Gravity’s Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century by Harry Collins (review)

The search for gravitational waves is an exploratory field in contemporary experimental physics. Their existence was predicted 100 years ago within the framework of general relativity. The acceleration of masses, e.g., in a system of orbiting celestial bodies, creates changes in the geometry of space-time that propagate at the speed of light as gravitational waves, and since the 1960s scientists have sought to devise methods for their detection. However, the signals are extremely difficult to measure as their footprints are found in changes of length that are of the order of tiny fractions of the size of an atom.

Large efforts have been aiming at a direct detection of gravitational waves, so far without success. Harry Collins analyzed several previous experiments in his earlier works, including Gravity’s Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves (2004). The present book presents sociological research aggregated through the “embedded” study of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory) from September 2007 to March 2009 (part 1, Gravity’s Ghost: The Equinox Event, which was previously published as an independent title in 2011); and from September 2010 to March 2011 (part 2, Big Dog); followed by part 3, The Trees and the Forest, offering a broader theoretical reflection on the author’s observations and methodology for the social studies of knowledge.

In both the first and second parts, Collins reports as a close observer within the collaborative “ecosystem,” discussing internal developments through a mixture of his own analysis of events augmented with original source material, such as transcripts from telephone conferences, interviews, excerpts from emails, and PowerPoint slides. The chosen time windows are of particular relevance, as both start with the measurement of a candidate signal that could be the first direct detection of a gravitational wave. Standing on the verge of making history, a dynamic scientific and social activity is triggered within the collaboration, making it an ideal environment to study the arbitration process of a discovery. In the end however, we learn that the events were in fact carefully designed experiments on the experimentalists: both signals were “blind injections,” deliberate introductions of fake signals into the experiment known only to a few senior scientists who sought to test the readiness of the other scientists to find such signals.

The confidence crises and self-inhibition due to a troubled history of previously discredited results, as well as the carefully analyzed processes of assessment, debate, and negotiation in this case study, are of broader significance for the understanding of modern scientific research cultures. In part 2, the long argument of the group on the usage of “evidence for” or “discovery of” and the level of restraint in the draft paper to be submitted for publication support the central thesis that a number of non-scientific decisions are made in the process of a discovery. The author draws a parallel to the subcultures of discovery in high-energy physics where the statistical barrier to claim a discovery has been raised repeatedly over the past forty years (see Allan Franklin, Shifting Standards, 2013).

As Collins recapitulates on page 153, “the sociology of knowledge is best served by an uncertain science.” For readers with interest in science and technology studies, the book is recommended as a spur to reflection on the nature of scientific discoveries and on psychology in scientific practice. However, the protocol for observation is presented in detail at the expense of a satisfactory explanation of the physics and the measurement technologies, a shortcoming that not only makes the book less accessible to part of its intended readership but also fails to reveal the actual complexity of data acquisition that feeds into uncertainty. The density of self-referencing and the anecdotal writing style are disturbing. In closing, though, a strong positive aspect of the book is that the scientific principles of skepticism and error analysis are also applied to the...