How does science create knowledge? Epistemic cultures, shaped by affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence, determine how we know what we know. In this book, Karin Knorr Cetina compares two of the most important and intriguing epistemic cultures of our day, those in high energy physics and molecular biology. The first ethnographic study to systematically compare two different scientific laboratory cultures, this book sharpens our focus on epistemic cultures as the basis of the knowledge society.

This paper aims to identify the key characteristics of model organisms that make them a specific type of model within the contemporary life sciences: in particular, we argue that the term “model organism” does not apply to all organisms used for the purposes of experimental research. We explore the differences between experimental and model organisms in terms of their material and epistemic features, and argue that it is essential to distinguish between their representational scope and representational target. We also examine (...) the characteristics of the communities who use these two types of models, including their research goals, disciplinary affiliations, and preferred practices to show how these have contributed to the conceptualization of a model organism. We conclude that model organisms are a specific subgroup of organisms that have been standardized to fit an integrative and comparative mode of research, and that it must be clearly distinguished from the broader class of experimental organisms. In addition, we argue that model organisms are the key components of a unique and distinctively biological way of doing research using models.Keywords: Experimental organism; Genetics; Model organism; Modeling; Philosophy of biology; Representation. (shrink)

The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' (...) to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. (shrink)

In summary, the creation and maintenance of the Wistar Rats as standardized animals can be attributed to the breeding work of Helen Dean King, coupled with the management and husbandry methods of Milton Greenman and Louise Duhring, and with supporting documentation provided by Henry Donaldson. The widespread use of the Wistar Rats, however, is a function of the ingenuity of Milton Greenman who saw in them a way for a small institution to provide service to science. Greenman's rhetoric, as captured (...) in his Director's Reports, prepared annually from 1905 until his death in 1937, shows that he was unusually sensitive to his times and to the economics of science and of society. In the era when biology was being defined, he recognized in the rat the potential to be a living analog to the pure chemicals that legitimated experimental science. From management literature he extracted the ideals of uniformity of product, standards of quality, and efficiency of production, applying them to scientific practice to generate an animal model that thrives as standard equipment in laboratories throughout the world today.I will close with a quote from Frederick W. Taylor that is a cogent statement of the contribution to science and scientific progress made by standardized tools and their creators. Equating the surgeon and the workman, Taylor wrote: [He is given] the finest implements, each one of which has been the subject of special study and development ... [and] the very best knowledge of his predecessors; and, provided with standard implements and methods which represent the best knowledge of the world up to date, he is able to use his own originality and ingenuity to make real additions to the world's knowledge, instead of reinventing things which are old.Standardized tools, whether surgeons' implements or laboratory-bred rats, are one of the vehicles for carrying scientific knowledge forward from generation to generation. In this sense, Greenman's Wistar Rats have done their job, in his words, of “providing service to science.”. (shrink)

To measure the life `as it is' by a life `as it might or should be' is a defining, constitutive feature of humanity. The urge to transcend is nearest to a universal, and arguably the least destructible, attribute of human existence. This cannot be said, however, of its articulations into `projects' - that is, of cohesive and comprehensive programmes of change and of visions of life that the change is hoped to bring about - visions that stand out of reality, (...) adumbrating a fully and truly different, alternative world. For the constantly present transgressive urge to be articulated into such projects, some less common conditions must arise. Utopia is one of the forms such uncommon articulations may take. This article explores the conditions that defined that form - those of modernity in its initial `solid' stage, a form that was marked and set apart from other articulations of the transgression urge by two remarkable attributes: territoriality and finality. It is concluded that in the transgressive imagination of `liquid modernity' the `place' (whether physical or social) has been replaced by the unending sequence of new beginnings, inconsequentiality of deeds has been substituted for fixity of order, and the desire for a different today has elbowed out concern with a better tomorrow. (shrink)

Arabidopsis is currently the most popular and well-researched model organism in plant biology. This paper documents this plant's rise to scientific fame by focusing on two interrelated aspects of Arabidopsis research. One is the extent to which the material features of the plant have constrained research directions and enabled scientific achievements. The other is the crucial role played by the international community of Arabidopsis researchers in making it possible to grow, distribute and use plant specimen that embody these material features. (...) I argue that at least part of the explosive development of this research community is due to its successful standardisation and to the subsequent use of Arabidopsis specimen as material models of plants. I conclude that model organisms have a double identity as both samples of nature and artifacts representing nature. It is the resulting ambivalence in their representational value that makes them attractive research tools for biologists. (shrink)

This book is a personal history and apology, written by one of this century's most distinguished small mammal ecologists, for a life in science spent working on problems for which no final dramatic conclusion was reached. Included along the way are some important anecdotes and history about Charles Elton and the pioneering work at the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford University, from which most of modern population ecology has grown, and insigts on the philosophy and practice of science.

One subject which captured the imagination of sociologists, philosophers, political scientists and writers on culture in the 1980s was postmodernism. This text considers the meaning and importance of postmodernity.