Karl Giberson and Mariano Artigas
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310726
- eISBN:
- 9780199785179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310726.003.intro
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, and Edward. O. Wilson are scientists and science writers with gifts for communication that have allowed them to speak ...
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Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, and Edward. O. Wilson are scientists and science writers with gifts for communication that have allowed them to speak to millions outside the scientific community. We are a culture that looks to science because that is where we expect to find our answers, but we need specialists or guides — oracles — to show us the way. In their scientific personas, the oracles make many negative comments about religion and belief in God, and deliver a message to the broader culture about humankind’s place in the grand scheme of things.Less
Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, and Edward. O. Wilson are scientists and science writers with gifts for communication that have allowed them to speak to millions outside the scientific community. We are a culture that looks to science because that is where we expect to find our answers, but we need specialists or guides — oracles — to show us the way. In their scientific personas, the oracles make many negative comments about religion and belief in God, and deliver a message to the broader culture about humankind’s place in the grand scheme of things.
Philip Kitcher
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195096538
- eISBN:
- 9780199833351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195096533.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Using the details of the case study as an illustration, offers a picture of the scientist as a cognitive subject, and introduces the key notion of a scientific practice. Instead of thinking of a ...
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Using the details of the case study as an illustration, offers a picture of the scientist as a cognitive subject, and introduces the key notion of a scientific practice. Instead of thinking of a corpus of beliefs, it is suggested that the state of science at a time can best be represented by a multidimensional entity, among whose components are the language used, the questions hailed as significant, the answers accepted, the methodological and experimental lore, and so forth. Both individual practices and the consensus practice (the practice that represents the view of the community) are considered.Less
Using the details of the case study as an illustration, offers a picture of the scientist as a cognitive subject, and introduces the key notion of a scientific practice. Instead of thinking of a corpus of beliefs, it is suggested that the state of science at a time can best be represented by a multidimensional entity, among whose components are the language used, the questions hailed as significant, the answers accepted, the methodological and experimental lore, and so forth. Both individual practices and the consensus practice (the practice that represents the view of the community) are considered.
Michael E. Gorman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199753628
- eISBN:
- 9780199950027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753628.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter provides a taxonomy of the methodological approaches psychologists have taken to studying scientific and technological thinking, based on an analogy to biological methods, including in ...
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This chapter provides a taxonomy of the methodological approaches psychologists have taken to studying scientific and technological thinking, based on an analogy to biological methods, including in vitro studies of nonscientists working on simulations of science and in vivo studies of scientists working in their laboratories. Tacit knowledge is incorporated into the taxonomy. Scholars in science and technology studies have discovered a new category of expertise which they refer to as interactional, or the ability to talk like a member of a particular scientific community without being able to do the research. Interactional expertise is a topic that should be explored by psychologists of science; the chapter describes how. The chapter ends by considering what it would take to make psychology of science into a field, and whether that is desirable.Less
This chapter provides a taxonomy of the methodological approaches psychologists have taken to studying scientific and technological thinking, based on an analogy to biological methods, including in vitro studies of nonscientists working on simulations of science and in vivo studies of scientists working in their laboratories. Tacit knowledge is incorporated into the taxonomy. Scholars in science and technology studies have discovered a new category of expertise which they refer to as interactional, or the ability to talk like a member of a particular scientific community without being able to do the research. Interactional expertise is a topic that should be explored by psychologists of science; the chapter describes how. The chapter ends by considering what it would take to make psychology of science into a field, and whether that is desirable.
Ilkka Niiniluoto
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199251612
- eISBN:
- 9780191598098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199251614.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Philosophers of science should take seriously the fact, emphasized already by Peirce and Popper, that scientific knowledge is a product of the scientific community. The ontological and ...
