Precision medicine is emerging as a scientific bandwagon within the contemporary biomedical sciences in the United States. PM brings together concepts and tools from genomics and bioinformatics to develop better diagnostics and therapies based on individualized information. Developing countries like China and Brazil have also begun pursuing PM projects, motivated by a desire to claim genomic sovereignty over its population. In spite of commonalities, institutional arrangements produced by the history of genomics research in China and Brazil are ushering PM along (...) different trajectories. In the Chinese case, we identify a strong state-backed push for PM combined with a dynamic network of international academic and private actors along the lines of networked technonationalism that has made large-scale, speculative PM projects possible. The Brazilian case is characterized by an institutional void at the federal level in which PM is driven by domestic academic actors in universities in the regional level, resulting in smaller scale, needs-driven PM projects. Through these cases, this paper shows how a scientific bandwagon adapts to national histories and institutions. Through this peripheral translation of the scientific bandwagon, the global infrastructure of biomedical knowledge has the potential to be transformed. (shrink)

This document represents some preliminary and unpublished content of a chapter in the edited book titled A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism, which will soon be published and distributed by De Gruyter Poland (Sciendo Imprint; part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, Germany). -/- A proper referencing should be like: -/- Tam-Tri Le. (2022). Natural and social survival: the drivers of serendipity. In: QH Vuong. (Ed.) A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism (pp. 75-90). Berlin, (...) Germany: De Gruyter. (shrink)

This document represents some preliminary and unpublished content of a chapter in the edited book titled A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism, which will soon be published and distributed by De Gruyter Poland (Sciendo Imprint; part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, Germany). A proper referencing should be like: Quan-Hoang Vuong, Tam-Tri Le, Quy Khuc, Minh-Hoang Nguyen. (2022). A new theory of serendipity. In: QH Vuong. (Ed.) A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism (pp. 91-108). (...) Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. (shrink)

When you type the word “serendipity” in a word-processor application such as Microsoft Word, the autocorrection engine suggests you choose other words like “luck” or “fate”. This correcting act turns out to be incorrect. However, it points to the reality that serendipity is not a familiar English word and can be misunderstood easily. Serendipity is a very much scientific concept as it has been found useful in numerous scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical innovations, and numerous humankind’s technical and technological advances. Therefore, there (...) have been many books written around the concept. So why do we need this additional book? This is not just another book about serendipity. It has evolved from the Editor’s question lingering for a decade after finishing his widely cited article (coauthored with Prof. Nancy K. Napier of Boise State University, ID, USA) “Serendipity as a strategic advantage?” in T. Wilkinson’s edited volume Strategic Management in the 21st Century, published by Praeger. The Editor and contributing authors have tried to achieve the following in this title. Demystifying the Serendipity Myth The phenomenon of serendipity has always been thought of as a “miracle”. It is the mystery of human innovation and one of the ultimate secrets of our society. But serendipity is not just a lucky coincidence nor any hidden conspiracy. This book explores the science of the information process behind this seemingly miraculous phenomenon. It connects human society with nature, going back to the root of our existence and looking at the flame of survival to discover the harmony in making creativity. Presenting the nuts and bolts of being an adventurer of science The authors present their conceptual investigations into serendipity’s nature and its mechanism by examining interesting real events and stories. The content is thought-provoking, and readers are led to question and explore their own life stories and problems along the journey of reading this book. Catching an elusive high-value target requires great strategies and efforts. But there are no dark secrets here because this is the “way of nature” – how we humans have always strived for innovation without realizing the blueprints behind such processes. Unlike other books on serendipity, this book will show you that a powerful “secret” is closer than you think. Delivering practical uses for different audiences By understanding the conditionality and survival drivers of serendipity, individuals or organizations can make better decisions on creating the right environment to facilitate the encounter and attainment of this valuable phenomenon. For scientists: With clear explanations of the information processes underlying serendipity, flexible theoretical frameworks of mindsponge and the 3D principle of creativity, researchers are provided with the tools they need to dig deeper into their own fields of study and find practical applications, be it psychology, economics, sociology, or anything that involves innovation (which is, in fact, every scientific discipline). For curious casual readers: Everybody needs innovation to make breakthroughs or spice up one’s life. If you think great ideas come to people randomly from an unknown fairy place, this book will convince you otherwise without taking away that awe and wonder. But above all, you will know how to become more creative, scientifically and straightforwardly, with no snake oil and no weird tricks. For ambitious business people: The flame that brought about great successes throughout human history is within you. But you can only use it if you understand it. While others wait for serendipity to come, you will be able to actively hunt for those precious moments. As it has always been: the best hunters triumph, not the passive wanderers. And in this age of information chaos, finding the golden fruits is not easy. Those from information technology know this problem well, and this book is the treasure map that they have been seeking to navigate that stormy ocean looking for jewels. Like a kingfisher tracking its prey through the water, waiting to gracefully strike, with serendipity, a person seizes the prize of creativity amid the chaos of life. ¤ ¤ ¤ Official introduction: The book explores the nature, underlying causes, and the information processing mechanism of serendipity. It proposes that natural or social survival demands drive serendipity, and serendipity is conditional on the environment and the mindset, on both individual and collective levels. From Darwin's evolution theory to Sun Tzu's war tactics, major innovations throughout human history are unified by this key concept. In the rapidly changing world, information is abundant but rather chaotic. The adaptive power of serendipity allows people to notice treasures within this wild sea, but only for those who understand how it works. To increase the probability of encountering and attaining serendipity, one should employ the mindsponge mechanism and the 3D process of creativity, for without these frameworks, serendipity is truly an elusive target. The book also discusses methods to build environments and cultures rich in navigational and useful information to maximize the chance of finding and capitalizing on serendipity. As a skill, serendipity has a resemblance to how kingfishers observe and hunt their prey. (shrink)

