expert

is lacking in local and practical knowledge on account of the controlled and stable contexts of the laboratory. For example, they often are blind to how precisely, in what weather conditions, with what tools, or with what other chemicals pesticides are actually applied.

Research within the sociology of scientific knowledge showed that professional expertise often lacks local and practical knowledge (Wynne 1982a, 1982b, 1987, 1992, 1996). Gained in the controlled and stable contexts of the laboratory, scientific results and insights regularly fail because they cannot be transferred directly to real-life conditions. Wynne (1992) argues, for example, that experts' ideas about safety regarding the application of pesticides were often rather nai ve... neither does herbicide always arrive at the point of use with full instructions intact and intelligible... and nor do the farmers and other users apply the pesticides with full protective gear and in correct solvents, with proper spray nozzles and other equipment, and the weather conditions are often less ideal than assumed. Furthermore, Wynne shows that lay-people do not in principle act irrationally but follow another social and/or subjective rationality which includes their own experiences and experience of scientific and professional expertise, and their failures. Lay-people do not uncritically accept scientific knowledge as true, but read the 'various elements of institutional 'body-language'' (Wynne 1996: 65) which give information regarding the reliability of the alleged objective knowledge. Research has repeatedly shown how misinformation by official institutions rapidly decreases trust in the reliability of such institutions, and how difficult it is to rebuild trust once it is lost (Zinn & TaylorGooby 2006b: 61ff.). (zinn 2008: 13)

WynneThinkers

Wynne