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Philosophers of science should take seriously the fact, emphasized already by Peirce and Popper, that scientific knowledge is a product of the scientific community. The ontological and epistemological views associated with the sociology of science have often been interpreted as forms of relativism and anti‐realism. This chapter examines critically the position of the Edinburgh school (Bloor, Barnes). It is argued that the Strong Programme need not be in conflict with realism, but its radically nominalist doctrine of meaning finitism should be rejected. But Latour's social constructivism, if taken literally as an ontological view, cannot be reconciled with scientific realism.Less
Philosophers of science should take seriously the fact, emphasized already by Peirce and Popper, that scientific knowledge is a product of the scientific community. The ontological and epistemological views associated with the sociology of science have often been interpreted as forms of relativism and anti‐realism. This chapter examines critically the position of the Edinburgh school (Bloor, Barnes). It is argued that the Strong Programme need not be in conflict with realism, but its radically nominalist doctrine of meaning finitism should be rejected. But Latour's social constructivism, if taken literally as an ontological view, cannot be reconciled with scientific realism.
Rebecca Henderson and Iain Cockburn
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199248544
- eISBN:
- 9780191596155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199248540.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Microeconomics
The chapter explores the role of ‘competence’ in pharmaceutical research. It provides support for the existence of sources of heterogeneity highlighted by the resource‐based view of the firm by ...
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The chapter explores the role of ‘competence’ in pharmaceutical research. It provides support for the existence of sources of heterogeneity highlighted by the resource‐based view of the firm by showing that the large proportion of the variance in research productivity across firms could be attributed to firm‐specific effects. Drawing on detailed qualitative data about the history of research at each of the firm in the sample, a variety of measures of ‘competence’ was constructed. The result of the analysis suggests that ‘architectural competence’, as captured by indicators of the firm's ability to knowledge integrativity, is positively associated with research productivity. Besides that, it is shown that firms that maintain links to the wider scientific community through the use of publication in the open literature as a criterion of promotion, and firms that manage the allocation of key research resources through collaborative rather than dictatorial processes are significantly more productive in drug discovery.Less
The chapter explores the role of ‘competence’ in pharmaceutical research. It provides support for the existence of sources of heterogeneity highlighted by the resource‐based view of the firm by showing that the large proportion of the variance in research productivity across firms could be attributed to firm‐specific effects. Drawing on detailed qualitative data about the history of research at each of the firm in the sample, a variety of measures of ‘competence’ was constructed. The result of the analysis suggests that ‘architectural competence’, as captured by indicators of the firm's ability to knowledge integrativity, is positively associated with research productivity. Besides that, it is shown that firms that maintain links to the wider scientific community through the use of publication in the open literature as a criterion of promotion, and firms that manage the allocation of key research resources through collaborative rather than dictatorial processes are significantly more productive in drug discovery.
Kelly Joan Whitmer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226243771
- eISBN:
- 9780226243801
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243801.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Observing at the Orphanage uncovers the crucial contributions of Halle’s Orphanage to the broader scientific enterprise of the early eighteenth century. Founded by a group of German Lutherans known ...
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Observing at the Orphanage uncovers the crucial contributions of Halle’s Orphanage to the broader scientific enterprise of the early eighteenth century. Founded by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists in 1695, this Orphanage became the showplace of a “universal seminar” that was affiliated with the newly founded University of Halle and the Berlin Academy of Sciences, forged lasting connections with Tsar Peter the Great and later became the headquarters of the world’s first Protestant mission to India. Yet, due to its reputation as a ‘Pietist’ enclave inhabited mainly by young people, the Orphanage has not been taken seriously as a scientific community. Using a variety of underutilized materials from the organization’s archive, Observing shows how those involved as teachers and pupils refined a range of experimental and observational procedures using material models and instruments and endeavoured to turn eclecticism into a scientific methodology. It calls into question a longstanding tendency to view German Pietists as anti-science and anti-Enlightenment and situates the Orphanage within an ambitious series of schemes for social and educational reform designed to confront the unfriendly culture of disputation still associated with German universities. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his friend, mathematician E. W. von Tschirnhaus, produced some of these schemes and considered the founding of Halle’s Orphanage to be in step with their efforts to promote a new culture of public science centred on the school, wherein cadres of skilled scientific observers pursued collaborative research immersed an atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect.Less
Observing at the Orphanage uncovers the crucial contributions of Halle’s Orphanage to the broader scientific enterprise of the early eighteenth century. Founded by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists in 1695, this Orphanage became the showplace of a “universal seminar” that was affiliated with the newly founded University of Halle and the Berlin Academy of Sciences, forged lasting connections with Tsar Peter the Great and later became the headquarters of the world’s first Protestant mission to India. Yet, due to its reputation as a ‘Pietist’ enclave inhabited mainly by young people, the Orphanage has not been taken seriously as a scientific community. Using a variety of underutilized materials from the organization’s archive, Observing shows how those involved as teachers and pupils refined a range of experimental and observational procedures using material models and instruments and endeavoured to turn eclecticism into a scientific methodology. It calls into question a longstanding tendency to view German Pietists as anti-science and anti-Enlightenment and situates the Orphanage within an ambitious series of schemes for social and educational reform designed to confront the unfriendly culture of disputation still associated with German universities. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his friend, mathematician E. W. von Tschirnhaus, produced some of these schemes and considered the founding of Halle’s Orphanage to be in step with their efforts to promote a new culture of public science centred on the school, wherein cadres of skilled scientific observers pursued collaborative research immersed an atmosphere of friendship and mutual respect.
