Between Realism And Constructivism:Analysis Of LIGO Gravitational Wave Detection From The View Of Sociology Of Science

Since Einstein put forward the concept of gravitational waves,the debate about gravitational waves has continued.The initial debate focused on the existence of gravitational waves,at the end,the relativistic physicists convinced the existence of gravitational waves by theoretical calculations.Then the focus of the debate shifted from theoretical problems to technical problems about how to detect gravitational waves.Joseph Weber,a physicist from Maryland University,was the first one who tried to make a detection,but his results was not accepted by the scientific community.Weber's detection activities have drawn the attention of scientific philosophers and scientific sociologists,such as Harry Collins who was acknowledged as the representatives of scientific sociology of science,Allan Franklin as a philosopher of science in Cornell University,and Ben Almassi who was a professor of philosophy in Governors State University.A hundred year after Einstein's first proposal of gravitational waves,LIGO Scientific Collaboration announced they had first directly detected the ripples of spacetime.Different from its predecessors,LIGO's detection results are almost universally approved by the scientific community,which has not leaped in the eyes of scientific sociologist and philosophers of science,though was took concerned by Collins,yet he analyzed the recent LIGO's detection event in the same way that he researched Weber's,without adding a new perspective.As Weber's detection activities is of small science while LIGO's is of big Science,LIGO's gravitational wave detection involves the division and cooperation of interdisciplinary scientists,then these questions are evoked:how to ensure the credibility of LIGO's detection results?How is the cognitive work divided among interdisciplinary scientists?As a case of philosophy of science,the analysis of LIGO's detection activities can enrich our cognition of the credibility of scientific outcomes and the division of cognitive labor.This paper analyzes the credibility of the LIGO's exploration,which specifically includes:(1)interpret LIGO Scientific Collaboration's published papers,experimental process,LSC data analysis white paper,LSC instrument science white paper,the LSC-Virgo white paper on gravitational wave searches,conference records,and presentation,then make a comparison to Weber's experiments,speculate the evidential dimension of credibility;(2)interpret the LSC working instruction and interviews of its members,compare LIGO's detection activities to BICEP's search for original gravitational wave,study the process of data analysis and sharing,and investigate the social dimension of the credibility;(3)pore LSC's internal documents,such as bylaws,charters and rosters,analyze the composition of LSC members,inspect the division of different types of contributions and how different departments collaborate.On the basis of above work,such conclusions are obtained:(1)in the dimension of evidence,LIGO gravitational wave detection was adopted by scientific community because of its sensitivity,repeatability and the experimental method of waveform matching.The social dimension of its credibility includes open access to data for other groups and peer review system,LSC covers almost all the excellent experts in the field of gravitational waves detection,which makes it difficult to find suitable external reviewers to evaluate its work;(2)the evidential dimension and the social dimension are intertwined,the evidential dimension has involved scientists' negotiation,and the social dimension contains rational element that surpasses the subjective opinion of scientists,it obviously embodied in the process of data analysis,which connected one side of machinery data producing and the other side of artificial data handling;(3)LIGO scientists need to choose the right time to publish the results in order to make balance between the priority of discovery and the checkout of the results,and three dimensions,evidential significance,evidential threshold,and evidential collectivism,influenced the option of publishing opportunity;(4)except for America,Germany is the country that most council members come from,following countries are Britain and India,as for principal investigators,Germany,China,and Russia are the largest sources,among five contributions types of designing experiment,preparing materials,implementing experiments,analyzing data,and writing papers,one-fifth of LIGO scientists contribute five or two of them,writing papers is the type that the majority of researchers can contribute.