Summary This essay recounts Hermann von Helmholtz's trip to represent Germany at the International Electrical Congress in Chicago in 1893 as well as his reception by various members of the American scientific, technological, and cultural elite in several other American cities. In doing so, it seeks to portray something of the vitality of the youthful and increasingly important American scientific community; of the strong relationship between American and German scientists, including how Helmholtz used and was used by them and various (...) other members of the American elite to promote science and culture in America as well as to promote his own and German interests; and, finally, of what many considered to be the close interactions between science and technology in the late nineteenth century. In short, the essay seeks to use Helmholtz's trip to capture a sense of the broader relationship among science, the nation-state, and cultural elites in Gilded-Age America and between Germany and America. (shrink)

In 1892, Eliakim Hastings Moore accepted the task of building a mathematics department at the University of Chicago. Working in close conjuction with the other original department members, Oskar Bolza and Heinrich Maschke, Moore established a stimulating mathematical environment not only at the University of Chicago, but also in the Midwest region and in the United States in general. In 1893, he helped organize an international congress of mathematicians. He followed this in 1896 with the organization of the Midwest Section (...) of the New York City-based American Mathematical Society. He became the first editor-in-chief of the Society's Transactions in 1899, and rose to the presidency of the Society in 1901. (shrink)

Philosophers of science often make reference — whether tacitly or explicitly — to the notion of a scientific community. Sometimes, such references are useful to make our object of analysis tractable in the philosophy of science. For others, tracking or understanding particular features of the development of science proves to be tied to notions of a scientific community either as a target of theoretical or social intervention. We argue that the structure of contemporary scientific research poses two (...) unappreciated, or at least underappreciated, challenges to this concept of the “scientific community” in the philosophy of science. In particular, we will present two case studies from robotics research, broadly construed, which show that (1) the boundedness of the scientific community is threatened when private citizens can develop scientific and technological advances at minimal expense (democratization), and (2) the discreteness of scientific research programs is threatened by the complexly interrelated environment of contemporary scientific work (interconnectivity). Taken together, the extent of democratization and interconnectivity present a significant challenge for any practically oriented philosophy of science, one which we hope will be taken on directly by philosophers in the future. (shrink)

The Allison Commission focused attention on the administration of the scientific bureaux and its relation to the jurisdictional system in the Congress. The commission also had a more considerable influence on congressional policy towards the scientific bureaux than was previously thought. Legislative recommendations offered by the Allison Commission became law, even if they avoided the notice of congressional opponents through the strategic manipulation of the appropriations process. Hilary Herbert was not a crude enemy of science, but a staunch defender (...) of the obligations of Congress to scrutinise the expenditure of funds it allocated.This detailed political history of the Allison Commission is a necessary part of any history of American science policy. William Boyd Allison and Hilary Herbert were, no less than scientists like Powell, initiators of a tradition which has continued to be important in American governmental science policy.The form of the special committee devoted to scientific issues was initiated by the Allison Commission. It prefigured more recent and familiar congressional inquiries like the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the Government Operations Committee under Representative Fountain, the House Science Policy Task Force, and the Energy and Commerce Committee under Representative Dingell. The attentiveness to details like pay, printing, food and morale—as small but manageable parts of the larger enterprise—foreshadows more contemporary inquiries into the details of the procedures for awarding grants and contracts and the assurances of financial and scientific integrity. The mechanisms of control applied to governmental science by the Allison Commission—particularly itemised appropriations, but also control over personnel through promotions and control of bureaucratic organisation by virtue of congressional rather than disciplinary organisation—stand as early examples of how Congress may continue to exert its constitutional authority to scrutinise an innovative and entrepreneurial scientific community. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article focuses on a problematic character of communication in science. Two solutions are compared: paradigm-based science and the semiotic solution developed in the arts and social sciences. There are several parallels between the latter approach and Marxist dialectics. A third, original, approach to solving communication problems is proposed; it can be labeled “transactional.” It represents a version of the semiotic solution with particular emphasis on interactions, both face-to-face and depersonalized, and the imperative of negotiating and (...) finding compromises. Communication problems existing at two registers of interactions, face-to-face and depersonalized, are differentiated; freedom is interpreted as the capacity to change the registers at will. An in-depth case study of the Coase theorem in economic sciences and legal studies illustrates key points in the proposed analysis. (shrink)