In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the ethical dimensions of scientific research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and (...) appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics . Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics training to provide scientists with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the critical role of values and ethical choices in the production of research outcomes. (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse and criticize the argument of the experimenters' regress proposed by Harry Collins in 1985. In order to do that, I begin with an introduction to the experiments that aimed to detect gravity waves performed by Joseph Weber during 1970, then I analyse and discuss both forms of the argument: the epistemological and the ontological. Finally, after giving an outline of a theory of experimental reproduction and an explication of the concept of (...) replication, I propose two ways of avoiding the experimenters' regress. (shrink)

Traditional Chinese Medicine is often considered an “experiential medicine.” As such, it is seen as in need of conceptual elevation by scientific experiments and theorization, which actualize and undermine scientized forms of TCM. This essay argues that the predicaments of TCM are thoroughly modern and must be understood within the “Modern Constitution” in which the production and proliferation of asymmetries are both constitutive of and obscured by modern knowledge production. This essay dislodges these asymmetries through transdisciplinary engagements with TCM. This (...) transdisciplinary approach, as I will show, allows us to animate the experiential in order to unsettle the relations between the empirical and the conceptual, the concrete and the abstract, and the contingent and the universal. Most importantly, it enables reconsiderations of the experiential and the empirical as conditions for thinking, doing, and being that insist on immanence, move analogously, and travel sideways. Thus, rather than wanting conceptual uplifting, TCM as an experiential medicine could not only work as a critique of the Modern Constitution but also force a conceptual disruption from within by insisting on the empirical as conceptual. (shrink)

This article responds to Schulz's criticisms of an earlier paper published in Educational Philosophy and Theory. The purpose in this paper is to clarify and extend some of my earlier arguments, to indicate what is unfortunate (i.e. what is lost) from a non‐charitable, modernist reading of Lyotardian postmodernism (despite its weaknesses), and to suggest what new directions are emerging in science education from efforts to move beyond an either/or dichotomy of foundationalism and relativism.

This article explains how the most recommended treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, the continuous positive airway pressure device, acts and interacts with users’ bodies, sleep partners’ bodies, and cultural discourses to produce emotions and practices that generate the subjectivity of a disabled or abled person. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with OSA patients, this article illustrates how introducing CPAP devices into patients’ lives may disturb their sleep and breathing, diminish their independence, disfigure their appearance, and problematize intimacy with bed partners, thereby (...) disrupting both the fleshy body and the culturally preferred image of a healthy, independent, and attractive individual. In response, many patients reject this treatment. ability as a subjective state is shown to emerge from associations in a network composed of heterogeneous entities that have agency. That is, disabled subjectivity emerges when the device prevents individuals from accomplishing what they consider to be the essential and socially significant aspects of sleep and primarily its disembodied and interembodied aspects. (shrink)

It is the continuity between epistemology and empirical science that the naturalism in contemporary philosophy of science emphasizes. After its individual and social dimensions, the philosophy of scientific practice takes a stand on naturalism in order to observe complex scientific activities through practice. However, regarding the naturalism’s problem of normativity, the philosophy of scientific practice today has deconstructed more than it has constructed.

