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The Notion of Science According to Bernal Author(s): Delhi Science Forum Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 17, No. 3/4 (Mar., 1989), pp. 3-12 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517356 Accessed: 17/08/2010 02:38
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DELHI SCIENCE FORUM*

The Notion of Science According to Be-rnal

The Cambridge of the 1920s and 1930s witnessed the emergence of a new credo of scientists, who were to influence, in a very significant way, future thinking on the relationship between science and society and the influence of modem science on society. The more important of these thinkers included five Cambridge men, J.D. Bernal, Joseph Needham, J.B.S. Haldane, Hyman Levy and Lancelot Hogben. They inaugurated an investigation into the social and historical dimensions of science. As we all know, Needham was the earliest to have broken away from the classical Eurocentric tradition of the history of science, and Haldane later migrated to and settled down in India. Bernal set out to study the status of science in a socialist world. He was particularly influenced by science in the Soviet Union. Hyman Levy and Hogben strongly opposed racist and eugenic theories then prevalent in the British academic world of the time. All these men lived through a historically critical and depressing juncture, in particular a period when science was held responsible both for development and technological unemployment; besides it had been put to rather destructive use during World War II. In this context they played a significant role in restoring to science its humanistic face. Here we shall attempt to abstract the notion of science as understood by J.D. Bernal. Bernal has written extensively on the social function of science and on the historical development of science from antiquity to the contemporary period. His monumental four volume work, Science in Histonr has proved to be of relevance not only to historians of science but to scientists as well, for as Kosambi has pointed out, the investigation of science is as much an investigation into the history of science. Bernal got down to writing Science in History after the Second World War when the entire tradition of science was undergoing a tremendous self-examination. This was a consequence of both the prevalent political crisis, as well as the remarkable technological changes that had changed the face of the globe. Bernal set out to investigate the major problems that surfaced when science increasingly began to play a siginificant role in society and, therefore, his purpose was to elucidate the relation between the development of science and other aspects of human history. Bernal commences his investigation of the above-mentioned relationship with the assumption that civilization itself and its material aspects could not have been possible without science. To explain this point, he demands that one
*A group of Scientists and Science activists at New Delhi.

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reflectconsiderablyupon the relationship of science to society which can only follow out of a knowledgeof the historyof science and society.An opinion commonly held in the scientific community of that time was that scientific knowledgesupersededall other forms of human knowledge and investigation. This itself was a consequence of certain developments within positivism in the nineteenth century. Bernal denounced the positivisticunderstandingof science accordingto which present scientific knowledge superseded all the knowledge of the past. The additionalfeatureof Bernal'sdenunciation of positivismwas that it attemptedto returnto scientists a social responsibilitywhich they might have evaded. What one must not forget is that the book was written at a time when the world had been divided into two major ideological camps. Whereasthe benefitsof science werequiteobvious, the period had also witnessed its destructiveapplication.The idea that the application of science automatically led to an improvement of human welfare goes back to Roger and Francis Bacon. But the idea was to acquire increasing transparencyduringthe industrialrevolution:"Sciencehas the mission by Given this which the whole of our civilization is reallybeing transformed". of scienceand its technologicalwonders,the scientisthimself understanding acquired in the minds of the populace the aura of a magician. However, when the aberrantapplicationsof science wereto manifest themselves,the scientistwas held to be responsiblefor the evils that had plagued the times. Bernalwas hopeful that if he wereto providean appreciationof the historical relation of science and society then it would become possible for the scientist to counter any attempt that reduced him/her to a pawn in the hands of those who misuse science. The scientific community had languished in its own naiveteinsofar as scientistssaw their role as a purely moral one. The metaphor of disinterested research, they felt vindicated them of any social or moral responsibility. Though this attitude was understandable in the infancy of science, the attitude. was to break down later. The alternative,Bernal posed demanded a conscious active social responsibility from the scientific community. TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHOD One of the serious problems confronting an investigation into the natureof science as a human activity is that of circumscribingits domain and therebygiving it an unequivocal definition. The roots of science go so far back that any attemptto unify this activity from antiquity to the contemporarytimes, would certainlymiss out some of its features.In the past science was part of other domains of human investigation and it was coextensive with logic, mathematics and philosophy. It, therefore,was very difficult to delineate it from other domains of investigation. Natural philosophy fragmentedinto separateareas of inquirylike the natural and human sciences only in the 17th century, and it is at this juncture that science came to acquire an independent status. This independence, however,Bernal hopes, may be a temporaryphase in the historyof science,