Gowan Dawson and Jonathan R. Topham
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226676517
- eISBN:
- 9780226683461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226683461.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The introduction sets out a new vision of how historians and others might understand the role of science periodicals in the work of science, developing it in relation to the case of ...
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The introduction sets out a new vision of how historians and others might understand the role of science periodicals in the work of science, developing it in relation to the case of nineteenth-century Britain. Modern studies have emphasized that many of the features commonly considered to be characteristic of the periodicals of science and medicine emerged only relatively recently, most notably their fundamental role in the authentication of scientific facts through peer review. While science periodicals did not function in this way in the past, they nevertheless played a distinctive and somewhat neglected role in the construction of scientific communities. This chapter shows that approaching science periodicals with that function in view offers the historian an invaluable means of coming to grips with the complexity and difference of scientific communities in the pre-professional age. An array of such periodicals allowed a diversity of readers, from artisans to aristocrats, to imagine and engage with varied communities of scientific and medical practice in ways that were central to the making of knowledge. The introduction develops and explores this new perspective in the light of existing historiography on science periodicals and in relation to wider historiographical themes in the history of science.Less
The introduction sets out a new vision of how historians and others might understand the role of science periodicals in the work of science, developing it in relation to the case of nineteenth-century Britain. Modern studies have emphasized that many of the features commonly considered to be characteristic of the periodicals of science and medicine emerged only relatively recently, most notably their fundamental role in the authentication of scientific facts through peer review. While science periodicals did not function in this way in the past, they nevertheless played a distinctive and somewhat neglected role in the construction of scientific communities. This chapter shows that approaching science periodicals with that function in view offers the historian an invaluable means of coming to grips with the complexity and difference of scientific communities in the pre-professional age. An array of such periodicals allowed a diversity of readers, from artisans to aristocrats, to imagine and engage with varied communities of scientific and medical practice in ways that were central to the making of knowledge. The introduction develops and explores this new perspective in the light of existing historiography on science periodicals and in relation to wider historiographical themes in the history of science.
Melinda Baldwin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226261454
- eISBN:
- 9780226261591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226261591.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book examines the history of Nature, today perhaps the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, from its foundation in 1869 to the present day. The book traces Nature’s development from its ...
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This book examines the history of Nature, today perhaps the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, from its foundation in 1869 to the present day. The book traces Nature’s development from its nineteenth-century origins as a popular science periodical, and analyzes Nature’s place in British science, its role in furthering (and limiting) scientific internationalism, and its function in the broader world of science publishing. The book also uses Nature as a lens through which to examine the development of specialist scientific journals, now the dominant form of scientific communication. Most importantly, over the course of one hundred and twenty-six years of publication, Nature has been a site where scientific practitioners worked to define what science was and what it meant to be a scientist. Nature’s editors and contributors have engaged in a process of defining and redefining membership in their scientific community, and have used Nature to promote both their own work and their visions of what science and its practitioners should be like—a particularly crucial discussion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when science gained a tremendous amount of social and cultural authority. The book concludes by examining Nature’s transition to online publishing.Less
This book examines the history of Nature, today perhaps the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, from its foundation in 1869 to the present day. The book traces Nature’s development from its nineteenth-century origins as a popular science periodical, and analyzes Nature’s place in British science, its role in furthering (and limiting) scientific internationalism, and its function in the broader world of science publishing. The book also uses Nature as a lens through which to examine the development of specialist scientific journals, now the dominant form of scientific communication. Most importantly, over the course of one hundred and twenty-six years of publication, Nature has been a site where scientific practitioners worked to define what science was and what it meant to be a scientist. Nature’s editors and contributors have engaged in a process of defining and redefining membership in their scientific community, and have used Nature to promote both their own work and their visions of what science and its practitioners should be like—a particularly crucial discussion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when science gained a tremendous amount of social and cultural authority. The book concludes by examining Nature’s transition to online publishing.
