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Faking it for physicists
In a "faking it" style test, a social scientist has fooled a panel of physicist judges into believing he was an experienced gravitational wave physicist.
But far from being a demonstration of good bluffing, social scientist Harry Collins of Cardiff University believes the test proves outsiders -- such as social scientists, peer reviewers or science journalists -- can gain "interactional expertise" in a subject, even if they have never studied it formally and can't actually practice it themselves.
An interview appearing in the journal Nature this week details how Collins -- who has spent more than 30 years studying the community of physicists who work on gravity waves -- answered seven questions about gravity waves set by an expert in the subject. His replies, together with those from a gravitational physicist, were sent to nine researchers in the field.
Asked to spot the real physicist, seven were unsure and two chose Collins.
"The results show that outsiders can develop a kind of expertise in a scientific field," says Collins.
Collins' research will be published this December in Studies in the History of Philosophy of Science.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
An interview appearing in the journal Nature this week details how Collins -- who has spent more than 30 years studying the community of physicists who work on gravity waves -- answered seven questions about gravity waves set by an expert in the subject. His replies, together with those from a gravitational physicist, were sent to nine researchers in the field.
Asked to spot the real physicist, seven were unsure and two chose Collins.
"The results show that outsiders can develop a kind of expertise in a scientific field," says Collins.
Collins' research will be published this December in Studies in the History of Philosophy of Science.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
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