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and as new disciplines emerge science may acquire another definition. In the light of this problem Bernal comes up with a working definition that encapsulates the five dimensions of science, viz., science as an instrument, as a method, as a cumulative tradition of knowledge, as a major factor in maintaining and developing production and as an instrument moulding attitudes and beliefs of the universe and man. Beral first looked at the institutional framework of science. The fact that today we have millions of professionals directly or indirectly involved in scientific activity is in itself a consequence of very recent developments in science. It is here that one begins to perceive its institutional framework. But the institutional framework does not merely relate to the degree ofprofessionalisation that has taken place, but is also a function of the number of new disciplines that have appeared. Further, Bernal points out that disciplines like medicine and engineering are less dependent on a tradition as are the other applied techniques and though both are heavily permeated by the findings of scientific theories, they are yet quite distinct from science. Moreover specialisation in science has also distanced it from the "common avocations of a society". The corollary that can immediately be drawn up from it arises from this division of labour, wherein the scientist is isolated from the production process. This also explains why Bernal sees the tremendous growth of science in capitalistic societies. This partial isolation from society and its common avocation has rendered science rather abstract, despite the fact that its influences are clearly obvious. To get round the difficulty of defining science in an era of specialisation. Bernal first offers a tentative definition: "Science is what scientists do". However, what one must realise is that science unlike other professions has no immediate economic value. In the Middle Ages and late into the 18th century and early 19th century, science was a part-time occupation of the leisured classes and was monopolised by the upper and middle classes. Therefore, till well into our own times, the social direction of science was quite unexacting and consisted of a "stimulating investigation of limited aspects of accessible experience". As the connection of science with the production process gets stronger and as the funding of scientific research in institutions of science goes up by leaps and bounds, science is automatically given a direction by the society nurturing it. This clearly violates the antecedent idyllic image of science. For now, there exists the tendency to value science for the profits it can rope in and the fact that it can be applied, for designing and fabricating tools of destruction. The modern scientist, therfore, has to function in three capacities, viz., his relationship with the institution or individual which patronises his research, secondly, his colleagues in the scientific community and finally the public to whom he owes a social responsibility. It is in this context that science acquires its ideological connotations. In a socialist society, Bernal holds that the patrons of scientific research are the organs of the popular government, and consequently the relationship between the scientist's commitment and the patron's expectations alter the functions of science:

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"People ... are the ultimate judges of the manner and value of science. Where science has been kept a mysteryin the hands of a selected few, it is inevitablylinked with the interestsof the rulingclasses and is cut off from the understanding, and inspiration that arise from the needs and capacitites of the people". The questions relatingto the methods of science have been the most difficultto settle and much debate in the historyand philosophy of science overthe last two to threedecades has centeredaroundthis particularissue. The acceptedview amongst the philosophers of science today is that there is no hard and fast system that best encapsulatesthe working methods of scientists.At best one can speak of epistemic strategiesadopted by scientists in settingout on scientific investigations.Consequently a well defined scientific method at best belongs to the dissertationsof positivists.As far back as the first edition of Bernal's Social Functionof Sicence this problematic surfaces.Bernal holds that it is dangerousto consider the scientific method as "an ideal Platonic form";that although the institution of science is an acknowledgedsocial fact the method of science is abstracted from this fact. Science itself is characterisedby a multiplicity of evergrowingnovel methods.Earlierforms of the scientific method principally answeredquestions of the mathematicalsciences, astronomyand physics. Over the centuries the method came to be applied to chemistry and biology, and as the method evolved attemptswere made to apply it to understandingthe problems of society. However,two very fundamental featuresof science that are ingrained in its method are observationand experiment.Bernal holds that these two featureshave evolved from the practice of the manual trades. In fact the notion of experiment is itself derived from observation and practice.For Bernalthere is a distinct demarcationbetween the process of observation of an artist and a scientist. Whereas the artist observes in order to transformand therebyarriveat a new and innovativecreation,the scientist observesso as to determinethings and relationsthat are invariantwith resthereis a verystrongtendencyto pose the Nevertheless, pectto his sentiments. method of science as an abstractrealisationfrom within science itself. but Bernal very lucidly illustrates how closely this method has been derived frompractice.In additionto observationand experiment,Bernalposits the notion of measurement.Observationand experimentthemselves are founded on some theory or theoretical notion, while observation requires classification and measurement. Through the notion of measurement science is linked with mathematicsas well as commercial and mechanical practices.Further,a distinctfeatureof modem science is the small scale or scaled down experiment.The possibilityof small scale experimentsis itself renderedpossible through the application of mathematics.As a result it has been possible to obtain valuable conclusions from small scale experiments that are used to extrapolate experimental findings through the use of mathematics.