Steve Fuller's social epistemology aims to integrate the philosophy of science and sociology of science, and to enhance the ability of these disciplines to contribute to science policy. While applauding the re?vitalizing energy of the enterprise, a sociological perspective requires attention to four key aspects of the programme. First, the character of interdisciplinarity requires careful specification, lest the critical dynamic of social studies of science be compromised by calls to pluralism. Second, social epistemology can and should transcend the traditional epistemological (...) attribution of positions ('positionism') to protagonists. Third, the argumentative dynamic of social studies of science, which enables the successive reconceptualization of ?epistemic? matters, suggests some problems for social epistemology's use of ?sociological results?. Finally, social epistemology requires a more sociologically informed understanding of what in practice counts as normative research, since the current programme trades upon unexamined conceptions of policy audience. (shrink)

Science studies scholars often study up to high-tech elites who produce and design scientific knowledge and technology. Methodological tension begins when you pair a desire to study down to less economically developed countries, with the desire to study up to high-tech elites within them. This becomes further complicated when the ethnographer and his/her informants share professional interests and credentials. In these situations, the researcher has high status because of geopolitical privilege. However, the researcher is neither a high-tech elite nor a (...) local cultural elite. How might the ethnographer successfully access and navigate field sites imbued with these unseen power differentials? There are currently no visual mapping tools to enhance the process of reflexivity by feminist ethnographers, as they consider their globally embedded multiple, hierarchical, and situated positionality. This reflection methodology piece provides a tool to consider this phenomenon, as it exists across the Global North/south divide of power. Such a tool would be useful to northern ethnographers to better strategize ethics and access while avoiding complicity with structures of inequality and empowering their southern interlocutors. (shrink)

In the face of what has been referred to as a crystal methamphetamine ‘‘epidemic’’ among gay men in North America, a number of health promotion efforts have been developed. While these efforts vary in approach, a core feature is the assumption that a user’s health depends on distinguishing accurate truths about CMA from inaccurate beliefs about CMA. Drawing on insights developed by Bruno Latour, this article unravels how this distinction plays out in the context of one expression of CMA health (...) promotion. I suggest that CMA health promotion may be more usefully understood as form of collective work in which various players throw up different knowledge practices for debate rather than an effort to mark the difference between truth and belief. In doing so, I suggest that of Latour, and science studies more generally, offers an opportunity for rethinking the nature of health promotion writ large. (shrink)

ArgumentAimé Civiale's attempt at a complete photographic coverage of the High Alps seems to be a peculiar project at first sight. Carried out between 1859 and 1868, this was the earliest systematic attempt to introduce photography as a medium for studying the earth sciences. But as precise and determined as Civiale's approach appears, it was still quite unclear at the time how exactly photography could be useful in geology. This paper asks where the great confidence in the new medium in (...) regard to mountain representations came from. The answer is not an easy one, as sources on Civiale's project are scarce. To make things even more difficult, the confidence in photography in the earth sciences during that time seems to have been based more on hope than on actual results. It is difficult to extract hope from written sources, let alone from images. I argue that this confidence was not so much based on photography's classic attributes of exactness or objectivity, but on its promise to produce unexpected results. Therefore this argument will inevitably have speculative elements. Thus, this paper can also be understood as an attempt to deal with a specific historiographical problem that regularly occurs when writing about images. (shrink)

Theorizing about perception is often motivated by a belief that without a way of ensuring that our perceptual experience correctly reflects the external world we cannot be sure that we perceive the world at all. Historically, coming up with a way of securing such epistemic contact has been a foundational issue in psychology. Recent ecological and enactive approaches challenge the requirement for perception to attain epistemic contact. This article aims to explicate this pragmatic starting point and the new direction of (...) inquiry that this opens up for psychology. It does so by detailing the development of James J. Gibson’s ecological psychology. Securing epistemic contact has been a leitmotiv in Gibson’s early work, but subsequent developments in Gibson’s works can teach us what it takes to adopt a pragmatic approach to psychology. We propose a reading of the developments in Gibson’s original works that shows that, since perception is a mode of acting, perception aims for pragmatic contact before allowing for epistemic contact. Amplifying these pragmatist lines of thought in Gibson’s works we end by considering situations where an individual is adapted to the intricacies of specific social practices. These situations show how pragmatic contact can also afford attaining epistemic contact. (shrink)

