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What is a scientific article? This paper proposes that the scientific article can be understood the main unit in a piece-rate system that solves research patrons' problems of fairly evaluating and paying scientists. It is a solution for the evaluation of science given information asymmetries between lay people and scientists. To elucidate a definition in keeping with the principal-agent approach, this paper extends both former explanations of the research article and proposals of publications as attestations to science patrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On March 3rd, 2016, the authors of this note hosted a conference entitled ‘Destabilized Science’ at the University of California, Los Angeles, to which we invited two representatives of core actors within the new science watchdog pack: Ivan Oransky, co-founder in 2010 of Retraction Watch, and Brandon Stell, co-founder in 2012 of PubPeer. After the formal conference, we organized a roundtable to discuss these invitees’ experience and their vision of contemporary science. Mario Biagioli (University of California, Davis), Michael Chwe (UCLA) and Aaron Panofsky (UCLA) participated to the conversation. An edited transcript of the discussion and a short podcast version are being published on Transmissions (ssstransmissions.org) the new blog associated with Social Studies of Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As scientific research moves increasingly to the private sector, the social organization of science undergoes important transformations. Focusing on the production of ignorance, agnotology has been a fruitful approach to understanding the social and epistemic consequences of the recent commercialization of scientific research. Despite their important contributions, scholars working on agnotology seem to hold implicit normative commitments that are in tension with their descriptive accounts of ignorance-constructive practices. The main aim of this article is to uncover these commitments and to expose the emerging tensions. Thus, this article begins an exploration into normative aspects of the studies of ignorance. In particular, it shows that agnotology still needs the support of a well-articulated normative approach capable of identifying and evaluating the epistemic and social concerns raised by the private funding and performance of science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, particularly at higher levels of organizations. This article investigates the impact of this underrepresentation on the processes of interpersonal collaboration in nanotechnology. Analyses are conducted to assess: (1) the comparative tie strength of women’s and men’s collaborations, (2) whether women and men gain equal access to scientific information through collaborators, (3) which tie characteristics are associated with access to information for women and men, and (4) whether women and men acquire equivalent amounts of information by strengthening ties. Our results show that the overall tie strength is less for women’s collaborations and that women acquire less strategic information through collaborators. Women and men rely on different tie characteristics in accessing information, but are equally effective in acquiring additional information resources by strengthening ties. This article demonstrates that the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has an impact on the interpersonal processes of scientific collaboration, to the disadvantage of women scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Anticipatory governance is ‘a broad-based capacity extended through society that can act on a variety of inputs to manage emerging knowledge-based technologies while such management is still possible’. It motivates activities designed to build capacities in foresight, engagement, and integration – as well as through their production ensemble. These capacities encourage and support the reflection of scientists, engineers, policy makers, and other publics on their roles in new technologies. This article reviews the early history of the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the United States, and it further explicates anticipatory governance through exploring the genealogy of the term and addressing a set of critiques found in the literature. These critiques involve skepticism of three proximities of anticipatory governance: to its object, nanotechnology, which is a relatively indistinct one; to the public, which remains almost utterly naïve toward nanotechnology; and to technoscience itself, which allegedly renders anticipatory governance complicit in its hubris. The article concludes that the changing venues and the amplification within them of the still, small voices of folks previously excluded from offering constructive visions of futures afforded by anticipatory governance may not be complete solutions to our woes in governing technology, but they certainly can contribute to bending the long arc of technoscience more toward humane ends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In work in science, technology, and society social conflict around wind farms has a growing profile, not least because it draws our attention to two key interrelated themes: ‘science, technology and governance’ and ‘socio-technological systems’. In this article on Australian wind farm development and siting, these themes are highlighted in contexts of sustainability, legitimacy, and competency for policy effectiveness. There is enduring social conflict around wind farms at the local community level, but little government understanding of this conflict or