For over 50 years, Minerva has been one of the leading independent journals in the study of ‘science, learning and policy’. Its pages have much to say about the origins and conduct of the ‘intellectual Cold War’, the defence of academic freedom, the emergence of modernization theory, and pioneering strategies in the social studies of science. This paper revisits Minerva through the life and times of its founding Editor, Edward Shils, and traces his influence on its early years (...) – from its association with the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the 1950s, to the higher reaches of research policy in the 1990s. At the close of his life, Minerva continued to espouse Shils’ commitment to what he saw as the fundamental Enlightenment traditions of consensus, civility, and community. In the 21st century, with the achievements of science producing rapid change in every walk of life, his legacy so far retains an established place in the history of scholarship. Whether that legacy will endure – and if so, what role Minerva will play in its defence – remain key questions for the coming generation. (shrink)

Codes of ethics were drafted by participants in the European and North American Congresses of DIYbio, a single global organization of informal biotechnology practitioners, in 2011. In general, the existence of a code of ethics amongst a community is itself significant. Codes of professional ethics are common in scientific and engineering fields, as well as in DIY communities. It is also significant, and highly unusual, that DIYbio has maintained two separate codes of ethics years after their drafting. While agreement was (...) reached within the congress for each geographic region, with considerable commonality between the two codes drafted, they are far from identical. There are differences in the ordering of items, the wording of common items, and the presence/absence of items. I will argue that these differences are meaningful, and consider them with respect to cultural variation, ethics, and societal implications. Finally, I recommend that the entire DIYbio organization unite under a single code of ethics, and that one of the existing drafts is superior to the other for this purpose. (shrink)

Science communication in online media is a discursive domain where science-related content is often expressed through styles characteristic of popular journalism. This article aims to characterize some dominant stylistic patterns in magazine articles devoted to environmental issues by identifying the devices used to enhance newsworthiness, given the fact that for some readers environmental topics may no longer seem engaging. The analytic perspective is an adaptation of the newsworthiness framework that has been applied in news discourse studies. The (...) material is a sample of the 38 most-read environment-oriented articles in the online version of the international science magazine New Scientist collected between late 2013 and late 2014. The articles are analysed qualitatively to show the instantiations of such newsworthiness criteria as novelty and superlativeness, timeliness and impact, negativity and positivity as well as other strategies aimed at engaging the readers: rationalization and speculation, direct address and conversational style. The analysis reveals how, in this case study, science communication is turned into infotainment and considers the implications of this discursive shift for the public understanding of environmental science. (shrink)

Science communication has gained high importance in the current knowledge and risk society. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of qualitative studies on how non-experts and experts engage in opinionated scientific debates and which linguistic devices they use to gain influence on other people’s attitudes toward a scientific issue. In our study, we examine dialogical modes of science communication (i.e. weblogs) used by bloggers and audiences to engage into opinionated discourse about scientific endeavors. As those exchanges (...) easily lead to controversies between different points of views, stances and attitudes, we focus from a rhetorically-driven linguistic perspective on devices to persuade the other participants and readers and to control the discourse. Hence, we ask which linguistic instruments are used to gain influence on influence. The aim of our study is to get deeper insights into the persuasive strategies mainly used in those forms of external science communication. (shrink)

Theoretical approach - Prejudice and science - Prejudice and politics - Science and sex - Medicine and prejudice - Prejudice and literature.