In this article, Thomas Kuhn’s theory of incommensurable paradigms learned through exemplars is discussed as a theory of acculturation akin to those of cultural anthropology. Yet his hermeneutic approach results in a classic problem, referred to here as the paradox of objective relativism. A solution, at least for observers of contemporary cultures, is drawn from Kuhn’s own writings: a fieldwork method of “going native.” It is argued that Kuhn’s views are as important a corrective for anthropologists studying native systems of (...) knowledge as they have been for philosophers and sociologists of science. The epistemological and disciplinary implications of such a methodology are discussed. (shrink)

This article empirically analyzes how victims’ remains were recovered, identified, repatriated, and retained after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It does so by asking the question whose body is it. This question brings to the fore issues related to personhood and ownership: how are anonymous and unrecognizable bodily remains given back an identity; and who has ownership of or custody over identified and unidentified human remains? It is in this respect that the article engages with (...) technoscientific and legal, or “technolegal,” trajectories of human remains in the wake of the WTC tragedy. By using the metaphor of “materialization,” it becomes possible to trace how remains are forensically identified and implicated in legal regimes. “Technolegal materialization” as a concept and methodological sensitivity contributes to the current “actor-network theory” -inspired legal scholarship, which tends to focus on legal practices in courtrooms but not those beyond them. In this article, 9/11 victims’ remains are followed from “Ground Zero” to the forensic laboratory and beyond and articulates five instances of technolegal materialization of bodily remains and their past and contemporary existences. (shrink)

This article applies a theoretical framework developed by the late American sociologist Anselm Strauss to the discovery of a new resuscitation technique, closed-chest cardiac massage. The discovery, which took place in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins University between 1956 and 1960, is analyzed as the collective management of a trajectory over time. The article follows the discovery trajectory from its origins in defibrillator research to the establishment of closed-chest cardiac massage and cardiopulmonary resuscitation as a universal life-saving method. The analytical (...) focus on the experimental, clinical, and promotional activities performed by the different actors interacting with the emerging technology allows one to critically question the value of concepts such as closure, stabilization, and black boxing in sociology of science and technology. Instead of prematurely freezing the analysis of technoscience, a trajectory conceptual framework emphasizes the ongoing dynamic between actors and medical technology to define the scope, effectiveness, and multiple interpretations of the technology-actor interaction. (shrink)

It is the continuity between epistemology and empirical science that the naturalism in contemporary philosophy of science emphasizes. After its individual and social dimensions, the philosophy of scientific practice takes a stand on naturalism in order to observe complex scientific activities through practice. However, regarding the naturalism’s problem of normativity, the philosophy of scientific practice today has deconstructed more than it has constructed.

In this paper, we explore the particular issue of a biomedical research team engaging itself in different “trading zones” (Galison 1997). We do so by following the specific process of setting up a new microscope. We start by briefly introducing our general understanding of the concept of “trading zone.” Then we focus on the empirical material we collected, starting from the microscope as the researchers we followed were setting it up. Our analysis is twofold: we first describe the acts we (...) have been witnessing, then contrast them with the surrounding discourses and provide them with a rationale. We argue that the team created a sense of unity among its individual members and how this unity, though precarious, was needed and desired in order to further engage in a trading zone. (shrink)

The expectations of governments, science students, and employers of science graduates seem to be reshaping science education and redefining science work to make them more relevant to industry’s needs. But the skills, attitudes, and values required for science work in industry have not been clearly articulated. As a result, science teaching innovations may not be adequately addressing the challenges of preparing science students for a socially significant role in industry. This article reports some qualitative research on the characteristics of innovators (...) and then explores the nature of the problem facing science educators interested in nurturing those characteristics in their students. It suggests the desirable characteristics of innovators might be inconsistent with conventional notions of scientific competence. It suggests critical engagement with science’s fundamental beliefs and values is called for before the problem of teaching scientists to be “in-competent” can be tackled. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a key question in the history and philosophy of medicine, namely how scholars should treat the practices and experimental hypotheses of modern life science laboratories. The paper seeks to introduce some prominent historiographical methods and theoretical approaches associated with biomedical research. Although medical scientists need no convincing that experimentation has a significant function in their laboratory work, historians, philosophers, and sociologists long neglected its importance when examining changes in medical theories or progress (...) in scientific knowledge. The reason appears to have been the academic influence of the then dominant tradition in the history of ideas, but was also due to a misconception of what could usefully be termed the view on “historical ontology.” During the last two decades, there have been many books and research articles that have turned towards the subject, so that the study of experimental practice has become a major trend in the contemporary history and philosophy of medicine. A closer look at the issue of laboratory research shows that concepts in medicine and the life sciences cannot be understood as historically constant, free-standing ideas, but have to be regarded as dependent on local research settings. They often carry particular “social memories” with them and thus acquire important ethical implications. (shrink)

