Response To Collins About 'one Point' That Is Absent From My Review Of His Book

摘要

Collins' curious response to only 'one point' in my long review of his book (Gingras, 2007a), in fact discusses something that is completely absent from it! Not citing any precise sentence but simply stating that 'the claim [he strongly objects to] can be found in a paragraph or two around pages 278-279', Collins says that I 'claim' there that 'scientists were justified in withholding information' from him and were even 'to be commended when they withhold those data from public scrutiny' (Collins, 2008, p. 151). The key words here are 'justified' and 'commended' and, curiously, they cannot be found in my text! In fact, in the two paragraphs that Collins points his finger to, I observed that 'Collins offers no sociological explanation [of the scientists' choice not to collaborate with him] other than finding their behaviour surprising' and then I briefly suggested one such sociological explanation (Gingras, 2007a, p. 279) which takes into account the perceptions of the actors involved, an interpretation that, by the way, Collins says is probably 'correct' (Collins, 2008, p. 152). Since I know very well that 'the ought does not follow from the is' (ibid., p. 151), I explicitly write that: 'The point here is not to determine whether they were right or wrong in their perception and in their decision not to collaborate with a sociologist, but rather to note that Collins seems blind to that aspect of his interactions with them. As he cannot understand why they behaved as they did, he is left withrnmaking moral judgements about their behaviour' (Gingras, 2007a, p. 279). It should be obvious to any careful reader that I never 'endorse their action' as Collins seems to suggest (Collins, 2008, p. 152). In fact, Collins's response to my review provides another instance of the difficulty some scholars seem to have in reading texts carefully and in controlling their writings (syntax and semantics) so that they say what they mean and avoid hyperbole (Gingras, 2007b). These brief remarks should suffice to show that the 'claim'-which could, according to Collins, have had 'appalling implications'-is a pure invention and that readers should be reassured that the 'future of social science' as well as that of 'civilisation', for the sake of which Collins took up the pen, are-as far as I am concerned-still safe.