down science?

So how does slow science work?
The subtitle of the original French book is Manifeste pour un ralentissement des sciences, and ralentissement, which corresponds to the noun form of the English word slow, is said to be closer to slowing down (slowing down) or making slow rather than describing the static state (slowness) of a phenomenon that has occurred.
But we must be clear that taking our foot off the accelerator is not a return to a “somewhat idealized past when honest and excellent researchers were fairly recognized by their colleagues,” and that changing practices is clearly a political issue.

Stangers does not define either fast or slow science in neat propositions.
Fast science is what we have achieved and what we have now, so it is critically reviewed.
Slow science has never had an agreed upon image, not even an imaginary one.
Instead, the author attempts to explain through a contrast, using Deleuze as an example.

His citations in top philosophy journals (generally analytic) will be minimal.
As for his productivity, it would be considered trivial because he did not publish many papers and most of the papers he did publish were published in non-recognized journals.
His book would also not be recognized, as it would be 'outside the evaluation' since 'real researchers' publish for their colleagues within the scope set by the referees.
So, a quick evaluation 'by colleagues' condemns doing philosophy in the Deleuzeian way.
(…) For Deleuze himself, the academic prosperity of the ‘fast philosophers’ is almost identical to the deterioration of philosophy.

Although it facilitates easy understanding through clear contrast, the model of evaluation by 'competent colleagues' is applied across virtually all academic disciplines.
However, there are some aspects in which science is clearly different from other disciplines.
While other fields “fail to unite the academic community through the notion of competent colleagues,” science “illuminates the question of scientific difference by focusing on the question of the connections between colleagues that create the novelty of so-called modern science.” In other words, in science “doctrinal divisions” rarely occur, there are no conflicts in defining criteria for judgment, and there is no organized counterattack against facts when (empirical) facts declare victory over values.
This leads to a lack of ‘pluralism’.

Slow down, reclaim, civilize

Stangers laments that as science becomes accustomed to a series of speed races—mobilizing, competing, and submitting to benchmarks—we have become desensitized to “the resistance, the friction, the hesitation—the things that make us feel we are not alone in this world.”
As has been repeatedly emphasized, rapid science is not just a matter of speed.


Slowing down means relearning, reacquainting ourselves with things, and re-weaving our interdependencies.
It means thinking, imagining, and in the process creating relationships with others that are not relationships of capture.
That means creating the kind of relationships that are effective for the sick, both among ourselves and with others.
In relationships where we need each other to learn with, from, and thanks to others, we can learn what a life worth living requires and what knowledge is worth cultivating.
Page 130

The content of the quote evokes a sense of collective intelligence and connection that enclosure so mercilessly erases.
But slow science is not a mandate for scientists to fully take into account the complex chaos of the world.
This means that scientists must collectively recognize the specificity and selective nature of their own thinking and face the challenge of developing it, and for this to be realized in the training process, “civilizing scientists” is required.
The civilization of modern planning was not a true civilization.
For Stangers, civilization is “the ability of members of a particular group to express themselves in a way that is not offensive to members of other groups, that is, in a way that allows for the formation of relationships.”

The author explains this relationship with an interesting analogy.
We (humans) have no qualms about describing ourselves to others as having opposable thumbs.
Because it is a 'question of fact'.
Science has consolidated and developed its domain by granting authority to a single, verifiable fact.
But even if that were true, placing constraints on how we express it would allow us to move beyond the benchmarks of objectivity and rationality to recognizing the partial nature of knowledge and fostering an open attitude toward 'matters of interest'.

Who is Isabelle Stangers?

Stangers first became known in Korea through his co-authored work, Order in Chaos (Minumsa, 1997; republished as Order in Chaos by Jayu Academy in 2011), with Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Ilya Prigogine.
A look at some of the material introducing this book and its author reveals that he is a historian and philosopher of science who shares the core concerns, research interests, and key concepts of the current scientific and technological community.
The author's research interests are condensed into the concept of 'cosmopolitics'.
The topic of 'Gaia's invasion', which he brought up again despite the risk of misunderstanding, has the importance of 'locating' cosmopolitics, which can be expressed through space geopolitics.
Also, the online media outlet specializing in interviews with him through video conferences is interesting as it includes content that hints at his intellectual exchanges with science and technology scholar Bruno Latour.
Latour called him the ultimate master and described him as “the only person who is afraid of the whip” that can make him cry while arguing about his writings.
As interest in science and technology studies grows, I hope that the academic influence of these three scholars will become widely known through research in Korean science and technology studies through the translation of this book.