willingness to respond adequately to resolve it. This article examines the conflict through the lens of print media analysis. A key finding of the five identified is that people seeing wind farms as spoiling a sense of place is a primary cause of enduring social conflict at the local community level around wind farms, alongside significant environmental issues and inadequate community engagement; this finding also indicates a central reason for the highly problematic state of Australian wind energy transitions. In turn, by identifying this problematic situation as one of a significantly ‘decoupled’ and ‘dysfunctional’ condition of the Australian socio-technological wind farm development and siting system, I suggest remedies including those of a deliberative nature that also respond to the Habermas–Mouffe debate. These inform a socio-technical siting approach or pathway to better respect and navigate contested landscapes for enhanced renewable energy transitions at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many have suggested that young scientists are having a more difficult time getting research grants, citing the fact that the average age of recipients of prestigious grants is getting higher. We present a population model that suggests that the reason the average age of grant recipients is now higher is because the growth rate of science has slowed down in the last four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Criticism seems to be a recurring and significant characteristic of public engagement exercises – as reflected both in general political discussion and in the academic literature on public engagement with science. This article suggests that rather than being a distraction from the main business of ‘technical democracy’, criticism lies at the heart of public engagement and in that way should be seen not simply as an unwelcome and unanticipated by-product but rather as a key constituent. Taking inspiration from previous science and technology studies’ treatments of ‘bottom line’ moves and also from Boltanski and Thévenot’s sociology of critical capacity, this article adopts an approach to radical critique that explores its ‘dynamic-yet-patterned’ character. Building upon a ‘translation’ model, but also a framework taken from the martial arts, a reconstruction is offered of one empirical study of lay membership on scientific advisory committees. Conclusions are drawn concerning not only the analysis of critical dialogue around engagement but also the implications for democratic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Technology development is often considered to obfuscate democratic decision-making and is met with ethical suspicion. However, new technologies also can open up issues for societal debate and generate fresh moral engagements. This paper discusses two technological projects: schemes for pig farming in high-rise agro-production parks that came to be known as ‘pig towers’, and efforts to develop techniques for producing meat without animals by using stem cells, labelled ‘in vitro meat’. Even before fully entering our world as actually realized systems or commercially viable products, these technologies disclosed societal concerns over animal agriculture. These concerns were expressed through active public responses and were informed by formal methods of assessment, such as applied ethics and lifecycle analysis. By closely examining how features of these designs entered public debates and ethical thought, we trace the moral world-disclosing character of technological projects. We find that these proposals generate occasions for debate and gather new societal actors to form new coalitions or rifts. Both technologies gave rise to particular understandings of societal issues. As the central means through which problems were discussed changed, new types of arguments were considered relevant and ontological shifts could even be seen to occur with what was considered ‘real meat’ and the ‘true nature’ of animal farming. We argue that world disclosing involves a renewed sense of the character of political and moral agency, whereby the sensibilities that constitute a moral subject are redefined. Finally, we explore the inner tensions and ambiguities of this process of moral and political change by confronting the notions of ‘world disclosure’ developed by Dewey and Heidegger, thereby connecting to recent debates within both STS and political theory on how to understand political processes in a technological culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The essay discusses the work of sociologist Bruno Latour, highlighting his contributions to the field of science and technology studies (STS), especially his book "Science in Action." The author contrasts Latour's actor-network theory (ANT) with social constructivism in terms of its emphasis on the role of non-humans, and special attention is paid to the role of ethnographic observation in Latour's theory. Latour's choice of academic allies and attempts to answer critics are described.

The author discusses the genealogy of science and technology studies (STS) in terms of philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn's book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and sociologist Bruno Latour's book "Science in Action." The author notes a lack of social considerations in Kuhn's work and highlights his gendered, masculine view of science. Kuhn's approach to the history of science is compared to that of chemist Ludwik Fleck, and special attention is paid to controversy studies and the study of laboratories. The author suggests the use of a Foucaultian method of genealogy in STS.

