The humanist challenge to China’s dominant policies for popularizing science and technology (PST)

ABSTRACT In the early 2000s, a group of Chinese scholars who often refer to themselves as scientific humanists (科学文化人, or 科学人文主义者) launched a critique of dominant approaches to science popularization known as ‘kepu’ or science popularization (科普). Their scientific humanism connects traditional Chinese ideas about scientism and humanism to Western philosophy and STS, in particular the sociology of scientific knowledge. Challenging science popularization policies, the scientific humanists in 2001 launched the so-called Critical School of Science Communication (CSSC), which combines scientific humanism with STS approaches to science communication, namely critical public understanding of science and public engagement with science. The CSSC criticized the Popularization of Science and Technology (PST) policy adopted by China’s government and main scientific institutions to promote her technoscientific and technocratic visions. The CSSC is in favor of science communication, rather than science popularization, aimed at reconciling science with the humanities, stimulating genuine dialogue between science and the public, and ultimately increasing civic empowerment. CSSC proponents have engaged in a series of public interventions where they challenged dominant views on the social role of technoscience and PST. China’s explicit emphasis on, even legislative commitment to PST provided a unique context to which the CSSC responded by appropriating scientific humanism, itself an assemblage of Chinese ideas and STS theory, and STS-related concepts about science communication.