The science-society contract in historical transformation: with special reference to “epistemic drift”

This paper locates the discussion around the finalization thesis in a broader science policy context, linking it to the recent discourse on a changing science-society contract. It is argued that the broadening of the Kuhnian concept of the paradigm, making it amenable to science policy studies, was an important move. Further development of this notion, however, standed on the prongs of critique coming from both the worlds of politics and science. At the same time, advances in the cognitive sociology of science undermined the internalist/externalist distinction. Today, with certain changes in the conditions of research due to the introduction of the concept of “strategic research”, politicians are more apt to accept certain points of the thesis; scientific communities, on the other hand, perceive new threats to their autonomy. This paper tries to make sense of this new situation by translating the question of interplay between internal and external dynamics of research into one involving boundary management and epistemic criteria. The notion of “epistemic drift” is introduced and the internalist/externalist distinction refurbished in neo-institutionalist terms, making use of the concept of interfoliating credibility cycles.