The paper explores the role of imagined geographies in the shaping of new technologies. I argue that the role of place in future-oriented visions of technoscience is a neglected topic in studies of the social shaping of technology. The paper proposes an approach that combines the sociology of expectations with the geography of science. It focuses on the interplay between envisaged and current geographies to highlight the recursive dynamics of place and imagination. To illustrate this approach, the paper discusses the example of biopharming, the productiohttp://bkstrm.epnet.com:8080/ai/images/save.gifn of biopharmaceuticals using genetically modified crops. I argue that expectations for biopharming bear the imprint of place, or rather of the places in which they are imagined, as well as those they imagine, and ultimately those they produce. I use this example to suggest how social studies of science and technology can usefully investigate the spaces, places and scales of technological development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper identifies four recent conceptualizations of politics in relation to technoscience that focus on expertise, institutional participation, the inclusion of non-human others and the importance of marginalized experiences. The paper argues that each of these forms of politics is mainly concerned with renegotiating the already constituted terms of inclusion in a specific technoscientific field. In many cases such a strategy is necessary, but the paper aims to open up discussion of alternative forms of politics that act as constituent forces of radical social and material transformation in technoscience: alter-ontologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Robert Merton famously characterized modern science as distinct from other social spheres by the importance of sharing. In contrast, secrecy is often claimed the most frequent method companies employ to benefit from their discoveries. This study interrogates these claims, and then uses fieldwork on academic research with the popular plant model Arabidopsis thaliana and the companies that support it to explore the nature of sharing in academy and industry. Using archival materials and panel models, the study then examines the consequences of industry collaboration, how it influences sharing between academic scientists and the reach of their ideas and materials. Interviews with academic scientists and industrial research managers reveal differences in sharing. Academics are practiced at communicating discoveries and sharing materials, but occasionally withhold to secure credit or barter to maximize it. In contrast, companies manage their ideas and resources for longer-term control. The difference is not that academic scientists never keep secrets, but that many do so badly. Statistical findings suggest that industry sponsorship influences scientists to reduce their sharing of research materials and methods, but it increases the reception of scientists' early-stage manuscripts, probably as a substitute, enabling competing labs to infer a closed lab's methods. Industry's influence also affects sharing indirectly by sponsoring research in less crowded areas. In this way, industry curbs the demand as well as the supply of sharing in science. As a result, industry sponsorship limits the social, organizational, and geographic distance that sponsored ideas travel over time. Scientists find it difficult to enroll other academics in their research findings as they become enrolled in an industry project of avoiding and mitigating competing science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Spanish techno-scientific discourses and practices shaped metropolitan Spanish and colonial Guinean bodies and identities. It focuses on the range of technologies of biopower - from fingerprinting and blood testing to racial and geographic discourses - that constituted Guinean bodies in ambivalent ways during two periods: the first decades of the 20th century, and the post-Civil War period of the Francoist regime. In the first decades of the 20th century, blood tests were imposed on the local population as a legal requirement for obtaining identity cards in colonial Guinea; the identity cards offered them a severely restricted citizen status, especially if they were female. Indeed, the new blood testing technologies played a key role in efforts to control, reform and identify 'natives', less as subjects than as labouring bodies. During Franco's dictatorship, following the end of the Spanish Civil War (1939), the colonies became a space for the reconstruction of a unified Spanish national identity through two key strategies: 'detribalization' and 'hispanicization', which were carried out through a web of techno-scientific practices - in medicine and psychology as well as geography and anthropology - that included fingerprinting, blood testing, measurements of intelligence and racial discourses. Under the Franco regime, these practices not only justified violent, racist forms of exploitation, but were also used to stake a claim on Guinean colonial territories and bodies by emptying them of their existing identities and then reconstituting them under a single Spanish national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent contributions by Collins, Evans, Jasanoff and Wynne to the discussion of how science and technology studies (STS) might contribute to understanding ‘subpolitics’ - the complex, expert knowledge-intensive and distributed political issues technological societies have to deal with - and involvement of STS scholars in experiments to extend public participation in decision-making about science and technology are shown to be based on an un-reflexive use of an off-the-shelf conception of politics. This conception, grafted on the old model of the sovereign, frames political actors as ‘mini-kings’: as subjects with preferences, interests, aims and plans that they want to be executed. To reveal the limitations of this conception of politics, I confront it with Aristotle's conception of politics. The conception of politics that has guided work in STS is shown to be based on too narrow a conception of political action that fails to properly account for the object of politics. I argue that Aristotle invites us to analyse the object of politics in ways that closely resemble the way in which STS has learned to analyse the object of experimental science. Although Latour comes close