Au Congrès de philosophie scientifique de 1935 comme lors du lancement de l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, Federigo Enriques était reconnu par les néo-positivistes comme un de leurs pères fondateurs, sans qu’il fût tout à fait d’accord. À Paris, Enriques représentait le groupe des philosophes des sciences italiens et son nom était lié au journal Scientia, ouvert aux contributions des positivistes logiques. Ces derniers, désireux de constituer un front commun pour lutter contre les philosophies idéalistes et métaphysiques alors (...) dominantes, surestimaient sans doute la force du groupe italien, comme ils sous-estimaient les critiques d’Enriques sur l’usage de la logique formelle ou sur l’importance du langage. Dès les débuts de son implication en philosophie, il avait souligné la nécessité d’une fondation psychologique des concepts scientifiques, et en 1901, il avait donné un exemple de ce type d’analyse pour les postulats de la géométrie. Il n’appréciait guère les travaux logiques de Giuseppe Peano, affirmant que son formalisme manquait de bases psychologiques. Cependant, contre les mouvements anti-rationalistes de son temps, il défendait la valeur cognitive de la science et, dans ce climat d’appréciation mutuelle, les différences passaient au second plan. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to demonstratethat Special Relativity and the Early Quantum Theory were created within the same programme of statisticalmechanics, thermodynamics and maxwellianelectrodynamics reconciliation. I shall try to explainwhy classical mechanics and classicalelectrodynamics were ``refuted'''' almost simultaneouslyor, in more suitable terms for the present congress,why did the quantum revolution and the relativisticone both took place at the beginning of the 20-thcentury. I shall argue that the quantum andrelativistic revolutions were simultaneous since theyhad a common origin -- the (...) clash between thefundamental theories of the second half of the 19-thcentury that constituted the ``body'''' of ClassicalPhysics. The revolution''s most dramatic pointwas Einstein''s 1905 photon paper that laid thefoundations of both Special Relativity and OldQuantum Theory. Hence the dialectic of the oldtheories is crucial for theory change. Modern physicsbegan with Einstein''s reconciliation ofelectrodynamics, mechanics and thermodynamics in 1905and his unification of Special Relativity andNewtonian Theory of Gravity. Or, in a more generalsocial context: progressive scientific change can bedescribed not in Weberian terms of zweckrationalaction forcing out all the other forms of action onlybut in terms of Habermas''s communicative rationalityencouraging the establishment of mutual understandingbetween the various scientific communities also.Einstein''s programme constituted a progressive stepwith respect to its rivals not because it couldexplain more ``facts'''' or was more ``mathematical''''. Itwas better than its rivals because it constituted abasis of communication and interpenetration betweenthree main paradigms of 19-th century physics. Ofcourse in the long run it resulted in empiricalsuccesses. (shrink)

Understanding science requires appreciating the values it presupposes and its social context. Both the values that scientists hold and their social context can affect scientific communication. Philosophers of science have recently begun studying scientific communication, especially as it relates to public policy. Some have proposed “guiding principles for communicating scientific findings” to promote trust and objectivity. This paper contributes to this line of research in a novel way using behavioural experimentation. We report results from three experiments (...) testing judgments about the trustworthiness, competence and objectivity of scientists. More specifically, we tested whether such judgments are affected by three factors: consulting or not consulting nonscientists, conducting research under a restrictive or non-restrictive governmental communication policy, and the source of a lab’s funding (i.e., government funding, private funding, or a combination of the two). We found that each of these factors affects ordinary judgments of trustworthiness, competence and objectivity. These findings support several recommendations that could help improve scientific communication and communication policies. (shrink)

