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Second-Guessing Scientists and Engineers: Post Hoc Criticism and the Reform of Practice in Green Chemistry and Engineering

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Abstract

The article examines and extends work bringing together engineering ethics and Science and Technology Studies, which had built upon Diane Vaughan’s analysis of the Challenger shuttle accident as a test case. Reconsidering the use of her term “normalization of deviance,” the article argues for a middle path between moralizing against and excusing away engineering practices contributing to engineering disaster. To explore an illustrative pedagogical case and to suggest avenues for constructive research developing this middle path, it examines the emergence of green chemistry and green engineering. Green chemistry began when Paul Anastas and John Warner developed a set of new rules for chemical synthesis that sought to learn from missed opportunities to avoid environmental damage in the twentieth century, an approach that was soon extended to engineering as well. Examination of tacit assumptions about historical counterfactuals in recent, interdisciplinary discussions of green chemistry illuminate competing views about the field’s prospects. An integrated perspective is sought, addressing how both technical practice within chemistry and engineering and the influence of a wider “social movement” can play a role in remedying environmental problems.

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Notes

  1. But see Pinkus et al. (1997), pp. 318–319, on the possibility of having found a correlation of O-ring damage with temperature across all flights, not just those with field joint problems.

  2. On the tendency for students reading Vaughan to excuse engineers from responsibility, as well as pedagogical techniques for overcoming this tendency, see Kline (2001/2002).

  3. Jasanoff (1991) observes that the British regulatory regime incorporates engineering judgment, while the U.S. approach excludes it for quantitative proof.

  4. More generally, citation of Perrow (1984) has functioned within STS to reinforce skepticism that anything can be done to prevent disaster in complex systems.

  5. Some work has already been done, particularly on the way national cultures have shaped engineering practice, with Americans oriented to industry and the French to government, for instance, or the ways in which educational requirements served to bolster the low status of engineers in Britain (Downey 2007; Brown et al. 2009). The impact of warfare on engineering generally and the role of Cold War politics on directing military innovation in particular have received much attention (Walton 2005; Mitcham 2009). Finally, it is a truism within engineering ethics that engineering is a “captive profession” in that engineers working in corporations will be much more susceptible to corporate concern with maximizing profit than with professional obligations to protect public welfare (Davis 1998, p. 22).

  6. For arguments identifying branching points in political history, see Lebow (2010).

  7. A special section of New Scientist (2005), 187 (2513): 34–46, was dedicated to counterfactuals in the history of science.

  8. For a similar critique of green engineering and green business initiatives, see Jamison (2013).

  9. See the link for green chemistry at www.acs.org. Numerous links can also be found at the Michigan Green Chemistry Clearinghouse at migreenchemistry.org, including reference to state initiatives in California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington. Michigan offers a Green Chemistry Governor’s Award, announced at an annual conference.

  10. See Collins (1988) on premature consensus achieved as the result of a restriction of the core set.

  11. On the limitations of green chemistry as a social movement to fundamentally alter how chemistry is done, see Roberts (2005, Ch. 4) and Woodhouse and Breyman (2005).

  12. Linthorst (2010) argues that green chemistry “is not a scientific specialty with a coherent conducted paradigm.” In contrast to Linthorst, Roberts (2005, p. 79) argues that Green Chemistry’s first editor, James Clark, “drew heavily from the mission established in [Anastas and Warner’s Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice]” and credited U.S. colleagues for why the journal was entitled Green Chemistry despite intense debate on the question.

  13. The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards have recognized numerous innovations by chemical companies. The Michigan Green Chemistry Governor’s Awards are split between academic and business categories. The 2012 business award went to Dow Chemical, based in Midland, Michigan, for a flame retardant less persistent in the environment. The Michigan Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference is supported by state, corporate, and university funding.

  14. For an endorsement of embracing risk over caution, see Fuller (2012). Most reports of the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies call for after-the-fact regulation, but reject consideration of stopping or altering developments. See, for example, Roco and Bainbridge (2003), pp. 4–7, 16–21.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful for research support provided by the History Department at Wayne State University. I would like to thank anonymous reviewers and audience members at Cornell University and the 2011 Society for Social Studies of Science annual meeting for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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  1. Department of History, Wayne State University, 656 W. Kirby, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA

    William T. Lynch

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Lynch, W.T. Second-Guessing Scientists and Engineers: Post Hoc Criticism and the Reform of Practice in Green Chemistry and Engineering. Sci Eng Ethics 21, 1217–1240 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9585-1

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