to the tasks that an Aristotelian conception of politics suggest, his Politics of Nature shares some of the limitations that trouble other work of STS in the political domain. Despite 25 centuries separating us from his conception of politics, Aristotle may help STS to understand the politics implied in subpolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public dialogue about science, technology and medicine is an established part of the activities of a range of charities, private corporations, governmental departments and scientific institutions. However, the extent to which these activities challenge or bridge the lay-expert divide is questionable. Expertise is contested, by the public and the community of scholars who study and/or facilitate public engagement. In this paper, we explore the dynamics of expertise and their implications for the lay-expert divide at a series of public events about the new genetics. We examine participants' claims to expertise and consider how this relates to their claims to credibility and legitimacy and the way in which these events unfolded. Using a combination of ethnographic and discursive analysis, we found that participants supplemented technical expertise with other expert and lay perspectives. We can also link participants' claims to expertise to their generally positive appraisal of genetic research and services. The colonization of lay positions by expert speakers and the hybrid positioning of lay-experts was characteristic of the consensus and conservatism that emerged. This leads us to conclude that public engagement activities will not challenge the dominance of technical expertise in decision-making about science, technology and medicine without more explicit and reflexive problematization of the dynamics of expertise therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - 'birdstrike tests' through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch birds into it, and watch to see if it explodes. In practice, the tests rest on a complex and contentious logic. In this paper I explore the debate that surrounds these tests, using it to illustrate the now-familiar idea that technological tests - like scientific experiments - unavoidably contain irreducible ambiguities that require judgments to bridge, and to show that these judgments can have real consequences. Having established this, I then explore how the FAA reconciles the unavoidable ambiguities with its need to determine, with a high degree of certainty, that the engines will be as safe as Congress requires. I argue that this reconciliation requires a careful balance between the opposing virtues of reproducibility and representativeness - and that this balance differs significantly from that in most scientific experiments, and from the common perception of what it ought to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talk of public dialogue and engagement has become fashionable internationally, and particularly within Europe. Building especially upon recent British experience, this paper argues that ‘public talk’ (that is, talk both by and about the public) represents an important site for science and technology studies analysis. The relationship between ‘new’ and ‘old’ approaches to scientific governance is considered. Drawing upon a series of official reports, and also the GM Nation? public debate over genetically modified food, the paper suggests that, rather than witnessing the emergence of a new governance paradigm, the current approach can more accurately be portrayed as an uneasy blend of ‘old’ and ‘new’ assumptions. Eschewing a straightforward normative account, the paper explores the social construction of public talk, the relationship between talk and trust, the search for the ‘innocent’ citizen, and the pursuit of social consensus. Current initiatives should not simply be criticized for their inadequacies, but should also be viewed as symptomatic of the state of science-society relations. In that way, stresses and strains within the politics of public talk assume wider analytical significance than the ‘mere talk’ epithet would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is reminiscence and a critique of Robert K. Merton's work in the sociology of science. The author got to know Merton very well as he served as his student assistant, and colleague for 15 years from 1960. Merton's works which are most discussed are his doctoral dissertation on Puritanism and science, his paper on scientific norms, and his paper 'The Matthew Effect'. He is criticized for not generalizing far enough from his work on the Puritan thesis and for not paying close enough attention to the empirical data, which cast doubt on the validity of his theory of the Matthew Effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents various comments on "Kinder, Gentler Science Wars," by Gabriel Stolzenberg. Gabriel Stolzenberg's review essay of Labinger and Collins raises a number of provocative points. Gilbert Ryle was objecting to the way some of the prominent scientists in his day would astonish popular audiences by claiming, for example, that the apparent solidity of familiar objects like tables and chairs is really an illusion created by our sensory receptors and brains, whereas, in fact, such objects are composed entirely of tiny atoms surrounded by vast amounts of empty space. Ryle attacked this rhetorical device first by questioning its scientific authority. He pointed out that there is no such animal as "Science", no total knowledge system that contrasts with everyday knowledge. He added that there are scores of sciences. Most of these sciences are such that acquaintanceship with them or, what is even more captivating, hearsay knowledge about them has not the slightest tendency to make us contrast their world with the everyday world.

The author of this commentary offers a response to the article by Harry Collins and Rob Evans in the journal "Social Studies of Science." The author notes that Collins and Evans point science and technology studies towards investigation of experience and expertise (SEE), an area that has long been of concern for cognitive scientists. Cognitive scientists, however, have avoided studying what happens when experts interact in ways that pull them out of their core expertise. SEE, therefore, has great potential for shedding light on the kinds of multi-disciplinary interactions that are becoming prevalent on the cutting edge of technology.

