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  • The Big-Bag Tradition of Science Studies in Mainland China
  • Huajie Liu

1 Progress?

In his general assessment of Chinese research in philosophy of science and STS studies, Professor Li Xia characterizes recent developments as "substantial progress." I cannot bring myself to agree. Since I suspect that we share a similar perspective on the current scene, I am puzzled by the optimistic generalization Li has offered. After all, Li is the author of many blistering criticisms of current state policy; in bold newspaper articles he has not hesitated to confront scholars he sees as shameless ( Li 2009, 2010a, 2010b). Could this apparent change of heart mean that Li wants to avoid offending certain people and institutions in mainland China?

In philosophy of science and STS studies, public resources are rarely distributed equitably, and one often hears stories about "the bad driving out the good." It seems as though administrators prefer to look the other way, while rank-and-file academics suffer in silence. The concept of the "academic demon" ( xue yao學妖) and the "fourth-concubine effect" ( si yitai xiaoying四姨太效應), coined by me and my colleague Tian Song (Liu and Song 2005), who first presented it as an academic crosstalk ( xueshu xiangsheng學術相聲) at a philosophy of science conference held in Changsha, vividly depicts the hidden rules that govern these disciplines. 1If we compare the studies of twenty years ago to the present, can we really speak of "substantial progress"? Of course, there were only twenty-eight master's degree programs, four doctoral degree programs, and eight supervisors of doctoral candidates in the entire country in 1981, and now there are perhaps one hundred master's programs, a dozen doctoral programs, and hundreds of professors.

Perhaps Li restrained himself in his recent paper, hoping to display the more promising aspects of mainland China's academic circles. After all, what does substantial progressmean? Chinese people like to use the term progress. Ever [End Page 73]since Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection arrived in China, evolution has been understood as progress. The whole enterprise of science and technology is assumed to advance perpetually toward perfection.

When he turns to the scope of what could be called the industry of philosophy of science and STS studies, his assessment becomes more convincing. Even though a large proportion of the papers are rubbish, and every field has far to go before it is fully mature, the sheer scale of the work being undertaken is impressive. Is this not a prosperous and vast panorama? If the word progressis intended to describe this scene, I subscribe to it completely.

It is estimated that in China the number of full professors, associate professors, research fellows, and associate research fellows working in the fields of dialectics of nature and science studies has exceeded one thousand, and a few of them have published studies in English.

2 The Big Bag

Science and technology entered mainstream discourse during the modernization of Chinese society, so it is not surprising that a broad array of STS research projects has been carried out since the reforms and opening of the late 1970s, though many of these have not been up to international standards.

Li Xia's paper is informative and comprehensive, but I feel that a far longer work would be required to grasp the whole enterprise of STS studies in mainland China, which is notable for a long history and rich local features. Research in these areas that is carried out in different countries is somehow incommensurable because of distinct social environments, sociohistorical contexts, and regional problems—for example, the economic and ecological changes, and the policies related to them, in northeast China. Still, it seems as though the set of theoretical tools developed by Western scholars, from logical positivism to Karl Popper's falsification theory, Mertonian sociology of science, and more recent additions such as the sociology of scientific knowledge, the social studies of technology, feminist and postcolonialist studies of science, have proved to be useful in the Chinese context and will be useful for a long time.

Chinese approaches to philosophy of science and STS studies have been complicated by political, cultural, historical, and personal factors. Yu Guangyuan...

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