In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the ethical dimensions of scientific research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and (...) appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics . Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics training to provide scientists with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the critical role of values and ethical choices in the production of research outcomes. (shrink)

The fascination and thrill of arts festivals relates to their capacity to host the unexpected, surprising and new. The economic model of novelty bundling markets presents a rare attempt to account for the potential impact of festivals on innovation. Its cognitive conception of festivals as sites of economic evolution offers a point of departure for this paper. The economic model is criticised and further developed, especially in two respects, drawing on sociological studies on science, technology and society and on empirical (...) data from two cases of innovatively used lighting technology in festivals. First, it is argued that festivals offer a fair space for the simultaneous discovery, display and valorisation of the new that is produced by performers, curators and audiences, and by innovators, intermediaries and consumers alike. Secondly, the production and consumption of newness in festivals is linked to the specific way in which their socio-material setting facilitates what has been termed framing and overflowing of cognitive formats. Finally, the analysis sheds new light not only on the innovative impact of festivals but also on the scholarly reserve to engage with this field of research. (shrink)

Recent "gender, environment, and sustainable development" accounts raise pointed questions about the complicity of Enlightenment philosophies of science with failures of Third World development policies and the current environmental crisis. The strengths of these analyses come from distinctive ways they link androcentric, economistic, and nature-blind aspects of development thinking to "the Enlightenment dream." In doing so they share perspectives with and provide resources for other influential schools of science studies.

Naturalism in the philosophy of science has proceeded differently than the familiar forms of meta-philosophical naturalism in other sub-fields, taking its cues from “science as we know it” (Cartwright in The Dappled World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 1) rather than from a philosophical conception of “the Scientific Image.” Its primary focus is scientific practice, and its philosophical analyses are complementary and accountable to empirical studies of scientific work. I argue that naturalistic philosophy of science is nevertheless criterial for (...) other versions of meta-philosophical naturalism; relying on a conflicting conception of scientific understanding would constitute a “first philosophy” imposed on the sciences. Moreover, naturalistic philosophy of science provides the basis for a “radically” naturalistic alternative to the familiar forms of orthodox or liberal naturalism. Goodman, Sellars and Hempel had previously challenged empiricist scruples against causal connections or nomological necessity by arguing that scientific concepts already had modal import. The radical naturalism I defend similarly challenges meta-philosophical naturalists’ conception of the Scientific Image as anormative, and instead shows how the normativity of scientific understanding in practice is a scientifically intelligible natural phenomenon. This account then provides a basis for naturalistic reflection on how other practices and normative concerns fit together with the best scientific understanding of human ways of life. (shrink)

This survey of major developments in North American philosophy of science begins with the mid-1960s consolidation of the disciplinary synthesis of internalist history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a response to criticisms of logical empiricism. These developments are grouped for discussion under the following headings: historical metamethodologies, scientific realisms, philosophies of the special sciences, revivals of empiricism, cognitivist naturalisms, social epistemologies, feminist theories of science, studies of experiment and the disunity of science, and studies of science as practice and (...) culture. A unifying theme of the survey is the relation between historical metamethodologists and scientific realists, which dominated philosophical work in the late 1970s. I argue that many of the alternative cognitive naturalisms, social epistemologies, and feminist theories that have been proposed can be understood as analogues to the differences between metamethodological theories of scientific rationality and realist accounts of successful reference to real causal processes. Recent work on experiment, scientific practice, and the culture of science may, however, challenge the underlying conception of the field according to which realism and historical rationalism (or their descendants) are the important alternatives available, and thus may take philosophy of science in new directions. (shrink)