ABSTRACT This comment considers the approaches expressed in the books by Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge (1994) and Nowotny et al., ReThinking Science (2001), and in the body of work pioneered over the last few years by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff which expounds the 'Triple Helix' analysis of industry/university/government relations. Citation analyses and Internet search data are used to explore the geographical locations, audiences and 'impact' of this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is conceptual and methodological. On the basis of both empirical and explanatory considerations, I craft a number of analytic categories -- 'epistemic engines', 'meters', 'scopes', 'graphs' and 'chambers' -- through which to investigate and understand the character of key forms of the material culture of scientific practice. I argue that much of modern science can be understood in its specificity as 'engine science', a tremendously powerful and generative culture of inquiry. The analytic categories have stability across temporal and spatial localities and have broad applicability across the sciences. The analysis circumvents dualisms, such as those between science and technology, micro and macro, and science and society, and indicates a way to conceptualize the character of 'engineering cultures' and 'engineering states'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much debate has taken place in science and technology studies (S&TS) regarding how to speak about the capacities of technology. Alternative approaches are bound up with questions over the merits of realist and relativist accounts of technology and their potential for analytical insight and practical engagement. This paper advances a basis for examining the link between politics and artefacts, one that draws on but reconfigures the work of post-essentialist authors. This is done by moving away from attempts to detail the social basis of technology to consider instead where the ambiguities associated with technology are resolved. These issues are examined through the case of a (re-)emerging class of devices called 'non-lethal' weapons and, in particular, the chemical incapacitant spray used by British police forces. In doing so, this paper reframes debates in technology studies over how far it is possible and desirable to pursue relativist lines of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social studies of science have developed a deep interest in the conduct of science in the field. However, studies of controversial field science remain relatively rare. This paper presents an analysis of a controversy about the origin of primate infanticide that began in the 1970s, and discusses the ways in which controversies in the field differ from those in the laboratory. Particularly important here is the inability of researchers to control the behaviour of their research subjects; to an important extent, the conduct of their research is dependent on the agency of their research subjects. Finally, it also points to the role played by the sciences of animal behaviour in the constructions of stories about the biological basis of human culture, a role that means that the investigation of controversy in these sciences is of paramount public importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of expertise produces two problems for liberal democratic theory: the first is whether it creates inequalities that undermine citizen rule or make it a sham; the second is whether the state can preserve its neutrality in liberal 'government by discussion' while subsidizing, depending on, and giving special status to, the opinions of experts and scientists. A standard Foucauldian critique suggests that neutrality is impossible, expert power and state power are inseparable, and that expert power is the source of the oppressive, inegalitarian effects of present regimes. Habermas argues that expert cultures make democratic discussion impossible. Analogous problems arise with 'cognitive authority', understood in Mertonian terms. Cognitive authority, as Merton sees it, allows us to ask about the democratic legitimacy of this authority, which appears to solve the problem (or part of the problem) because it returns ultimate 'authority' to the people, who reject or accept the experts' claims. And many claims to expertise in fact do fail to gain acceptance. Through an examination of the type of expert that appears to evade the demands of legitimation, it is shown that expertise and liberal democracy can in principle co-exist, contrary to the claims of the critics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many laboratory sciences, issues of cleanliness and purity are ever-present concerns. In materials science, keeping things (instruments, materials, people) clean structures the knowledge-making process. Using the work of Mary Douglas, I examine various contaminants, impurities and defects that are relevant to materials scientists. Importantly, though, definitions of what constitutes 'dirt' are multiple, overlapping and, often, formally contradictory; this means that impurities are as much positive resources as threatening pollutants. In materials science labs, where many kinds of actors and forms of life intersect, pollution may be used to rein in confusion and ambiguity. This paper traces various manifestations of laboratory dirt, then examines how (un)cleanliness enables certain moves in the materials science game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russian measurements of the quality factor (Q) of sapphire, made 20 years ago, have only just been repeated in the West. Shortfalls in tacit knowledge have been partly responsible for this delay. The idea of 'tacit knowledge', first put forward by the physical chemist Michael Polanyi, has been studied and analysed over the last two decades. A new classification of tacit knowledge (broadly construed) is offered here and applied to the case of sapphire. The importance of personal contact between scientists is brought out and the sources of trust described. It is suggested that the reproduction of scientific findings could be aided by a small addition to the information contained in experimental reports. The analysis is done in the context of fieldwork conducted in the USA and observations of experimental work at Glasgow University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies profoundly change our sonic surroundings, the world's soundscape. However, research dealing with the sound of technology is scarce within Science and Technology Studies (S&TS). This study argues that such a silence should be broken, since the sound of technology not only tunes our sonic environment, but has also been a highly controversial aspect of technology loaded with symbolic significance. Research into such a symbolism of sound enhances our understanding of the responses to technology-related changes in early 20th-century Western cities. The importance of sound will be made clear by discussing the historiography and anthropology of noise and silence, and by analyzing a crucial episode in the history of noise abatement in European and North American cities. By showing how the symbolism of sound influenced the noise abatement campaigns and the measures taken in response, the paper illustrates how the study of technological culture can be deepened by focusing on sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With data from a national