Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
Bruno Latour
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0674792912
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Science and technology have immense authority and influence in our society, yet their working remains little understood. The conventional perception of science in Western societies has been modified in recent years by the work of philosophers, sociologists and historians of science. In this book Bruno Latour brings together these different approaches to provide a lively and challenging analysis of science, demonstrating how social context and technical content are both essential to a proper understanding of scientific activity. Emphasizing that science can only be understood through its practice, the author examines science and technology in action: the role of scientific literature, the activities of laboratories, the institutional context of science in the modern world, and the means by which inventions and discoveries become accepted. From the study of scientific practice he develops an analysis of science as the building of networks. Throughout, Bruno Latour shows how a lively and realistic picture of science in action alters our conception of not only the natural sciences but also the social sciences and the sociology of knowledge in general.
This stimulating book, drawing on a wealth of examples from a wide range of scientific activities, will interest all philosophers, sociologists and historians of science, scientists and engineers, and students of the philosophy of social science and the sociology of knowledge.
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transformation similar to what happened to the accuracy of Soviet missiles in statements (3) and (4). The original statement (5) is uttered by someone situated in time and space; more importantly, it is seen as something extracted from a complicated work situation, not as a gift from God but as a man-made product. The hormone is isolated out of a soup made of many ingredients; it might be that Dr Schally has mistaken a contaminant for a genuine new substance. The proof of that is the 'troubling
literature is not that one is about fact and the other about fiction, but that the latter gathers only a few resources at hand, and the former a lot of resources, even from far away in time and space. Figure 1.2 drew the references reinforcing another paper by Schally. 5 Whatever .the text says we can see that it is already linked to the contents of no less than thirty-five papers, from sixteen journals and books from 1948 to 1971. If you wish to do anything to this text and if there is no other
the dissenter) This exit is not the same as that of the semiotic character of Chapter 1, p.53. This time it is for good. The dissenter tried to disassociate the Professor from his endorphin, and he failed. Why did he fail? Because the endorphin constructed in the Professor's lab resisted all his efforts at modification. Every time the visitor followed a lead he reached a point where he had either to quit or start a new controversy about a still older and more generally accepted fact. The
path that the 'idea' should have followed, and then, since the idea did not go very far and very fast, they ma~e up groups that resist. With this last invention, both the principle of inertia and the fantastic force that triggers it ·at the beginning are maintained, and the gigantic stature of the great men and women that gave momentum to the whole is amplified. Diffusionists simply add passive social groups to the picture that may, because of their own inertia, slow down the path of the idea or
their fate to that of other, much more powerful groups that have already solved the same problem on a larger scale. That is, groups that have learned how to interest everyone in some issues, to keep them in line, to discipline them, to make them obey; groups for which money is not a problem and that are constantly on the look-out for new unexpected allies that can make a difference in their own struggle. Which groups are these? Another look at statistics gathered in the United States will tell