SCIENCE AS CULTURE

我们的文化是科学的，定义什么是自然的，什么是理性的。它的价值可以从以下几个方面看出来:作为事实而被寻找，作为人工制品而被制造;作为过程和产品而被设计;作为武器而被锻造，作为奇迹而被拍摄下来。在我们的日常经验中，权力是通过专业知识来行使的，例如在科学、技术和医学方面。作为文化的科学探索所有这些是如何形成的价值观，争取更广泛的社会的影响。科学调节我们的文化体验。它通过遗传学、医学和信息技术，越来越多地定义了一个人是什么。它的价值体现在概念、技术、研究重点、小工具和广告中。许多电影、艺术品和小说表达了人们对这些发展的普遍关注。在一个进步的标志来自科学、技术和医学的社会里，它们要么被颂扬，要么被妖魔化。他们的进步常常被认为是“不自然的”，而他们的批评者则被贴上了“非理性的”标签。公众的担忧被表面上中立的专家和实证主义者的辩论所拒绝。然而，科学文化是开放的，可以像任何其他文化一样学习。文化研究分析专业知识在整个社会中的作用。许多期刊介绍科学的历史、哲学和社会研究、科学的普及以及公众对社会的理解。正如我们的一位读者所说，在这些期刊中，作为文化的科学是“批判科学发展道路的唯一来源”。不是简单的批评，而是分析基本框架、假设和职权范围。它强调价值、利益、意识形态和目标的根本作用，否则这些价值、利益、意识形态和目标就会以中立和客观的名义被隐藏起来。科学作为文化将科学置于构成文化的价值观的更广泛辩论之中;它不是为某一特定学科而出版的杂志。作为文化的科学包括人们的经历——在工作场所、电影院、电脑、医院、家庭和学院。文章可读性强，吸引人，生动活泼，经常幽默，而且总是没有术语。科学作为一种文化，其目的在于休闲阅读，并成为一种乐趣。

Our culture is a scientific one, defining what is natural and what is rational. Its values can be seen in what are sought out as facts and made as artefacts, what are designed as processes and products, and what are forged as weapons and filmed as wonders. In our daily experience, power is exercised through expertise, e.g. in science, technology and medicine. Science as Culture explores how all these shape the values which contend for influence over the wider society.Science mediates our cultural experience. It increasingly defines what it is to be a person, through genetics, medicine and information technology. Its values get embodied and naturalized in concepts, techniques, research priorities, gadgets and advertising. Many films, artworks and novels express popular concerns about these developments.In a society where icons of progress are drawn from science, technology and medicine, they are either celebrated or demonised. Often their progress is feared as ’unnatural’, while their critics are labelled ’irrational’. Public concerns are rebuffed by ostensibly value-neutral experts and positivist polemics.Yet the culture of science is open to study like any other culture. Cultural studies analyses the role of expertise throughout society. Many journals address the history, philosophy and social studies of science, its popularisation, and the public understanding of society.Amidst these journals, Science as Culture is ’the only source of critique of the way science is going’, as one of our readers put it. Not simply criticism, critique analyses the underlying frameworks, assumptions and terms of reference. It emphasizes the fundamental role of values, interests, ideology and purposes -- which would otherwise remain hidden in the guise of neutrality and objectivity. Science as Culture places science within the wider debate on the values which constitute culture; it is not the journal for a particular academic discipline.Science as Culture encompasses people’s experiences -- at the workplace, the cinema, the computer, the hospital, the home and the academy. The articles are readable, attractive, lively, often humorous, and always jargon-free. Science as Culture aims to be read at leisure, and to be a pleasure.