survey of 3800 doctoral students in departments of chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, microbiology and physics, and data from the Survey of Doctoral Recipients/National Science Foundation, we analyze the career-preferences and prospects of young scientists. We analyze patterns by field and gender of students, and assess the extent to which the preferences and subjective (reported) prospects of doctoral students reflect the objective (actual) employment experiences of recent PhD recipients. The findings point toward the intricacy of the relationship between subjective and objective career prospects; and to the ways in which individual inclinations and conditioned 'expectations' rest upon what is regarded as feasible, by gender and by field in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines an inflammatory subject — 'DNA typing' (or 'DNA fingerprinting' as it is popularly called) — to show how credible scientific knowledge is produced through the systematic erasure of uncertainty and random variation. This erasure occurs at the levels of measurement and of group processes. I use the history of DNA typing in the United States as a case study to develop a three-fold argument. First, that objective knowledge is achieved through interactions and social processes that erase the actions of the representing subject from the representations made of the natural world. Second, that this set of social processes and interactions includes normative judgements, but that these judgements do not pose a threat to objectivity: instead, they are what constitute objectivity. Objectivity is attained through personal judgements and evaluations of what is good enough to constitute an objective measurement, or judgements of how big or small a deviation must be to count for or against a particular theoretical interpretation. Third, I argue that measurements, the result of the translation of properties of the natural world into numbers, always have a gap or error between the theoretically predicted measurement and the empirically obtained measurement. At some point this error cannot be reduced any further. The final measurement is the outcome of negotiation and interaction between people and nature. I demonstrate that these judgements, evaluations and negotiations take place within a laboratory, when forensic workers construct estimates of measurement error, and also in negotiations among disparate social groups involved in calculating random match probabilities. Scientific and legal disputes about the construction of measurements and measurement standards for DNA profiling began in the late 1980s, and continued for the better part of a decade. In this paper, the protracted controversy provides especially rich materials for examining the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender must be taken into account in a full understanding of technologies. Equally, technologies must be taken into account in a full understanding of gender. This poses a challenge for the individual scholarships of feminist studies and science and technology studies (S&TS), which, for the most part, can competently theorize either gender relations or technological relations, but neither school has the theoretical wherewithal to tackle the co-construction of genders and technologies. This paper elaborates the developing theory coalition between feminist studies and S&TS in feminist technology studies. The discussion centres on four main points of tension between the disciplines that I have found particularly challenging in my study of the co-construction of masculinities and (domestic) technology. These points of tension relate to: research sites, analytic lenses, power relations and reflexivity. The objective of working through the points of tension is to elaborate the mutual learning process between the two traditions when conducting empirical research on gender and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944), historian and philosopher of science, arrived in America with what he called 'two copious manuscripts': one on 'the Social Roots of Science'; the other on 'Natural and Historical Laws'. The first forms the basis for his historiographical essays written and published during World War II while in exile in America. These essays have given rise to the so-called 'Zilsel Thesis', which holds that modern science came into being in the 16th century when the social barriers between three strata of intellectuals — university scholars, humanists and superior artisans — eroded because of the rise of free enterprise capitalism. The transformation of their intellectual capacities melded into a culturally unique endeavour called science. The other manuscript addresses the possibility of finding socio-historical laws. In this introductory Comment, we indicate how these two manuscripts are related, and how they continue a research programme which Zilsel had developed in his earlier work. We argue that the project on the social roots of science can be seen as a case-study substantiating the claim of the possibility of historical laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period from 1300 to 1600 three strata of intellectual activity must be distinguished: university scholars, humanists, and artisans. Both university scholars and humanists were rationally trained. Their methods, however, were determined by their professional conditions and differed substantially from the methods of science. Both professors and humanistic literati distinguished liberal from mechanical arts and despised manual labor, experimentation, and dissection. Craftsmen were the pioneers of causal thinking in this period. Certain groups of superior manual laborers (artistengineers, surgeons, the makers of nautical and musical instruments, surveyors, navigators, gunners) experimented, dissected, and used quantitative methods. The measuring instruments of the navigators, surveyors, and gunners were the forerunners of the later physical instruments. The craftsmen, however, lacked methodical intellectual training. Thus the two components of the scientific method were separated by the social barrier: logical training was reserved for upper-class scholars; experimentation, causal interest, and quantitative method were left to more or less plebeian artisans. Science was born when, with the progress of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars. This was accomplished about 1600 (Gilbert, Galileo, Bacon). At the same time the scholastic method of disputation and the humanistic ideal of individual glory were superseded by the ideals of control of nature and advancement of learning through scientific co-operation. In a somewhat different way, sociologically, modern astronomy developed. The whole process was imbedded in the advance of early capitalistic society, which weakened collective-mindedness, magical thinking, and belief in authority and which furthered worldly, causal, rational, and quantitative thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent report from the UK House of Lords on Science and Society proposes that the public's understanding of science should not be construed on the 'deficit' model, but approached through improved 'dialogue'. This Comment suggests that this approach is insufficient in itself: what is required is the effective 'empowerment' of the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents indexes of the volume 30, 2000 edition of the periodical 'Social Studies of Science.'