A central question in philosophical and sociological accounts of technology is how the agency of technologies should be conceived, that is, how to understand their constitutive roles in the actions performed by assemblages of humans and artifacts. To address this question, I build on the suggestion that a helpful perspective can be gained by amalgamating “actor-network theory” and “postphenomenological” accounts. The idea is that only a combined account can confront both the nuances of human experiential relationships with technology on which (...) postphenomenology specializes, and also the chains of interactions between numerous technologies and humans that actor-network theory can address. To perform this amalgamation, however, several technical adjustments to these theories are required. The central change I develop here is to the postphenomenological notion of “multistability,” i.e., the claim that a technology can be used for multiple purposes through different contexts. I expand the postphenomenological framework through the development of a method called “variational cross-examination,” which involves critically contrasting the various stabilities of a multistable technology for the purpose of exploring how a particular stability has come to dominate. As a guiding example, I explore the case of the everyday public bench. The agency of this “mundane artifact,” as actor-network theorist Bruno Latour would call it, cannot be accounted for by either postphenomenology or actor-network theory alone. (shrink)

(1995). Heuristics, hypotheses, and social influence: A new approach to the experimental simulation of social epistemology. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Simulating Science, pp. 57-69.

: For philosophers of science interested in elucidating the social character of science, an important question concerns the manner in which and degree to which the objectivity of scientific knowledge is socially constituted. We address this broad question by focusing specifically on philosophical theories of evidence. To get at the social character of evidence, we take an interdisciplinary approach informed by categories from argumentation studies. We then test these categories by exploring their applicability to a case study from high-energy physics. (...) Our central claim is that normative philosophy of science must move beyond abstract theories of justification, confirmation, or evidence conceived impersonally and incorporate a theoretical perspective that includes dialogical elements, either as adjuncts to impersonal theories of evidence or as intrinsic to the cogency of scientific argumentation. (shrink)

In delineating a trajectory of human history, anthropology and other social sciences have tended to describe traditional life in particular geographic terms while leaving modem experience universal in scope. Studies of science and technology, while helping to locate and describe centers of modern practice, have less frequently explored their edges. Using a case study of the location of the primary French/european space launch site in French Guiana, this article examines technologies associated with the development of space beyond the atmosphere by (...) evaluating the impact of rockets and satellites on the construction of human space on the ground. Exploring the social significance of a modem sky and its transformation of one tropical margin into a technical center, the question of where things are becomes one of how they are defined. The modem appears less a placeless universal center and more a moving boundary, one dividing humans, nature, and technology into less stable domains. (shrink)

This article makes use of the theoretical framework of George Herbert Mead to extend the parameters of the constructionist study of technology, which is shown to suffer from two major weaknesses. First, the perspective is based upon a dualist ontology, which tends toward a solipsistic position. Second, the constructionist approach is sociologically deterministic, and fails to fully capture innovation and creativity in the technological process. Mead's ontology can serve to remedy these issues, as his theory of meaning rests on a (...) non-dualist foundation. Further, his theory of emergence provides a way to conceptualize spontaneity and innovation in ways that are not possible using traditional constructionist approach. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis introductory essay describes some intellectual intersections between the history and sociology of science and the history and sociology of accounting. These intersections suggest a potential field of inquiry that concerns itself explicitly with science and economic calculation, a potential that is partly realized in the essays that follow. It is possible to describe a broad shift from concerns for the scientific credentials of accounting to a recognition of the constitutive role that accounting plays for science. In other words (...) the so-called cultural hegemony of the scientist is giving way to that of the accountant. This shift has a number of loosely related but complementary elements. The first is to be found in some recent historical work that links ideals of scientific objectivity to administrative and political values. A second element is a body of work that is critical of theorydominant approaches to experiment and concerns itself with laboratory practice in social context. A third element is an emerging interest in the economics of science. I argue that such a program is weak where it abstracts from processes of economic calculation, and this suggests the fourth element: a contextual approach to economic calculation to be found in sociologically informed accounting research. In the light of these four elements, the essay concludes by considering directly the implications of accounting for science, particularly given recent initiatives to make science more accountable. (shrink)

Discussing the workings of technology in care as aesthetic rather than as ethical or epistemological interventions focusses on how technologies engage in and change relations between those involved. Such an aesthetic study opens up a repertoire to address values that are abundant in care, but are as yet hardly theorized. Kamphof studies the problem that sensor technology reveals things about the elderly patients without the patients being aware of this. I suggest improvement of these relations may be considered in aesthetic (...) terms, for instance by developing the affective quality of people’s technological relationships. (shrink)