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The purpose of experiments is twofold in that they involve both analysis and synthesis. Analysis decomposes or breaks down the object understudy,into logical constituentswhile synthesis integratesthem into a coherentwhole. The apparatusused to performexperimentsconstitutethe materialtools of science. The resultsobtained from these experimentsare to be groupedtogetherto formulatescientifictheories.But before scientific theories can be formulated,the resultsare codified into a coherent edifice of scientific laws, principles and hypothesis.Just as the apparatusused for scientific experiments constitute the material tools of science there are languages of science in which theories are formulated,whose principle purpose is to circumventany confusion between something that is scientifically denoted and the common meaning of the term: therefore the languagesof science serveto bring a certainexactitudeto the discipline. In Bernal'sscheme the methods of science essentiallyconstitute'a tactics of scientific advance', but do not explain the mechanisms by and through which science progressesas a whole. This picture,therefore,has to be complementedwith the 'strategies of science.' The purpose of a strategyis to unearth the sequence of choice of problems to be solved. In other words, the difficulty lies in finding a problem worthy of solution rather than obtaining the solution itself.This is how Bernal explains Kosambi'slucid definition of science as the cognition of necessity. Having said so much about the methods of science, the foregoing exercise would be a positivist one if one does not try to seek the mechanisms throughwhich science progresses.For Bernal the advance of science is primarilydriven by the resolution of problems that are essentially groundedin economic necessity,as well as those that are inspired by earlier scientific ideas. However, he qualifies this point a little further, insofar as he acknowledges that whereas the science that is driven by economic necessity is ratherlimited in its scope, truly great science, for example that created by Darwin, Newton and Faraday is driven by the internal momentum of science, i.e., these problems were inspired from within the tradition of science itself. On this count it is necessaryto delineate the kind of questions that scientists address themselves to and the sort of problems tackled by engineers. The scientist is motivatedby the desireto fathomhow to do things.The engineer'srole is to operationalise the tasks to be performed.But any technical tradition can only growif it is nurtured a scientifictradition,else it tends to stagnatein by a system of routine practices.In this exposition of the methods of science Bernal thereforestrivesvery hard to emphasise the role of practice in the development of science and to confine the overemphasis on science as a purelytheoreticalactivity:"Scienceis not a matterof thought alone but thought continually carried into practice and continually reflected by
practice."

THE CUMULATIVETRADITION OF SCIENCE Beral perceived science to be an ever-growingbody of knowledge composed of reflections, ideas, experiences and actions of many thinkers,

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workers and artisans. The scientific knowledge of today is, therefore, seen to be a product of the scientific knowledge of earlier periods. The cumulative nature of scientific knowledge distinguishes it from religion, law, philosophy and art. This perception of science as an ever-growing body of knowledge which imparts to it its uniqueness is another consequence of the Sartonian perception of science. In the light of this understanding, the role of th scientist is that of one aspiring towards certainty while his work in science is assimilated, demolished, superseded and "lost as an individual performance". We can see in this a historical understanding of the ftilsificationism. But how does the cumulative nature of science distinguish it from other cognitive development endeavours ? Where as scientific and techinical traditions are most often concerned with the material world, religion and the literal arts seek justification and legitimacy in oral or written traditions. To this extent these scientific traditions are subject to interpretations that are vested in certain powers. A consequence, or consequences of the growth of science is that ever widening regions of human experience are gradually brought under its ambit. This is clearly visible in the sequential development of disciplines like mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and finally sociology. As opposed to this development, Bernal sees the process of development of technology to be quite the reverse. In this case the sequence commences with social organisation itself. Once this function comes into being, there commences hunting and gathering followed by the domestication of animals. These are followed by consequential developments in agriculture, cooking, textile making, metallurgy, physics and navigation, architecture, machinery and finally engines. So, while the development of science commences in the abstract in a discipline like mathematics and finally proceeds to sociology, the development of technology begins from social organisation itself and finally reaches a technology embodied in machinery and industry. Certain developments in science and the application of science have at certain periods served the ruling or rising class interests, for example, the development of the calender necessary for priests, catalysed the development of astronomy, or the needs of the textile industry supported by a rising class of the 18th century manufacturers, gave rise to modern chemistry. But whole new ranges of science emerge when distinct scientific traditions come together. This synthesis of many scientific disiplines is effected by the insight of great men of science who have played a decisive role in its evolution. But what needs to be noted is that these achievements cannot be isolated from the social environment: "The greater the man, the more he is soaked in the atmosphere of his time, only thus can he get a wide enough grasp of it to be able to substantially change the pattern of knowledge and action". Science thus is fashioned by the individual perception of scientists and workers, and is also conditioned by the social environment. Hence man's coopera-

