Works in science and technology studies have repeatedly pointed to the importance of the visual in scientific practice. STS has also explicated how embodied practice generates scientific knowledge. I aim to supplement this literature by pointing out how sound and hearing are integral aspects of experimentation. Sound helps define how and when lab work is done, and in what kinds of spaces. It structures experimental experience. It affords interactions between researchers and instruments that are richer than could be obtained with (...) vision alone. And it is a site for tacit knowledge, providing a resource for the replication of results, and the transmission of knowledge, and the construction of social boundaries within instrumental communities. (shrink)

This paper follows the history of an object. The purpose of doing so is to come to terms with a distinctive kind of research object – which we are calling a ‘test object’ – as well as to chronicle a significant line of research and technology development associated with the broader nanoscience/nanotechnology movement. A test object is one of a family of epistemic things that makes up the material culture of laboratory science. Depending upon the case, it can have variable (...) shadings of practical, mathematical and epistemic significance. Clear cases of test objects have highly regular and reproducible visible properties that can be used for testing instruments and training novices. The test object featured in this paper is the silicon 7×7, a particular surface configuration of silicon atoms. Research on this object over a period of several decades has been closely bound up with the development of novel instruments for visualizing atomic structures. Despite having little direct commercial value, the Si 7×7 also has been a focal object for the formation of a research community bridging industry and academia. It exhibits a complex structure that became a sustained focus of observation and modelling. Our study follows shifts in the epistemic status of the Si 7×7, and uses it to re-examine familiar conceptions of representation and observation in the history, philosophy and social study of science. (shrink)

In October of 2002, Rick Smalley, Nobel laureate chemist at Rice University, was pondering what to say to a Congressional Hispanic Science and Literacy Forum hearing in Harlingen, Texas. Smalley used the opportunity to craft an all-encompassing justification for science's importance in the modern world-a justification so persuasive and broad it could be presented to any audience on any occasion. Indeed, variants of his talk have since been given some 200 times, from Dallas to Dubai.

This introductory essay frames our special issue by discussing how attention to the history of research integrity and fraud can stimulate new historical and methodological insights of broader import to historians of science.

The historiography on American science and technology in the 1970s is still small, yet there are already three distinct strands of work: studies of countercultural scientists, portrayed as enacting or advocating ‘groovy’ research; studies of the politically polarized debate pitting conservative and libertarian ‘cornucopianists’ against environmentalists and modelers forecasting resource scarcity; and studies of the early commercialization of technoscience (e.g., biotechnology) that took off in the 1980s. Left out, I argue, are a class of ‘square scientists’ with little sympathy for (...) the counterculture, and yet open to (even eager for) a new kind of science oriented to the same problems activists said they wanted science to solve: pollution, mass transit, housing, biomedicine, disability technologies, pedagogical machines, etc. Square scientists at places like NASA and Texas Instruments adapted military-industrial-academic templates to a wide variety of socially ‘relevant’ topics in the 1970s. Yet square scientists still looked to the military-industrial complex for allies, rather than to countercultural colleagues. This potential middle ground remained excluded – contributing, in large part, to the failure of schemes to reorient US R&D to civilian social problems, and to the invisibility of the squares in today's historical accounts. (shrink)

This introductory article frames our special issue in terms of how historicizing research integrity and fraud can benefit current discussions of scientific conduct and the need to improve public trust in science.

This paper proposes that we should think of epistemic agents as having, as one of their intellectual activities, a gatekeeping task: To decide in light of various criteria which ideas they should consider and which not to consider. When this task is performed with excellence, it is conducive to the acquisition of epistemic goods such as truth and knowledge, and the reduction of falsehoods. Accordingly, it is a worthy contender for being an intellectual virtue. Although gatekeeping may strike one simply (...) as the virtue of open- mindedness, I argue that it is not; gatekeeping does not favor a characteristic disposition to be willing to consider novel or opposing ideas. In fact, being told that an agent is excellent at gatekeeping reveals nothing about how frequently she considers or refuses to consider ideas. This paper will introduce and motivate the notion of gatekeeping, and offer some preliminary arguments in support of its candidacy as an intellectual virtue. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Science: Logic, Strategies, Methods” by Stuart A. Umpleby. Upshot: The evaluation of what we knew is an urgent and evolving issue. The issues discussed by Umpleby have been raised earlier, particularly in the social sciences. Arguably, in some quarters they are exaggerated. But an awareness of observer effects is of great importance and is greatly enhanced by second-order cybernetics applied more widely as second-order science.