Pharmacogenomics is a quickly evolving field of research that increasingly impacts individuals and society. As some innovations in biotechnology have experienced strong public opposition during the 1990s, interaction between producers and users of these innovations may help in increasing their success in social and economic terms. However, conditions for effective interaction have so far remained under-explored. This paper explores user-producer interactions in pharmacogenomics from an innovation and science communication perspective in the Netherlands. To find possible ways of engaging (...) stakeholders in an early stage of technology development, ie, when science policy is in the making, we present communication activities derived from the field of policy analysis. To articulate motives for two-way public participation in genomics innovation processes, we describe two levels at which pharmacogenomics developments will have an input:1) at the meso-level of medical practice with already established medical technologies, values and routines, suppliers and health professionals (general practitioners, pharmacists), and 2) at the macro-level of society at large, with established institutions, infrastructures, and broadly shared values and beliefs among citizens in general. Thereby we offer a starting point for optimising decision-making processes in the field of pharmacogenomics innovations, including important aims to be reached, stakeholders to be involved, and some criteria for designing interactive communication activities. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to propose a methodological externalism that takes knowledge about science to be partly constituted by the environment. My starting point is the debate about extended cognition in contemporary philosophy and cognitive science. Externalists claim that human cognition extends beyond the brain and can be partly constituted by external devices. First, I show that most studies of public knowledge about science are based on an internalist framework that excludes the environment we usually (...) utilize to make sense of science and does not allow the possibility of extended knowledge. In a second step, I argue that science communication studies should adopt a methodological externalism and accept that knowledge about science can be partly realized by external information resources such as Wikipedia. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study reconsiders scientists’ identity in terms of vocation vs. profession, proceeding from Max Weber’s differentiation between science as profession and science as an inner calling fo...

Science communication has gained high importance in the current knowledge and risk society. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of qualitative studies on how non-experts and experts engage in opinionated scientific debates and which linguistic devices they use to gain influence on other people’s attitudes toward a scientific issue.In our study, we examine dialogical modes of science communication (i.e. weblogs) used by bloggers and audiences to engage into opinionated discourse about scientific endeavors. As those exchanges easily (...) lead to controversies between different points of views, stances and attitudes, we focus from a rhetorically-driven linguistic perspective on devices to persuade the other participants and readers and to control the discourse. Hence, we ask which linguistic instruments are used to gain influence on influence. The aim of our study is to get deeper insights into the persuasive strategies mainly used in those forms of external science communication. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is to discuss several consequences of the Open Science from a perspective of science communication and philosophy of communication. Apart from the purely communicative and philosophical issues, the paper deals with the questions that concern the science popularization process through social media. The article consists of three sections: the first one suggests a definition of science communication and social media, the second examines the transformation of science (...) in the Age of the Internet and considers the influence of social media on science communication, the third and final one presents some case studies and philosophical observations. The most important conclusion to be reached here is that the social media have changed science and science communication. Twitter and blogs as novelty tools of science communication can be useful and meaningful for both science and society. Furthermore, social media can be used to facilitate broader involvement of citizens in the discussion about science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In the Belly of the Whale:Some Thoughts on Preserving the Integrity of the New Bioethics CommissionF. Daniel Davis (bio)10 July 2010. Washington, D.C. President Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has just concluded its inaugural meeting, designed as a primer—the first of three that it plans to hold—on synthetic biology. As a topic for deliberation by a national bioethics commission, "synbio" is ideal. A cloud of (...) equipoise hangs over the practical implications of recent developments in this, the latest phase in the evolution of biotechnology—a seemingly genuine uncertainty about the need for additional mechanisms of oversight to mitigate potential risks to biosafety or biosecurity. Despite these concerns, its advocates and practitioners enthusiastically champion the prospect of eventual, perhaps significant benefits to be gained with progress in "synbio," including, for example, enhanced processes for the mass production of vaccines and biofuels. And yet like the advent of recombinant DNA technologies in the mid-1970s, synthetic biology has generated not only hope for benefits and concern for risks, but also questions variously described as "deep," "profound," "fundamental," and "philosophical": Is the capacity to synthesize novel, living entities yet another technological invitation to hubris on the part of humankind? Will that capacity alter the relationship between humankind and nature? How should we think about the moral status of living entities created de novo in the laboratory? Should we even care? How will wide-scale applications of synthetic biology tip the scales of social justice? And finally, the democratization of synthetic biology, the growth of DIY-BIO (do-it-yourself-biology) communities beyond the usual scientific arenas of academia and industry, has infused old questions about scientific freedom and responsibility with new complexities—all in the midst of an American public that is reportedly unaware and uneducated about this new chapter in the often triumphant, unsettling history of biotechnology.Thus, the topic of synthetic biology presents the new commission with several possibilities. It could very well make a substantial contribution to public policies responsive to both the current capabilities and the possible trajectories of [End Page 291] these emergent biotechnologies. The very fact that the President explicitly asked the Commission to take up the topic and report back to him (in six months) means that that potential is especially promising. It could, as well, delve into the "deeper" philosophical questions that "synbio" raises with the aim of bringing both depth and breadth to the tasks of critically analyzing and reflecting upon what currently is known and what, with regard to the future, can only be glimpsed of this amalgam of the life sciences, engineering, and other disciplines. The Commission could also set its sights on diminishing the apparent deficit in public understanding of these biotechnologies. And finally, with this topic as well as any others it takes up, the Commission, along with the administration that established it, could make an effort to reinvigorate public bioethics in the United States. At the very least, in the sobering light of experience with the President's Council on Bioethics, certain actions or behaviors could be avoided in the interests of preserving the integrity—the moral and political legitimacy—of the new commission. Although each of these possibilities warrants further explanation, my focus here is the final one.The Belly of the WhaleIn several decades, some future historian of public bioethics in the U.S. will be able to look back on the bioethics commissions established to date and offer an insightful, comprehensive—maybe even magisterial—account of their beginnings and endings, their deliberations and the political forces that shaped them, and perhaps most important, their ultimate value as public bodies. Lacking the strategic perch of historical distance, and fresh from the trenches, I can only offer a few somewhat informed but partial observations and arguments about public bioethics in the context of contemporary American politics, acknowledging at the outset that my thoughts are open to, and needful of, critical amendment or supplement by others.In the U.S., bioethics commissions are political creatures, established through the authority of the Congress or the President for the purpose of providing counsel to the legislative and/or executive... (shrink)