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tive efforts and attempts at understanding the environment is reflected in the socially imposed unity of science. SCIENCE AND THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION The dimensions of science so far discussed do not explain why science arose as a specialised form of socialised activity ? To understand this rather unique dimension of science one has to investigate its role in the most fundamental of human activity i.e., the production process. Beginning with techniques of extracting materials and fashioning tools, science arose to serve man's basic needs. At this early juncture of the history of science Bernal finds it necessary to differentiate between what one means by technique and what one means by science. Techique, for Bernal is an individually acquired and socially secured way of doing something; while science is a way of understanding how, do it in order to do it better. That science is so closely related to the production process is also reflected historically in the fact that era of flourishing science coexist with periods of flourishing economic activity and technical advance. What distinguishes the science of antiquity from the science of today is that prior to, developments in science trailed behind the advances in technology whereas now science has caught up and in fact leads technical developments: this is particularly so as the science production relation becomes more obvious. What about the converse ? It has been found that periods of scientific somnolence were also periods of stagnation and decadent societal organisation, where production followed traditional lines. However, at a given period of history, the technical level of production limits the forms of social organisation. This further implies that changes in technology are not simply determined by social organisation . Consequently over sufficiently long periods developments in technology have largely been stimulated by immediate advantages accruing to certain individuals or classes to the exclusion of others, and often, though unfortunately, during periods of war. The two conclusions one can draw are: (1) the form of a society is a function of the relation between men and the production and distribution of goods, and (2) the production relations and the means of production provide the need for change and in turn give rise to science. But the mechanism of transfer of scientific knowledge differs from that of other traditions and techinques. The scientific profession is essentially a literate profession and scientific knowledge is thus transmitted by records, books and papers, while in the case of the artisanal and traditional crafts apprenticeship plays a significant role. Hence science in the past was considered a class occupation insofar as those having acess to a literary tradition were also its propagators. In the process many gifted people were excluded. In fact one can hold this view of science uptil almost the industrial revolution, for it was only then that one comes to see a very real interaction between the natural sciences and the practical arts. But prior to this period and to some extent later, this emphasis of science on "book learning" had engendered a certain suspicion of science in the minds of certain sectors of the

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peasantry and working classes. This dichotomy between book learning and the practicalarts had engendered antagonism, suspicion and resentment between the learned and the lower classess, that to some extent has hinderedthe growthof science. Beral furtherholds that this class character is furthermanifestedin a largerprevalentdichotomy between theories and practices as constituting distinct endeavours. But Bernal points out that important and fruitful periods of scientific advancement are witnessed when class barrierershave partially broken down and the two traditionshave mutually fertilised each other. The histories of science of Renaissance Italy, RevolutionaryFrance, and America at the end of the 19th century, are illustrative.Though in earlier periods the division of labour in science was clearly manifest in the theory-practice dichotomy of science, the universality of science challenged its class character. On account of this universalityof science, a ratherprevalentpositivist fashion tended to isolate scientific activity from economics and politics. In this scheme the social and class cohdition of the scientific traditionsis implicit and is not evident on the surface. NATURAL SCIENCE AS A SOURCE OF GENERAL IDEAS As alreadydiscussed in the previoussection, science is not merelya collection of techniques. To recollect the definition given by Bernal, technique was an individuallyacquiredand socially securedway of doing something by science, while science was a way of understandingas to how to do it in order to do it better.So, while science uses many techniques, its activity encompasses a lot more. But what must be affirmed contrariwiseis that science does not merelyconsist of theories.Bernal holds that the direction of science is conditioned by the proving or disproving of theories. For example, the arrivalof Darwin's theory of evolution and the typical case where classical mechanics is seen to be a refutationof Aristotle'sPhysics. Within this frameworktheories in the course of their evolution tend to become more abstract and formalised, and sometimes this process is followed by revivification.For example, compare the Laplacian mechanics which grewout of Newton's mechanics with the revivificationevident in Faraday'selectro-magnetictheory.It is a commonly held view that the laws and theories of science are logically deduced from experimentally established facts. This view today is found to be ratherlimited in scope, particularly in the light of the sociological and historical findings of scholars like Koyre, Burt, Kuhn and to an extent Feyerabend. Bernal within the Marxist frameworkappears to have anticipated some of these views that he in turnhad picked up fromBukharinand the noted historian Boris Hessen. Bernalwritesthat "thephenomena of natureare interpreted in socio-political or religious terms".This he illustrates,by what was then considereda very novel case, namely,Netwon's concept of inertia thatwas grounded in a rational interpretation of religion. Darwin's theory of naturalselection was itself groundedin certain societal notions of natural justice and free competition. Beral also seems to abandon the naivete of the late 19th and early 20th century historians of science and gives to