ABSTRACT Historical and contemporary social studies of science and technology have developed an asymmetrical relationship in recent years. While historical research has been regarded as crucial to the project of contemporary theorizing, science studies is still regarded by many as incompatible with history of science's mission of faithfully reconstructing the past. This Comment suggests that the two fields can usefully collaborate in the task of democratizing science and technology. They have in common an interest in making science and technology more transparent, resurrecting vanished actors and voices, representing the hybrid networks of science and society and, not least, educating students about the societal dimensions of science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When abstract quantitative and generalizing sociologies are juxtaposed to qualitative sociologies, the relationship is often seen as complementary or competitive. Our purpose is to articulate a different type of relationship between abstract social scientific knowledge (as exemplified in Survey Research [SR]) and the form of concrete and particularized knowledge represented in ethnomethodological conversation analysis. SR, historically, represents what we (following Jean Converse) refer to as the `ascendance of the objectivized subjective realm'. Like other kinds of (in Ted Porter's phrase) `mechanical objectivity', this ascendance is everywhere made possible because it is accompanied by practitioners' (researchers' and interviewers') tacit practical forms of knowledge that enable them to work through the situated problems endemic to SR. As endeavours that locate orderliness and social organization in the details of actual social activity, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis find that SR Centres have intrinsic interest as sites of locally-produced structures. Investigating the situated tacit practices of investigators actually conducting SR and survey interviews, ethnomethodological and conversation analytical approaches to SR are also akin to the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), which has largely investigated practices in natural science laboratories. This may suggest that there is `symmetry' between natural and social science, but we also argue that `asymmetry' is a serviceable notion for science studies. Indeed, understanding the asymmetry between survey-based and ethnomethodological social sciences offers potential for communication (rather than a `state of non-intercourse') between sociologists and the scientists they study. As an illustration of the Sociology of Social Scientific Knowledge (SSSK), we examine a successful attempt at `refusal conversion' in an SR Centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In recent decades, large-scale product liability litigation, so-called 'mass torts', have become increasingly visible on the US legal and political landscape. Invariably, mass tort litigation incorporates a range of specialist scientific knowledges. Drawing upon fairly conventional images of law and science, most judges and legal commentators attribute the apparent difficulties encountered in addressing the refractory issues involved with scientific evidence in mass torts to uncertainties, jury incomprehension, partisan scientists and the distortion of evidence caused by the adversarial legal system ('sociologies of error'). Adopting a more symmetrical social constructivist approach to scientific evidence, this paper endeavours to account for some of the complexities in the litigation surrounding the anti-nausea drug Bendectin. Rather than interpret the Bendectin litigation as an instance of the judges eventually valuing the scientific evidence properly, and thus resolving the controversy (the truth winning out), this paper explores the manner in which lawyers, scientists and judges together 'negotiated' a series of cases and judgments which privileged epidemiology as a means of 'resolving' a recurrent socio-legal 'problem'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When scientific and technical work goes on within a formal organization, what effect, if any, does the organizational setting have on the production of facts and artefacts? This question has not yet been thoroughly explored in science and technology studies. Organizations are meso-level structures: located between the macro-level contingencies and the micro-level interactions that are known to affect the interpretive work of scientific and technical experts, organizations also play an important rôle. To encourage discussion about the rôle of organizations in knowledge production processes, I first draw on organization theory to demonstrate the ironic fact that organizations, necessary to produce, coordinate and maintain complex techno-scientific systems, also have irreducible and emergent effects on the way complex information is transmitted, communicated, processed and stored. Then, to illustrate empirically how organizations affect knowledge processes in the workplace, I reconsider data on engineering decisions at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), presenting a new interpretation that focuses on the rôle of the organization in knowledge production. In combination, organization theory and the empirical analysis suggest that certain structures, processes and transaction forms are generic