Robert J. "Richards and Lorraine Daston (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226317038
- eISBN:
- 9780226317175
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226317175.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty is a collection of essay in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book. The essays reconstruct the ...
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Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty is a collection of essay in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book. The essays reconstruct the evolution of Kuhn’s thought from his college years to the reception and application of his conception of paradigms. Using archival evidence, the authors assess the impact of his early training in physics, his study of philosophy and psychology, and the politics of the “Red Scare” and “the Cold War.” Among the topics of special concern are Kuhn’s “Aristotle experience,” his immersion in the practice of physics during the war, his fascination with Gestalt psychology, the origin of the very concept of paradigm, and his conception of the scientific community and the utility of that conception beyond the discipline of physics. The authors critically evaluate the applicability of Kuhn’s notions to the history of science and to more contemporary science. They ask whether the structural analysis of scientific change has given way to a more historicist approach, one that makes problematic the very notion of scientific revolution. They are attentive, as well, to the diversity of disciplines using his ideas and the longevity of those ideas in the research community. The authors form the leading edge in their disciplines of history of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of science: Andrew Abbott, Angela Creager, Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, Daniel Garber, Ian Hacking, David Kaiser, George Reisch, and Norton Wise.Less
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty is a collection of essay in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book. The essays reconstruct the evolution of Kuhn’s thought from his college years to the reception and application of his conception of paradigms. Using archival evidence, the authors assess the impact of his early training in physics, his study of philosophy and psychology, and the politics of the “Red Scare” and “the Cold War.” Among the topics of special concern are Kuhn’s “Aristotle experience,” his immersion in the practice of physics during the war, his fascination with Gestalt psychology, the origin of the very concept of paradigm, and his conception of the scientific community and the utility of that conception beyond the discipline of physics. The authors critically evaluate the applicability of Kuhn’s notions to the history of science and to more contemporary science. They ask whether the structural analysis of scientific change has given way to a more historicist approach, one that makes problematic the very notion of scientific revolution. They are attentive, as well, to the diversity of disciplines using his ideas and the longevity of those ideas in the research community. The authors form the leading edge in their disciplines of history of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of science: Andrew Abbott, Angela Creager, Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, Daniel Garber, Ian Hacking, David Kaiser, George Reisch, and Norton Wise.
Kevin N. Laland
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691182810
- eISBN:
- 9780691184470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691182810.003.0013
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This concluding chapter summarizes the major points achieved in the previous chapters and further reflects on this volume's findings about human culture. It considers why the evolution of culture ...
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This concluding chapter summarizes the major points achieved in the previous chapters and further reflects on this volume's findings about human culture. It considers why the evolution of culture proved difficult for researchers for the very same reasons as understanding the origins of the human mind has proved challenging to the broader scientific community. The human cultural capability did not evolve in isolation but in intricate coevolution with central aspects of cognition and behavior; including our language, teaching, intelligence, perspective-taking, powers of computation, cooperative tendencies, tool use, memory, and control of the environment. In struggling to understand the origins of culture, some light on the origins of the human mind, language, and intelligence might have been shed. Yet while all these efforts to better understand culture might have lessened the sense of wonderment one might feel at the scope of human achievement, this chapter notes that it still continues to inspire awe.Less
This concluding chapter summarizes the major points achieved in the previous chapters and further reflects on this volume's findings about human culture. It considers why the evolution of culture proved difficult for researchers for the very same reasons as understanding the origins of the human mind has proved challenging to the broader scientific community. The human cultural capability did not evolve in isolation but in intricate coevolution with central aspects of cognition and behavior; including our language, teaching, intelligence, perspective-taking, powers of computation, cooperative tendencies, tool use, memory, and control of the environment. In struggling to understand the origins of culture, some light on the origins of the human mind, language, and intelligence might have been shed. Yet while all these efforts to better understand culture might have lessened the sense of wonderment one might feel at the scope of human achievement, this chapter notes that it still continues to inspire awe.
