Editorial
It is at once both a problem and a privilege to edit a journal with no backlog, yet with high quality submissions. On the one hand, we can offer a quick turnaround and (so far) a 100% acceptance rate. On the other hand, we have no planning horizon and no control over thematic content. This makes it unpredictable what “theme” any given issue will focus on. And yet, so far, a theme has seemed to emerge, just in time for each issue in turn. Or perhaps more precisely, it has been possible each time to construct a theme around the submissions ready for publication.
This time, the theme that has sprung to my mind as I read this issue’s submissions in sequence is that of the fate of Science in times of geo-political upheaval. Be it war, or revolution, or sweeping global trends – radical geopolitical changes have impacts on the practices and contents of Science. Changes result in individual mobility: People (and not least, intellectuals) find themselves at risk. Some find the resources to flee, taking with them their intellectual capital. Windows of opportunity and communication open; others shut. Governments open one ear to science-based advice, and close another; extend funding in one direction, and close off other channels. The results of these shifts are not pre-determined, yet neither are they inconsequential.
This point is made in this issue, first with a richly documented and illustrated article by Arin Namal and Arnold Reisman on the fates and impacts of refugee scientists from Nazi Germany. Germany’s arrogant wastefulness of its intellectual capital, and the similarly xenophobic resistance of for instance the US towards receiving them as refugees, was embraced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as an opportunity to modernize Turkey. Focusing on one of these refugee scientists – Friedrich Dessauer – Namal and Reisman evoke much of the tragedy, relief, and irony of this particular path of science and technology transfer. In our own time, the fall of the “Iron Curtain” has opened paths for far less tragedy-tainted exchanges. Olga Stoliarova invites us all to participate by engaging with her in the development of STS studies in Russia. In exchange we may draw new impulses from Russia’s long-standing programmes in philosophy, which may well have new thoughts to offer us as we have been conducting our thinking in relative isolation from one another until recently.
Not unrelated to the fall of the “Iron Curtain”, the “West” (and not least the US) has taken a radical swing to the right. This neo-conservative, neo-liberal, neo-fundamentalist shift has also had an impact on Science. The third piece in this issue is Jon Hovland’s review of Norman K. Denzin and Michael D. Giardina’s edited volume, Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge. Denzin, Giardina, and co-authors “rant” against the neo-conservative’s insistence on and misuses of quantitative methods, while also inviting critical reflections on qualitative research practices.
As editor, I hope this issue will engender debate. As you may note, this is a double issue. This issue includes some longer pieces than usual. Releasing it as a double issue will, I hope, free some time this Fall for me to get a discussion forum up and running. Tune in to our web page from time to time and look for this new feature, probably after the 4S meeting. Perhaps such a forum will finally be a channel through which readers will participate in active discussions, maybe even in the cover guessing game. No guesses this time either, sigh. So here’s the solution to the past two issues’ cover: An artist’s rendition of an event in a particle accelerator. But I still think it would have made a lovely dinner service pattern for the Royal Horological Society. I’ll make this issue’s game easier. The cover image is of monodisperse particles, aka. “Ugelstad spheres”. The challenge: How many uses for/ interpretations of these can we come up with?