other callings, that ofcontroversyand experimentaltesting.As we saw
in Chapter 2, speech impedimenta are what count for us in civil life—
in other words, doubt about the quality of the representation. Now,
the sciences have invented the principle according to which each can-
didate for existence finds itself attached to a group of ad hoc contra-
dictors and to a set of reliable witnesses chosen for the occasion, each
of which will try to find the other wanting, by making the same enti-
ties speak differently in the course of the experiment, thanks to other
trials. Through the search for an experimental protocol, the disci-
plines will very quickly investigate, for every candidate for existence,
those among its colleagues that can judge it best, and which trials can
best make them change their minds.^18
How can we imagine even for a second depriving ourselves of the
sciences to put in order of importance the heterogeneous entities in a
homogeneous hierarchy (no. 3), a task that moralists used to claim
as theirs, forbidding scientists—who were limited to the facts alone
—to touch it with the tip of a test tube? But it is from the sciences, by
contrast, that we expect a decisive skill once again: that of imagining
the possibilities, while offering to public life heterogeneousinnovations
and compromises.Let us remember that this function cannot be assured
if the list of the entities that have to be ordered is limited once and for
all, or if it is made up of essences with fixed boundaries. Thus, we
need scientists with bold imaginations, in order to be able to zoom in
on an order of preference going from large to small that unblocks the
situationby shiftingthe weight of the necessary compromisesto other
beingsand other properties. For instance, if pig organs that have been
“humanized” to avoid rejection can be grafted onto humans, the grave
ethical question of brain death suddenly becomes less important.^19
With one minuscule modification in the structure of a material, a
technical breakthrough, an innovative piece of legislation, a new sta-
tistical treatment, a tiny variation in temperature or pressure, what
was impossible becomes possible; what was blocked is unblocked.^20
The sins of pride and arrogance that scientists commit in the name of
Science become civic virtues when they participate, through their very
imagination, in the search for wisdom by offering to recombine the
habits of the propositions submitted to collective examination.
Who would want to deprive the function of institution (no. 4) of
researchers’ skills? If we have criticized Science for its confusion be-
SKILLS FOR THE COLLECTIVE
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