Considering the lack of substantive scientific or theoretical studies about ethics in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America, this paper examines the context of an existent paradox, based upon the perspective of experts and academicians of Latin America and the Caribbean. These countries live different realities, due to their respective European cultural influences, as well as to racial and economic issues. Such facts impact the size and characteristics of their industries. On the other hand, the SMEs face (...) more similarities in the region, so they will be treated as a group in the discussion of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Latin American SMEs. As this topic has not been sufficiently investigated in this geographic area, the objective of this exploratory study is to offer a contribution for future research. It raises the main dilemmas and intends to explain how legislation and common practices enable and perhaps lead SMEs to choose unethical strategies to survive and compete in the market. These enterprises are growing in number and in job creation, but do not participate in the Gross National Product in the same proportion. Informality, tax evasion and corruption are gradually caused or erode morality in business, but can contribute to corporate social responsibility in the region. The paper tries to show positive and negative aspects of apparently unethical practices and discusses challenging ways to solve complex problems that are common in most Latin America. (shrink)

A frequent objection to the fine-tuning argument has been that although certain necessary conditions for life were admittedly exceedingly improbable, still, the many possible alternative sets of conditions were all equally improbable, so that no special significance is to be attached to the realization of the conditions of life. Some authors, however, have rejected this objection as fallacious. The object of this paper is to state the objection to the fine-tuning argument in a more telling form than has been done (...) hitherto, and to meet the charge of fallacy. (shrink)

Purpose: Yerkish is an artificial language created in 1971 for the specific purpose of exploring the linguistic potential of nonhuman primates. The aim of this paper is to remind the research community of some important issues and concepts related to Yerkish that seem to have been forgotten or appear to be distorted. These are, particularly, its success, its promising aspects for future research and last but not least that it was Ernst von Glasersfeld who invented Yerkish: he coined the term (...) “lexigrams,” created the first 120 of them and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. Design: The first part of this paper begins with a short outline of the context in which the Yerkish language originated: the original LANA project. It continues by presenting the language itself in more detail: first, its design, focusing on its “lexigrams” and its “correlational” grammar, and then its use by the chimpanzee Lana in formulating sentences. The second part gives a brief introduction to the foundation of Yerkish in Silvio Ceccato’s Operational Methodology, particularly his idea of the correlational structure of thought and concludes with the main insights that can be derived from the Yerkish experiment seen in the light of Operational Methodology. Findings: Lana’s success in language learning and the success of Yerkish during the past decades are probably due to the characteristics of Yerkish, particularly its foundation in operational methodology. The operation of correlation could be what constitutes thinking in a chimpanzee and an attentional system could be what delivers the mental content that correlation assembles into triads and networks. Research implications: Since no other assessment or explanation of Lana’s performances has considered these foundational issues, a new research project or program should validate the above-mentioned hypotheses, particularly the correlational structure of chimpanzee thinking. (shrink)

O texto busca refletir criticamente sobre alguns fenômenos sociais contemporâneos, fortemente imbricados, notadamente as tendências contemporâneas de entrincheiramento e achatamento do eu; o reforço da iconomania e da compulsiva produção de avatares de si, em meio a bolhas narcísicas digitais, franqueadas pelas recentes tecnologias de informação e comunicação; e a virtual destruição da intimidade e da privacidade, diante da emergência de panópticos digitais e da vigilância algorítmica. Para tanto, toma-se como ponto de partida proposições apresentadas por Christopher Lasch em sua (...) obra _The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times_, publicada originalmente em 1984, em particular a própria noção de mínimo eu, as quais são, então, entretecidas com argumentos de Christophe Dejours, Günther Anders, Theodor Adorno, Hebert Marcuse, Jonathan Crary, entre outros. Em acréscimo, busca-se salientar a ancoragem desses processos à hodierna dinâmica de acumulação de capital, a partir da crítica da economia política, perspectiva que atravessa todo o texto, bem como assinalar a atualidade do pensamento de Lasch. (shrink)

In the Dialogues Hume attaches great importance to an objection to the design argument which states, negatively, that from phenomena which embody evil as well as good there can be no analogical inference to the morally perfect deity of traditional theism and, positively, that the proper conclusion as regards moral character is an indifferent designer. The first section of this paper sets out Hume's points, and the next three offer an updating of Hume's objection which will apply to Swinburne's Bayesian (...) form of the design argument. The final section concludes that Hume's objection, suitably developed, holds against most of the main theistic arguments, even in their Bayesian form. (shrink)