Albert Moyer
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520076891
- eISBN:
- 9780520912137
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520076891.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
In late nineteenth-century America, Simon Newcomb was the nation's most celebrated scientist and—irascibly, doggedly, tirelessly—he made the most of it. Officially a mathematical astronomer heading a ...
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In late nineteenth-century America, Simon Newcomb was the nation's most celebrated scientist and—irascibly, doggedly, tirelessly—he made the most of it. Officially a mathematical astronomer heading a government agency, he spent as much of his life out of the observatory as in it, acting as a spokesman for the nascent but restive scientific community of his time. Newcomb saw the “scientific method” as a potential guide for all disciplines and a basis for all practical action, and argued passionately that it was of as much use in the halls of Congress as in the laboratory. In so doing, he not only sparked popular support for American science but also confronted a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and intellectual issues. This book traces the development of Newcomb's faith in science and ranges over topics of great public debate in the Gilded Age, from the reform of economic theory to the recasting of the debate between science and religion. Its portrait of a restless, eager mind also illuminates the bustle of late nineteenth-century America.Less
In late nineteenth-century America, Simon Newcomb was the nation's most celebrated scientist and—irascibly, doggedly, tirelessly—he made the most of it. Officially a mathematical astronomer heading a government agency, he spent as much of his life out of the observatory as in it, acting as a spokesman for the nascent but restive scientific community of his time. Newcomb saw the “scientific method” as a potential guide for all disciplines and a basis for all practical action, and argued passionately that it was of as much use in the halls of Congress as in the laboratory. In so doing, he not only sparked popular support for American science but also confronted a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and intellectual issues. This book traces the development of Newcomb's faith in science and ranges over topics of great public debate in the Gilded Age, from the reform of economic theory to the recasting of the debate between science and religion. Its portrait of a restless, eager mind also illuminates the bustle of late nineteenth-century America.
Ramin Jahanbegloo
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195689440
- eISBN:
- 9780199080342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195689440.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
In this interview, Surendra Prasad discusses the importance of science in the Indian society. He talks about India being the fountainhead of important foundational scientific developments and ...
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In this interview, Surendra Prasad discusses the importance of science in the Indian society. He talks about India being the fountainhead of important foundational scientific developments and approaches and discusses science and the scientific community in modern India, including the issue of a possible brain drain in the country, and the monitoring of research and development in India.Less
In this interview, Surendra Prasad discusses the importance of science in the Indian society. He talks about India being the fountainhead of important foundational scientific developments and approaches and discusses science and the scientific community in modern India, including the issue of a possible brain drain in the country, and the monitoring of research and development in India.
Melinda Baldwin
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226261454
- eISBN:
- 9780226261591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226261591.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter looks at Nature’s international status in the 1960s and 1970s under the leadership of two transformative editors: John Maddox and David Davies. In 1966, Nature hired Maddox, a physicist ...
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This chapter looks at Nature’s international status in the 1960s and 1970s under the leadership of two transformative editors: John Maddox and David Davies. In 1966, Nature hired Maddox, a physicist and a former science correspondent for the Guardian, as the new editor of Nature. Maddox changed Nature’s format, its submission processes, and its news columns almost immediately. In 1973, following a contentious attempt to split Nature into three publications, Maddox was pushed out of the editorship. Davies, his replacement, introduced systematic peer review to all research articles and a wry sense of humor to Nature’s editorials. Under Maddox and Davies, Nature changed from a British publication to, as one staffer put it, “an international publication with a British accent.” However, during the Cold War Nature’s internationalism had a significant limitation: it did not extend to countries in the Soviet Bloc. Nature’s example illustrates the consequences Cold War publishing divides had for scientific work on both sides of the Berlin Wall.Less
This chapter looks at Nature’s international status in the 1960s and 1970s under the leadership of two transformative editors: John Maddox and David Davies. In 1966, Nature hired Maddox, a physicist and a former science correspondent for the Guardian, as the new editor of Nature. Maddox changed Nature’s format, its submission processes, and its news columns almost immediately. In 1973, following a contentious attempt to split Nature into three publications, Maddox was pushed out of the editorship. Davies, his replacement, introduced systematic peer review to all research articles and a wry sense of humor to Nature’s editorials. Under Maddox and Davies, Nature changed from a British publication to, as one staffer put it, “an international publication with a British accent.” However, during the Cold War Nature’s internationalism had a significant limitation: it did not extend to countries in the Soviet Bloc. Nature’s example illustrates the consequences Cold War publishing divides had for scientific work on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
Sue White, Matthew Gibson, David Wastell, and Patricia Walsh
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781447336914
- eISBN:
- 9781447336969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447336914.003.0005
- Subject:
- Social Work, Children and Families
This chapter presents the controversial category ‘disorganised’ attachment as an exhibit to assess how research agendas get shaped and distorted by normative and habitual assumptions that drive the ...