This book gives a state-of-the-art survey of current research in logic and philosophy of science, as viewed by invited speakers selected by the most prestigious international organization in the field. In particular, it gives a coherent picture of foundational research into the various sciences, both natural and social. In addition, it has special interest items such as symposia on interfaces between logic and methodology, semantics and semiotics, as well as updates on the current state of the field in Eastern (...) Europe and the Far East. (shrink)

This book gives a state-of-the-art survey of current research in logic and philosophy of science, as viewed by invited speakers selected by the most prestigious international organization in the field. In particular, it gives a coherent picture of foundational research into the various sciences, both natural and social. In addition, it has special interest items such as symposia on interfaces between logic and methodology, semantics and semiotics, as well as updates on the current state of the field in Eastern (...) Europe and the Far East. (shrink)

At this stage of evolution of our discipline, philosophy of science, there seems no single great theme that has attracted the attention of most practitioners in the field. Rather, scholarly works in the field are quite diffused. Traditional topics, such as reductionism and the unity of science, remain to be carefully examined from various perspectives. The debate over realism versus instrumentalism, although dismissed by some as uninteresting and unproductive, is still taken by many active scholars as vital in (...) our understanding of the nature of scientific theories and in our appraisal of scientific enterprise. Of course, the new spirit of our times has also shown itself, sometimes in the discussion of some major theses in the post-empiricist philosophy of science, such as incommensurability, underdetermination and constructivism, on the basis of detailed examination of scientific materials, other times in the shift of the attention from static aspects of science, such as theory justification and the nature of explanation, to more dynamic aspects, such as negotiations within a scientific community and its function and role in the development of science. Even more to the point in this regard is the great attention paid to the place science has occupied in modernity, the defect of modernist understanding of science and its possible remedy. Not surprisingly, this current state of affairs in our field has also manifested in the essays collected in this volume of contributions to the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. Thus, an inspection of these essays, although it will not provide us with a focus of the discipline, may give us some sense as to what is going on in the field. (shrink)

