Values Without Facts In my experience, science studies scholars earn their livelihood criticising scientists who fail to appreciate how scientific enterprises are embedded within society, social norms, or cultural values. Roger Pielke, a scholar cited in STS and professor at… Read More ›
Some science studies scholars support creationist schooling (Steve Fuller), support free-thinking climate denialist think-tanks (Bruno Latour), lawyers’ dominance above scientists’ evidence and embrace media’s post-truth turn (Sheila Jasanoff), lament top-down reassurances of harmless mobile phone radiation (Jack Stilgoe), believe values… Read More ›
How 4S Got Absolutely Bodied on Twitter by MC Hammer—yes, that one; no, I’m not kidding—and Deserved It At around noon on February 22, 2021, a remarkable thing happened. MC Hammer (yes, that one; no, I’m not kidding) distilled the… Read More ›
About ten years ago, I had an idea for a PhD project: I wanted to study digital distraction. I had become fascinated by the peculiar experience of suddenly ‘finding’ oneself in the midst of distraction and wanted to study this… Read More ›
Imagine, if you will, that you are present in the Garden of Eden, a background character at the big show. To your left is an important tree with some apples on it, but there are also other trees in the… Read More ›
In ‘How to Do Things with Knowledge,’ (2021) Massimiliano Simons presents a comprehensive and insightful response to ‘Knowing Use’ (2020) in which I contend that functionality is a fundamental quality of all knowledge claims. Simons considers the article’s originality and… Read More ›
In his fascinating article Pablo Schyfter (2020) draws our attention to an often neglected topic in social epistemology and sociology of knowledge: not how knowledge is produced, but how it is used. The article mobilizes empirical research on synthetic biology… Read More ›
The great civilizational crisis of 2020 has shown the bankruptcy and impotence of the last half-century of neoliberal economics and politics in the face of challenges it is not well equipped to face. Trade wars, a viral pandemic, rising inequality,… Read More ›
I started to first think of my response to Vivek Kant’s review (Kant 2020) of Instrumental Lives about 15 days ago. Some ideas and lines of thought were beginning to emerge when other more important things took over—another editing deadline… Read More ›
Pankaj Sekhsaria’s Instrumental Lives: An Intimate Biography of an Indian Laboratory presents an important study at the intersection of contemporary issues in Science and Technology Studies (STS), instrumentation and knowledge, and Indian Science and Technology (S&T) practice. The book provides… Read More ›