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This chapter presents the controversial category ‘disorganised’ attachment as an exhibit to assess how research agendas get shaped and distorted by normative and habitual assumptions that drive the belief systems of the research community. This classification has come to prominence because of its alleged relationship with child abuse and abusive parenting. Yet, there is some considerable debate in the primary literature about what the classification really means. Indeed, for diagnostic purposes, the coding system for disorganised attachment is complicated, and the inter-coder reliability only marginal: not all observers can agree when they have seen a case of disorganised attachment behaviour. The important point here is that different accounts of the same phenomenon coexist; they are associated with different worldviews. This makes it important to understand the origins of theoretical ideas within the scientific community, and of the debates and controversies within that world.Less
This chapter presents the controversial category ‘disorganised’ attachment as an exhibit to assess how research agendas get shaped and distorted by normative and habitual assumptions that drive the belief systems of the research community. This classification has come to prominence because of its alleged relationship with child abuse and abusive parenting. Yet, there is some considerable debate in the primary literature about what the classification really means. Indeed, for diagnostic purposes, the coding system for disorganised attachment is complicated, and the inter-coder reliability only marginal: not all observers can agree when they have seen a case of disorganised attachment behaviour. The important point here is that different accounts of the same phenomenon coexist; they are associated with different worldviews. This makes it important to understand the origins of theoretical ideas within the scientific community, and of the debates and controversies within that world.
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501703188
- eISBN:
- 9781501706257
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501703188.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Russian Politics
This chapter examines the use of informal practices and new metaphoric language, created to counteract precisely the “war room” mentality, thus helping to form East-West scientific and policy ...
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This chapter examines the use of informal practices and new metaphoric language, created to counteract precisely the “war room” mentality, thus helping to form East-West scientific and policy communities—a phenomenon that questions the thesis of the closed, Cold War period. A symbol of the diplomacy underscoring links rather than confrontation between East and West, IIASA could not be simply reduced to a control center, closed and isolated from the external world. The external representation of IIASA drew heavily on the existing universalist vocabulary widely used to describe the new population of international organizations. This vocabulary emphasized IIASA's role in establishing links across national borders and as a politically neutral space for the advancement of universal, scientific knowledge. Meanwhile, the internal representation of IIASA was more peculiar and was carried mainly by oral discourse, the narratives circulated inside the institute.Less
This chapter examines the use of informal practices and new metaphoric language, created to counteract precisely the “war room” mentality, thus helping to form East-West scientific and policy communities—a phenomenon that questions the thesis of the closed, Cold War period. A symbol of the diplomacy underscoring links rather than confrontation between East and West, IIASA could not be simply reduced to a control center, closed and isolated from the external world. The external representation of IIASA drew heavily on the existing universalist vocabulary widely used to describe the new population of international organizations. This vocabulary emphasized IIASA's role in establishing links across national borders and as a politically neutral space for the advancement of universal, scientific knowledge. Meanwhile, the internal representation of IIASA was more peculiar and was carried mainly by oral discourse, the narratives circulated inside the institute.
Brian J. Gareau
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300175264
- eISBN:
- 9780300188912
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300175264.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The Montreal Protocol has been cited as the most successful global agreement, responsible for phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances. However, this book argues that the Montreal Protocol ...
