The idea for this play grew out of a series of discussions with Malcolm Ashmore. Thanks, Malcolm.

1. This paper is a development of the programme of discourse analysis in the sociology of science. See, for example, M. Mulkay and G.N. Gilbert, `What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12 (1982), 309-19; Mulkay, J. Potter and S. Yearley, `Why an Analysis of Scientists' Discourse is Needed', in K. Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay (eds), Science Observed: Perspectives on Social Studies of Science (London & Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1983), 171-203.

2. G.D.L. Travis, `Replicating Replication? Aspects of the Social Construction of Learning in Planarian Worms', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11 (1981), 11-32, quote at 25.

3. This issue is clearly present in Woolgar's appraisal of the ironic character of much sociological discourse: see S. Woolgar, `Irony in the Sociology of Science', in Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay, Science Observed, op. cit. note 1, 239-66.

4. The empiricist character of scientific research papers is examined in G.N. Gilbert and M. Mulkay, `Contexts of Scientific Discourse: Social Accounting in Experimental Papers', in K.D. Knorr et al. (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1980), 269-94.

5. The sociological literature on reflexivity is considerable: see, for example, A.E. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology (London: Heinemann, 1971); Malcolm Ashmore, `The Six Steps or the Life and Opinions of a Replication Claim', mimeo, University of York (1983).

6. For a useful collection of such studies, see H.M. Collins (ed.), `Knowledge and Controversy: Studies of Modern Natural Science' (Special Issue), Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11, No. 1 (February 1981), 3-158.

7. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach (New York: Basic Books, 1979).

8. S. Woolgar, `Laboratory Studies: A Comment on the State of the Art', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12 (1982), 481-98, quote at 489.

9. The first move towards building reflexivity into one's own text is made in B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London & Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979), and is taken further by Latour in his parable, `The Three Little Dinosaurs, or a Sociologist's Nightmare', Fundamenta Scientiae, Vol. 1 (1980), 79-85.

10. A `cleaned up' version of interview material. The original goes: `Reproducibility is the key, right, to have control, to have a sense of mechanism. The amazing thing about biochemistry is the mechanism, the precise nature of things. If you get to that stage then you are studying something real...'

11. H. Zuckerman, `Deviant Behavior and Social Control in Science', in E. Sagarin (ed.), Deviance and Social Change (London & Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977), 87-137, quote at 92-93.

12. H.M. Collins, `The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiments in Physics', Sociology, Vol. 9 (1975), 205-24, quote at 206.

13. These points are made repeatedly in ibid., and in H.M. Collins, `Upon the Replication of Scientific Findings: A Discussion Illuminated by the Experience of Researchers into Parapsychology' (unpublished mimeo, Science Studies Centre, University of Bath, 1976); Collins, `The Place of the "Core-Set" in Modern Science: Social Contingency with Methodological Propriety in Science', History of Science, Vol. 29 (1981), 6-19; Collins, `Stages in the Empirical Programme of Relativism', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11 (1981), 3-10.

14. My linking passage.

15. Interview material: repeated many times in our transcripts.

16. My linking passage.

17. Zuckerman, op. cit. note 11, 93-94.

18. Linking passage.

19. Interview quotation: a point made repeatedly in our transcripts.

20. K.D. Knorr, `Producing and Reproducing Knowledge: Descriptive or Constructive?', Social Science Information, Vol. 16 (1977), 669-96, quotes at 670, 674, 676 and 689; Knorr, `Tinkering Toward Success: Prelude to a Theory of Scientific Practice', Theory and Society, Vol. 8 (1979), 347-76, quote at 362. See also K.D. Knorr-Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), for re-presentation of the same material and arguments within a more extended analysis.

21. Linking passage.

22. Zuckerman, op. cit. note 11, 93, 103.

23. Linking passage.

24. Interview quotation.

25. A paraphrase of numerous interview passages.

26. Knorr-Cetina, Manufacture of Knowledge, op. cit. note 20, 7-8. The last sentence in this passage is my own, but it is based on numerous statements in Knorr's writings: for example, Knorr, `Tinkering...', op. cit. note 20, 362.

27. Linking passage.

28. Collins, op. cit. note 12, 219-20.

29. Linking passage.

30. This passage begins with a quotation from an interview, which The Scientist presents as a quote, followed by part of another interview, which is spoken directly by The Scientist, and then by a paraphrase of a point made by many of our respondents. It ends with a linking sentence.

31. Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay, Science Observed, op. cit. note 1, 3-4, 12.

32. Collins, op. cit. note 12, 220; Collins, `Upon the Replication...', op. cit. note 13, 1, 28; Collins, `Stages...', op. cit. note 13, 8 (final paragraph).

33. A linking passage leading to a paraphrase of interview material.

34. A linking passage leading to Collins, `Upon the Replication...', op. cit. note 13, 28.

35. A linking passage which includes direct quotes from interviews.

36. A paraphrase of one scientist's comments on a specific set of experiments. This set of experiments was mentioned more frequently than any other in connection with replication in our interviews — and in terms very similar to those presented here.

37. A combination of Collins, `Upon the Replication...', op. cit. note 13, 28, and Collins, `Stages...', op. cit. note 13, 7-8 (concluding paragraphs).

38. Linking passage. For a discussion of how scientists use the notion of time in relation to the validation of scientific knowledge-claims, see M. Mulkay and G.N Gilbert, Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), Chapter 5.

39. A combination of my own invention and quotations from two interview transcripts.

40. This sounds like a discourse analyst. It resembles some of the arguments in Mulkay and Gilbert, op. cit. note 38.

41. Although this is pure invention on my part, it is a fairly obvious riposte, and is clearly substantiated by the quotes used as Sociologist 2's reply.

42. Collins, `Stages...', op. cit. note 13, 4; H.M. Collins, `Knowledge, Norms and Rules in the Sociology of Science', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 12 (1982), 299-308, quote at 304.

43. Invention again.

44. H.M. Collins, `What is TRASP? The Radical Programme as a Methodological Imperative', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 11 (1981), 215-24, quote at 216-17.

45. It is not surprising that he speaks here like a sociologist, because what he says at this point depends entirely on my inclination.

46. Back to Collins, op. cit. note 12, 206. The footnotes, like the text, are caught up in a strange loop.

The Scientist Talks Back: A One-Act Play,with a Moral,about Replication in Science and Reflexivity in Sociology

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