Events for September 28, 2010
September 28, 2010
Thomas Broman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The Semblance of Transparency: Expertise as Ideology and Practice in Science Studies
Program in History of Science, Princeton University | Visit site »
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: 211 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University
To request an electronic copy of the pre-circulated paper, please send an e-mail to mfanfair@princeton.edu.
Cick here for more information.
Abstract. Debates over the legitimate social role of scientists as experts, one of the old chestnuts of STS, have recently once again come to the fore with the promulgation of Harry Collins’ and Richard Evans’ call to arms to initiate a “third wave” of science studies. In this new era, the older campaign to assert the social constructedness of scientific knowledge is to be replaced a by recognition of the indispensable role played by experts in shaping social and political action, and Collins and Evans see their task as specifying how various kinds of legitimate expertise, both credentialed and uncredentialed, can be brought into fruitful dialogue around issues calling for solutions and action.
Collins’ and Evans’ program has been met with considerable resistance by various members of the STS community who accuse them of various kinds of revanchism and surrender to the dark forces of scientific credentialdom, to the detriment of the liberating potential of a truly critical sociological analysis of scientific knowledge. In this talk I will argue that both Collins and Evans and their opponents make a fundamental category mistake by collapsing two distinctly different forms of expertise into a single kind: One sort of expertise is based in the division of labor in society, and it concerns judgments made about who is appropriate for doing certain kinds of work. Accountants, bakers, midwives, mining engineers, geologists, and plumbers all exist as recognizable occupations because they possess skills that are not shared by everyone in society. This kind of expertise has very deep roots in history and is presumably universal in societies that recognize a division of labor. These are the experts toward whose practices it makes sense to talk about “trust” A second kind of expertise can represent knowledge of sciences such as climatology or Darwinian evolution as a public good, as knowledge that is in some sense “true” for all members of society, whether or not everyone in society can explicitly express those truths to themselves. This second kind of expertise is essentially ideological, and the ability of such claims to be accepted as true has little to do decisions made by individuals about whom to trust. In this talk, I want to discuss these two kinds of expertise and analyze in particular how their conflation creates a problem for understanding the role of scientifically credentialed experts in liberal democratic societies.
September 28, 2010
John Stewart, University of Oklahoma and CHF Allington Fellow
Chemical Affinity in Eighteenth-Century British Mineralogy
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lunch Talk | Visit site »
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
Free and open to the public.
The doctrine of affinity, which says that substances have different levels of chemical attraction to various substances, was central to 18th-century experimental chemistry. Much of the work done on affinity thus far has focused on the theoretical chemistry of Newton, Geoffroy, Bergman, and Fourcroy. As part of his larger dissertation project, John Stewart will present a talk on the appropriation of affinity by those interested in chemical mineralogy. Drawing on the work of Ursula Klein and Matthew Eddy, he will explore the ways in which doctors, fossil collectors, artisans and natural historians used affinity in the commodification of natural resources and at the same time contributed to a complex and ever-changing affinity doctrine.
After receiving a B.A. in letters with a minor in the history of science from the University of Oklahoma in 2006, John Stewart entered the OU history of science program. In 2008, he completed the M.A. requirements with a thesis titled “Kirwan’s Chemistry: Heat, Affinity, and Phlogiston in the 1780s.” Since completing the Master’s degree, John has continued his work on historical understandings of chemistry, now with a focus on affinity. His dissertation, currently titled “Affinity across the Disciplines, The Centrality of Chemistry in 18th Century Science,” will include analysis of both the appropriation and production of affinity theories in British agriculture, mineralogy, and physiology. When not working on his dissertation, John works for Isis Bibliographer Stephen Weldon on the Current Bibliography database.