The essays appearing in these two volumes are based on Keynote and State-of-the-Art Lectures delivered at the XXVth International Congress of Psychology, in Brussels, July 1992. The Brussels Congress was the latest in a series of conferences which are organized at regular intervals under the auspices of the International Union of Psychological Science, the main international organization in the field of Scientific Psychology. The first of those meetings took place in Paris in 1889. An important function of the International (...) Congresses is to promote communication between different specializations in Psychology. Speakers were therefore asked to present lectures and discussions in their own fields of study, in a way that would be accessible to fellow psychologists active in other fields. State-of-the-Art lecturers were specifically asked to prepare a tutorial review on a topic which, in the view of the Program Committee, had recently given rise to particularly important developments. These contributions are included in Volume Two. Keynote lecturers were left free to address whatever subject they felt was of greatest interest. The chapters in Volume 1 are preceded by the Presidential Address by Mark R. Rosenzweig. (shrink)

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN (...) to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships. (shrink)

_Purpose__._ This article aims at outlining the socio-communicative prerequisites for the influence of personality on the acquisition of rigorous scientific knowledge. _Theoretical__ basis__._ The communicative foundations of an individual’s activity in general and the functioning of his consciousness in particular were laid by the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, primarily due to his introduction of the concepts of "intersubjectivity" and "lifeworld". From these positions, attempts were made to understand the discussion of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn regarding the role of the (...) individual in science, in particular, the concept of a "normal scientist" as a participant in the lifeworld of scientists who support special intersubjective norms of reproduction of this lifeworld through scientific communication. The concept of "communicative mind", correlated with the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, best expresses the rational and argumentative principles of achieving consensus in science. _Originality__._ Social anthropology reveals the constitutive significance of teamwork in science as a way of achieving rigorous scientific knowledge. Social phenomenology concretizes this by emphasizing the need for constant improvement of the rules of this communication. The verification of scientific knowledge by facts is strictly determined by the observance of community-recognized scientific tools for achieving such verification, in particular, the conventional agreement within a certain community of scientists regarding the language of science, which is used to describe verification, falsification, and other procedures for organizing scientific knowledge into a system. _Conclusions._ Verification of the obtained scientific knowledge critically depends on the formulation, dissemination and observance of certain institutional rules of scientific communication. This applies, in particular, to the conventionally recognized rules for the verification of scientific knowledge by empirical facts: it is not an isolated scientist who should identify, verify, organize and evaluate empirical facts, but a community of scientists who conduct scientific research in an organized manner. Team scientific work is a special case of collective action, which is characterized by a high level of reflection and application of critical thinking on a communicative basis. In particular, the legitimation of acquired scientific knowledge occurs in the process of scientific research due to the observance of procedural rules and careful work with empirical facts. (shrink)

Social and medical scientists frequently produce empirical generalizations that involve concepts partly defined by value judgments. These generalizations, which have been called ‘mixed claims’, raise interesting questions. Does the presence of them in science imply that science is value-laden? Is the value-ladenness of mixed claims special compared to other kinds of value-ladenness of science? Do we lose epistemically if we reformulate these claims as conditional statements? And if we want to allow mixed claims in science, do (...) we need a new account of how to reconcile values with objectivity? Alexandrova (2017, 2018) offers affirmative answers to these questions. In responding to Alexandrova’s arguments, this discussion note motivates negative ones and in doing so casts new light on mixed claims. (shrink)

Communicating Biological Sciences discusses the 'ethics' of science communication in light of recent developments in biotechnology and biomedicine. It focuses on the role of metaphors in the creation of visions and the framing of scientific advances, as well as their impact on patterns of public acceptance and rejection, trust and scepticism. Its rigorous investigation will appeal not only to science writers and scientists, but also to scholars of sociology, science and technology studies, media and journalism.

In 2007 a social scientist and a designer created a spatial installation to communicate social science research about the regulation of emerging science and technology. The rationale behind the experiment was to improve scientific knowledge production by making the researcher sensitive to new forms of reactions and objections. Based on an account of the conceptual background to the installation and the way it was designed, the paper discusses the nature of the engagement enacted through the experiment. It is (...) argued that experimentation is a crucial way of making social science about science communication and engagement more robust. (shrink)