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The Montreal Protocol has been cited as the most successful global agreement, responsible for phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances. However, this book argues that the Montreal Protocol has failed—largely because of neoliberal ideals involving economic protectionism, but also due to the protection of the legitimacy of certain forms of scientific knowledge. The book traces the rise of a new form of disagreement between global powers, members of the scientific community, civil society, and agro-industry groups, leaving efforts to push for environmental protection relatively ineffective.Less
The Montreal Protocol has been cited as the most successful global agreement, responsible for phasing out the use of ozone-depleting substances. However, this book argues that the Montreal Protocol has failed—largely because of neoliberal ideals involving economic protectionism, but also due to the protection of the legitimacy of certain forms of scientific knowledge. The book traces the rise of a new form of disagreement between global powers, members of the scientific community, civil society, and agro-industry groups, leaving efforts to push for environmental protection relatively ineffective.
Didier Fassin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520244672
- eISBN:
- 9780520940451
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520244672.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The number of AIDS patients has been increasing in South Africa over the years. The Center for Actuarial Research of the University of Cape Town published a series of projections that were to become ...
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The number of AIDS patients has been increasing in South Africa over the years. The Center for Actuarial Research of the University of Cape Town published a series of projections that were to become the main reference for the entire scientific community in the years following the first efforts to combat this rise. The Demographic and Health Survey of Kenya undertaken by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had established the prevalence rate for the population of that country at 6.7 percent, considerably lower than the 9.4 percent that UNAIDS had officially validated. These results were also challenged because 14 percent of the women and 13 percent of the men had refused to be tested and may have done so precisely because they thought they were infected. Contemporary societies in South Africa are risk societies as they produce both the danger that threatens them and the awareness of a peril. The South African government ordered a study on mortality in the year 2002 from Statistics South Africa, the national demographic institution.Less
The number of AIDS patients has been increasing in South Africa over the years. The Center for Actuarial Research of the University of Cape Town published a series of projections that were to become the main reference for the entire scientific community in the years following the first efforts to combat this rise. The Demographic and Health Survey of Kenya undertaken by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control had established the prevalence rate for the population of that country at 6.7 percent, considerably lower than the 9.4 percent that UNAIDS had officially validated. These results were also challenged because 14 percent of the women and 13 percent of the men had refused to be tested and may have done so precisely because they thought they were infected. Contemporary societies in South Africa are risk societies as they produce both the danger that threatens them and the awareness of a peril. The South African government ordered a study on mortality in the year 2002 from Statistics South Africa, the national demographic institution.
Paula M. Kane
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607603
- eISBN:
- 9781469612560
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607603.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the scientific community's impact on the American understanding of stigmatization in the early twentieth century. It analyzes and contrasts the involvements of the three ...
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This chapter examines the scientific community's impact on the American understanding of stigmatization in the early twentieth century. It analyzes and contrasts the involvements of the three physicians central to Margaret Reilly's experience: Thomas Gallen, Thomas McParlan, and James J. Walsh. Margaret fell in love with Gallen, involving her in a romantic triangle that reveals the emerging challenges to rigid gender attitudes and roles in Manhattan for a Catholic woman of the period. Although Margaret loved Gallen, he married someone else, soon becoming the target of anonymous letters that were probably instigated by Margaret around the time she entered the convent. Gallen's response is unknown, but the actions and opinions of McParlan and Walsh shed light on the Catholic reception of scientific investigation of stigmata and, indeed, on the church's willingness to accept new scientific methods, including the premises and methods of psychoanalysis and psychology.Less
This chapter examines the scientific community's impact on the American understanding of stigmatization in the early twentieth century. It analyzes and contrasts the involvements of the three physicians central to Margaret Reilly's experience: Thomas Gallen, Thomas McParlan, and James J. Walsh. Margaret fell in love with Gallen, involving her in a romantic triangle that reveals the emerging challenges to rigid gender attitudes and roles in Manhattan for a Catholic woman of the period. Although Margaret loved Gallen, he married someone else, soon becoming the target of anonymous letters that were probably instigated by Margaret around the time she entered the convent. Gallen's response is unknown, but the actions and opinions of McParlan and Walsh shed light on the Catholic reception of scientific investigation of stigmata and, indeed, on the church's willingness to accept new scientific methods, including the premises and methods of psychoanalysis and psychology.