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11

science a motivationthat is sociological. For him the proving and disproving of theories that embodies the on-going strugglewithin science serves less to penetrate the secrets of nature, but serves a larger cause by overthrowingestablished ideas. Coming to the approaches adopted by scientists in pursuing their investigations,one encounterstwo opposing trends.First is the formal and idealistic, the second practical and materialistic. It is not the case that science is now this and now that but the kind of science done at a given period of history reflectsthe social orderprevalent at the time. For example, the idealistic trend exemplifies order, aristocracy and established religion and within the classical, philosophical tradition Plato is the deification of this tendency. The commitment to knowledge that arose from this position is of the form where the objective of science is (1) to explain why things are the way they are and (2) it is impossible to change things in their essentials. Change in this world view is considered evil: "The ideal, the good, the true and the beautiful are ture and beyond
question".

The materialisticview constitutes a philosophy of objects and their movement and insofar as it is dynamic view of the world it provides an explanation of nature and society from below and does not impose order from above. At the level of action, materialism expresses the inexhaustible stabilityof the materialmoving world and man's power to alterit. During the industrialrevolution,science acquireda dominantly materialisticpracticewhile it continued to pay lip service to idealism. By the middle of the 19th century materialism strove to rid itself of its philosophical inadequacies and for the firsttime it rose beyond providing an explanation of naturalphenomenon to give an account of society and its transformation.This was largely the work of Marx and his followers. The strugglebetween idealism and materialism is clearly evident in the debates between the Platonists and the Democriteans, and the Platonic Aristotelians and Roger Bacon. Whereas the former was backed by the churchthe latterhad only experimentalscience to supporttheirviews.Lastly in the 19thcenturyone clearly saw the confrontation between religion and science when the Darwininan revolutioncame to be: 'The verypersistence of the struggle despite the successive victories won by materialist science shows that it is not essentiallya philosophic or scientific one but a reflection of political strugglein scientific terms." INTERACTIONOF SCIENCE AND SOCIETY It is customaryto see the interactionbetween science and society in terms of the emergence of technology from scientific theory, where the latter is designed to meet social needs. However, these are not the only forms of interactionpossible and very often scientific theories have emergedin the light of the developmentof technology.For example, the whole domain of thermo-dynamics and statistical mechanics was consequent to the developmentof the steam engine. Bemal's bias was not so much towards

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writinga historyof science but was more concerned with the influence of science on history and that is why the science-technology-society relationship is one he has explored deeply. Most investigations into this area treat science as just another cultural appendage.What Bernal seeks today is to fathom the contributions of science to the development of techniques and those "whichcould find its place in the verybody of narrative. To the extent that this is not done, the essential historical characterwith the progressiveand non-repetitiveelement -is lost from the exposition of history.We are left insteadwith an account of personal and institutional relationsof societywithoutany philosophy as to why they should not have been repeatedindefinitelywith variants". Science influences historyin two ways. First, it changes the methods of production. This is evident in the advances in technology and industrythis centuryhas glaringlywitnessed. Second is the impactof the findings of science on the ideas and ideology of the period. The concept of the simple natural law as inaugurated by Galileo and Newton had a markedimpacton the realmof ideas. Itjustified simple Deism in religion, laissez faire in economics and liberalism in politics. Darwin's theory was used to justify ruthless exploitation, and resultedin subjection"underthe banner of the survivalof the fittest".But science has its more human and revolutionary impacts on ideology, and it is throughthem that science finds a place in culturalhistoryand not merely as a component of an epistemic engine.