The Foucaultian sociologist Nikolas Rose has influentially argued that psychosocial technologies have offered means through which the ideals of democracy can be made congruent with the management of social life and the government of citizens in modern western liberal democracies. This interpretation is contested here through an examination of the 1948 International Congress on Mental Health held in London and the mental hygiene movement that organized it. It is argued that, in Britain, this movement’s theory and practice represents an uneasy (...) and ambiguous attempt to reconcile visions of ‘the modern’ with ‘the traditional’. The mental hygienist emphasis on the family is central. Here it appears as a forcing-house of the modern self-sustaining individual. Mental hygienists cast the social organization of ‘traditional’ communities as static, with rigid authority frustrating both social progress and the full emergence of individual personality. Yet mental hygienists were also concerned about threats to social cohesion and secure personhood under modernity. If the social organization of ‘traditional’ communities was patterned by the archetype of the family, with its personal relations of authority, mental hygienists compressed these relations into the ‘private’ family. Situated here they became part of a developmental process of mental adjustment through which ‘mature’, responsible citizens emerged. This reformulation of the family’s centrality for the social order informed mental hygienist critiques of the growth of state power under existing forms of democracy, as well as suspicion of popular political participation or protest, and of movements towards greater egalitarianism. (shrink)

When laypersons are presented with scientific information which seeks to modify their way of life, they are expected to believe, suspend belief, or reject it. Second-order assessment of scientific experts helps laypersons to make an informed decision in such situations. This is an assessment of the trustworthiness of the person making the scientific claim. In this paper I challenge the optimistic view of Anderson, regarding the ease with which laypersons can perform second-order assessment of experts, by pointing out some of (...) the obstacles that may prevent laypersons from arriving at an informed decision through this means. By showing that laypersons cannot easily perform second-order assessment of experts, I make a case for sharing epistemic burdens in science communication by using Lackey's concept of dualism in the epistemology of testimony and Irzik and Kurtulmus’ work on public epistemic trust in science, as a guide. I invite experts to bear a greater share of the epistemic burden when communicating with laypersons because of their privileged epistemic condition vis-à-vis laypersons. (shrink)

Chapter 12 is available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion in science communication are in danger of generating much concern without effecting change and systematic transformations. This radical volume addresses these circular discourses and reveals the gaps in the field. Putting the spotlight on the marginalised voices of so-called 'racialised minorities', and those from Global South regions, it interrogates the global footprint of the science communication enterprise. Moving beyond tokenistic and extractive (...) approaches, this book creates a space for academics and practitioners to challenge issues around race and sociocultural inclusion, providing mutual learning, paradigm-shifting perspectives, and innovative ways forward for the science communication advancement agenda. (shrink)

This highly multidisciplinary collection discusses an increasingly important topic among scholars in science and technology studies: objectivity in science. It features eleven essays on scientific objectivity from a variety of perspectives, including philosophy of science, history of science, and feminist philosophy. Topics addressed in the book include the nature and value of scientific objectivity, the history of objectivity, and objectivity in scientific journals and communities. Taken individually, the essays supply new methodological tools for theorizing what is (...) valuable in the pursuit of objective knowledge and for investigating its history. The essays offer many starting points, while suggesting new avenues of research. Taken collectively, the essays exemplify the very virtues of objectivity that they theorize—in reading them together, the reader can sense various anxieties about the dangerously subjective in our age and locate commonalities of concern as well as differences of approach. As a result, the volume offers an expansive vision of a research community seeking a communal understanding of its own methods and its own epistemic anxieties, struggling to enunciate the key problems of knowledge of our time and offer insight into how to overcome them. -/- (Contributors: Alex Csiszar, Scott Edgar, Peter Galison, Ian Hacking, Sandra Harding, Moira Howes, Paolo Savoia, Judy Segal, Joan Steigerwald, and Alison Wylie). (shrink)