Theodore M. Porter
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691208411
- eISBN:
- 9780691210544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691208411.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the moral economy of scientific communities. Postwar American defenders of science posited a scientific community in order to make science self-regulating. In the event that ...
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This chapter examines the moral economy of scientific communities. Postwar American defenders of science posited a scientific community in order to make science self-regulating. In the event that scientific method failed to keep scientists from making errors, the community would step in to sift the good from the bad. Errors would be weeded out by reviewers or fail the test of replication and be expelled from the body of scientific knowledge. Also, the community was to judge what kind of work is worthwhile, and, with a soft touch if not an invisible hand, direct the available resources to those research areas where they would do the most good. It could do so much more effectively as a free community than would ever be possible under a centralized bureaucracy. The chapter then argues that the seemingly relentless push for objectivity and impersonality in science is not quite universal, and must be understood partly as an adaptation to institutional disunity and permeable disciplinary boundaries.Less
This chapter examines the moral economy of scientific communities. Postwar American defenders of science posited a scientific community in order to make science self-regulating. In the event that scientific method failed to keep scientists from making errors, the community would step in to sift the good from the bad. Errors would be weeded out by reviewers or fail the test of replication and be expelled from the body of scientific knowledge. Also, the community was to judge what kind of work is worthwhile, and, with a soft touch if not an invisible hand, direct the available resources to those research areas where they would do the most good. It could do so much more effectively as a free community than would ever be possible under a centralized bureaucracy. The chapter then argues that the seemingly relentless push for objectivity and impersonality in science is not quite universal, and must be understood partly as an adaptation to institutional disunity and permeable disciplinary boundaries.
Gowan Dawson, Bernard Lightman, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226676517
- eISBN:
- 9780226683461
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226683461.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Periodicals played a vital role in the developments in science and medicine that transformed nineteenth-century Britain. Proliferating from a mere handful to many hundreds of titles, they catered to ...
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Periodicals played a vital role in the developments in science and medicine that transformed nineteenth-century Britain. Proliferating from a mere handful to many hundreds of titles, they catered to audiences ranging from gentlemanly members of metropolitan societies to working-class participants in local natural history clubs. Moreover, rather than merely being primarily sites of authorized scientific discovery, they fostered a sense of collective identity among their geographically dispersed and often socially disparate readers, facilitating the reciprocal interchange of ideas and information. In consequence, they offer the historian privileged access into the workings of scientific communities in the period. This wide-ranging volume offers the first in-depth study of these developments. Introductory chapters explore the role of periodicals in community construction and examine the changing forms and audiences of scientific periodicals in nineteenth-century Britain. Subsequent chapters go more into detail concerning a number of particular sciences, including natural history, physics, and public health. The book reveals that a far larger cast of characters was involved in the making of scientific knowledge than has commonly been supposed and offers new insights into how that diversity can best be explored and understood. The historical perspectives offered in this volume also cast new light on current debates concerning the future of the scientific journal and how recent changes can facilitate the involvement of “citizen scientists.”Less
Periodicals played a vital role in the developments in science and medicine that transformed nineteenth-century Britain. Proliferating from a mere handful to many hundreds of titles, they catered to audiences ranging from gentlemanly members of metropolitan societies to working-class participants in local natural history clubs. Moreover, rather than merely being primarily sites of authorized scientific discovery, they fostered a sense of collective identity among their geographically dispersed and often socially disparate readers, facilitating the reciprocal interchange of ideas and information. In consequence, they offer the historian privileged access into the workings of scientific communities in the period. This wide-ranging volume offers the first in-depth study of these developments. Introductory chapters explore the role of periodicals in community construction and examine the changing forms and audiences of scientific periodicals in nineteenth-century Britain. Subsequent chapters go more into detail concerning a number of particular sciences, including natural history, physics, and public health. The book reveals that a far larger cast of characters was involved in the making of scientific knowledge than has commonly been supposed and offers new insights into how that diversity can best be explored and understood. The historical perspectives offered in this volume also cast new light on current debates concerning the future of the scientific journal and how recent changes can facilitate the involvement of “citizen scientists.”