across organizational settings, having ramifications for knowledge production by technologists and scientists in a variety of knowledge sites. In conclusion, I frame this discussion within the traditions of science and technology studies, suggesting the integrative, theory-building potential of future research that takes into account formal organizations as contemporary machineries of knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the response of Noretta Koertge to the recent discussion in the journal of the book she edited. She describes features of scientific method and explains that scientists devote much of their energies to trying to exclude their own biases from their observations, and she lists the familiar techniques that are used to accomplish a degree of what is commonly called objectivity. It is noted that those who work in the history and sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) not only know scientific method and its aspirations, they value and cleave to it. Thus, SSK tries to generalize so that its results can be repeated in other settings, historical details are checked with respondents and, where possible, sources are carefully documented so that they can be checked by others.

This article presents an editorial postscript. It notes that the zero-sum assumption is often false means that the science wars are, ultimately, quite unnecessary. Unfortunately, this assumption seems to be the culture's most entrenched prejudice about the processes shaping knowledge. Unnecessary as they are, the science wars therefore will not end.

This article presents responses and replies concerning the zero-sum assumption and the symmetry thesis. In this response the author cannot even begin to give a careful discussion of rival views of the possible relationships between the social and cognitive aspects of science. What she will attempt, however, is an explanation of why scientists and others often invoke the zero-sum assumption. To avoid prejudging the proper division of labour between sociologists and philosophers, here the author will speak of the person doing the case study as a historian.

How can we characterize an individual creator 'in vivo' - or, to use a more traditional category in philosophy, a knowing subject 'in the making'? While informed by philosophical modes of questioning, this paper addresses this problem using tools developed by anthropologists and sociologists of science. Based on two case studies - William X, a researcher working at France's largest petroleum company (Elf Aquitaine), and Stephen Hawking - the paper examines how these scientists came to distinguish themselves as creative geniuses. By breaking down the narrative representation of the creative process as a simple mental operation, the paper shows how creation is materially 'distributed' in specific tools, practices and social networks. Conversely, it demonstrates how and why the distribution of competences into heterogeneous practices provides an explanation of how a person becomes a singular, inventive individual. In conclusion, it proposes a new conceptualization of the knowing subject as the distributed-centred subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a response to Trevor Pinch's comments on the chapter about cold fusion in the book "A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodern Myths About Science." The author notes that Pinch's main point is that philosophers and sociologists disagree on the use of epistemic and methodological standards, and that the sociological approach to these is superior to the philosophical one. In this article, the author examines the said major point through key subpoints.

This article offers a response to the comments of Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer on the paper "What's Wrong With the Strong Programme's Case Study of the 'Hobbes-Boyle' Dispute?" The author points out that as the paper provides, there is sufficient evidence reasonably to conclude that Hobbes and Boyle were undecided on epistemological and methodological matters, and often enough on the same side of the emerging science of nature.

This article offers a response to the arguments raised by Cassandra Pinnick in the journal "Social Studies of Science." The author comments that when academics decide to take up the burden of defending truth or reason or good history, the strain often shows in lapses of civility. Taking up this burden also involves accepting responsibility for very high levels of accuracy, coherence, and care.

The author of this article offers a response to Yves Gingras' review of the book "The Mangle of Practice." The author notes that Gingras follows a line traditional in social theory that envisages macrostructures as "constraints" on more micro phenomena. The author argues against the said position and favors the view of the mangle as scale-invariant.

The author of this article offers a response to the arguments raised by Andy Pickering in the journal "Social Studies of Science." The author points out that the dialectic of resistance and accommodation, which is the central analytical tool proposed in the book "The Mangle of Practice," was reminiscent of Jean Piaget's theory of knowledge acquisition, but with one major difference. The author notes that Piaget was explicitly structural in his analysis, whereas Pickering is purely phenomenalist.