The emergence of conferences in the late nineteenth century significantly changed the ways in which the international scientific community functioned and experienced itself. In the early modern Republic of Letters, savants mainly related through print and correspondence, and apart from at local and later national levels, scholars rarely met. International conferences, by contrast, brought scientists together regularly, in the flesh and in great numbers. Their previously imagined community now became tangible. This paper examines how conferencing reshaped the collective of international (...) scientists by zooming in on the massive meetings of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry, 1893–1914. Drawing on Emile Durkheim's studies of religious gatherings it analyses the ritualization of routine conference practices, such as plenary ceremonies, toasts, ladies’ programmes and committee meetings. It looks at how roles were distributed as participants performed as hosts and guests, and in masculine and feminine and national and international identities. Importantly, it shows both how the sacralization of chemistry as a higher aim served to instil senses of dedication in order to organize labour and mitigate conflict, and how the self-perception of the international chemical community was based on contemporary understandings of parliament, democracy and representation. (shrink)

Trust in the scientific enterprise — in science as an institution — is arguably important to individuals’ and societies’ well-being. Although some measures of public trust in science exist, the recipients of that trust are often ambiguous between trusting individual scientists and the scientific community at large. We argue that more precision would be beneficial — specifically, targeting public trust of the scientific community at large — and describe the development and validation of such an instrument: the Scientific (...) Community Trust Index (SCTI). We show the results of initial field testing to establish instrument reliability and validity. We then demonstrate certain advantages of the SCTI against other measures of trust and deference, and present correlations between the SCTI and participant scores in two trust-in-science scenarios. Our results suggest that the SCTI is a useful and compact tool for measuring public trust in the scientific community. (shrink)

The existing EELS literature has usefully identified the scope of ethical issues posed by pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic research. The time has come for in-depth examination of particular ethical issues. The involvement of racial and ethnic communities in pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic research is contentious precisely because it touches upon the science and politics of studying racial and ethnic difference. To date, the ethics literature has not seriously taken account of the fact that such research impinges upon the interests of communities, (...) and that taking such interests seriously requires that we both protect and empower communities in research. We propose a framework that rests upon the recognition that communities are heterogeneous human associations and differing policies are appropriate for differing communities. Community consent and consultation and community consultation alone are neither appropriate nor required for all pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic research. Rather, application of these policy protections must take into account particulars of both planned research and the communities involved. (shrink)

This collection of original essays examines the controversy over and attacks on rationality in the methodologies of the humanities and the physical and social sciences. These essays represent the thinking of a wide variety of philosophers, psychologists, historians, classicists, and economists about the role of rationality in thought and action. Reflecting the differing perspectives of their authors' disciplines, as well as the centrality of rationality to those disciplines, they are important additions to a debate that has been going on for (...) some twenty years. Beginning with an introductory essay in which K.D. Irani covers the various ways in which rationality can be approached, the body of the book is divided into five sections dealing with various aspects of the issue. Respectively, they are concerned with rationality as it relates to ethical and social thought and action; general scientific thought and the particular disciplines of economics, history, and law; the analytic and hermenutic approaches to communications and learning; and the contrasting classical traditions of ancient Greece and China. In the final section, two differing theories concerning the nature of rationality itself are presented. A list of suggested further readings completes the volume. (shrink)

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (1915-1975) was one of the leading intellectuals of Israel and of the world. His work ranged over mathematics, applied logic, communication theory, analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, and linguistics. Creative, patient, attentive, and critical, Bar-Hillel was a superb philosopher. In addition, how humane he was may be learned from the memorial tributes to him which initiate this volume. Bar-Hillel was born in Vienna, and came to Israel, then Palestine, in 1933. He took his M. A. (1938) (...) and Ph. D. (1949) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his subsequent career continued, as Research Fellow (1949-53), Senior Lecturer in Philosophy (1953-58), Associate Professor of Philosophy (1958-61), and Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Sci ence (1961-75). He was often abroad as visiting professor (Berkeley, 1960- 61; Michigan, 1965; La Jolla, 1966-67; Konstanz, 1971; Berlin, 1972), or as a research scholar, notably at the M. lT. Research Laboratory for Elec tronics during the early 1950's. Bar-Hillel was the Secretary and guiding spirit of the Organizing Committee for the 3rd International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, held in Jerusalem in 1964. During 1966-68, he was President of the Division of Logic, Method ology and Philosophy of SCience of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, and in 1967 President of the International Union. From 1963 he was a Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. (shrink)