Science in Action-class discussion

According to Harris, incommensurability either doesn't exist or is the result of stubbornness of people. So it's not about fields, incommensurable paradigms, but who do not want to change? What if it is a group of stubborn people/an entire discipline of stubborn people? We get a network of people that begin a new school? go through the motions of making scientific knowledge as exemplified in Science in Action.

In Science in Action, Latour notes that scientists have certain rules of method by which they communicate knowledge. These include:

• declaring facts/machines in the process of generating a theory
  
• eliminate all preconceived notions of what constitutes knowledge (13)

Science in the making is personable but on delivery it is stripped of all traces of constructed ownership.

(21) The rules of method
Be present during the process and after the conclusion. Positive modalities--sentence that leads a statement away from its conditions of production and so makes the statement solid. used to build something else. Negative modalities--a statement that leads to conditions of production; your claim is used to question its source and cite of production instead of being used to build something else. it makes (23) citations are about changing the status of other people's claims. It takes other people to turn claims into a fact. In moving an idea toward the lab, the certainty of the idea is diminished, the process called into question. Negative doesn't necessarily have a bad connotation; it may simply move the number to the other side of zero. An artefact leads to the death of the author and so does a fact (where your ideas become common knowldge)
Shifting modalities: elevate those arguments that support yours and demote those that don't in the form of footnotes--that's the rhetoric of science!

(25) A sentence, depending on how it is inserted in other sentences may become more of a fact or artifact. A given sentence is validated by other sentences. The way modalities change claims...(28) A statement is judged on the merits of validation accorded to it by subsequent sentences. This means that coming up with facts and machines as itself a process--a collective process.
Science does not defer to ethos?
(33) However, a scientific document is validated by collective claims, which qualify ideas and quantify proponents, who are named. Ironically, this proves isolates the reader, who feels compelled to assent in the face of overwhelming logical and authoritative backing.

The second rule of method
The First rule requires the study of science and technology in action. The second rule goes beyond the "intrinsic qualities" of a statement to focus on its construction given the various inputs. Note: In scientific literature:

1. you can give up--so the text won't count
2. you can go along--believe everything
   
3. you cab read the text critically--tear it apart
   

Laboratories

Labs are about inscribing facts, creating data, which then becomes the fact that gets proliferated. The act of creation in the lab that goes into the creation of scientific knowledge may actually take away from the validity of science.
Can his theory be:
misused?
ignored?--papers that do not get cited cease to matter; the validity of their claims is eroded (41)
overused?
create new paradigms?
It's improbable to convey exactly what one means--a very Platonic concept. How can texts withstand a hostile environment?

The lab is where the scientific text originates such as patients, tumors, i.e. what scientists present to us as work completed after the lab. Its been tested, tried, and validated so that all we see is the finished product. That final product, however, may not allay out fears because it does not show the whole picture (64).

Laboratory observations allow us to witness the transformations. Janus--two-faced/conflict/reversal. Science in action is a drama of gran orchestration. there is a plce where ideas become reality..and language is the reality

In Method I when we doubt scientific literature we dig up the references and sources used. In Method II do we go to the labs, conduct our own experiment so we ca confirm/disprove the facts? Going to the lab is going away from the literature. It requires instruments, tools that provide a visual display of a scientific text. (68)

An instrument mediated by the scientists becomes both visual and audio with the metanarrative from the technician, i.e. a lay person does not get it without the interpretation of the technician, e.g. interpreting x-rays, lie detector tests, etc.
(74) The text can speak speak powerfully for itself when an instrument in the hands of the dissenter yields the results claimed by the technician. In the face of incontrovertible evidence are any further questions necessary? The dissenter may be looking for an "aggregate of possible answers" (74) which means that no one step necessarily leads to the aforegone conclusions. So we move from disbeliving the literature (Library) to manipulating the isntrument in the lab. A trial of strength(s) both for the dissenter and the technician. The technician represents musltiple aggregates until disproven, at which point he then speaks for himself. Trials of strengths contain objectivity (the technician) and subjectivity (the dissenter)--a delicate balance of power.

Counter labs (79) subjectivity on the part of the dissenter can be tied to ideology and religion (84). Dissenters argue, mobilize intruments, inscriptions but also are influenced by New Objects--what it does--something that emerges in the process?
The core of the second basic princpile (90) is the act of defining a new object.

Appealing to Nature
Can nature settle the dissens arising from the literature and from the labs? nature is like God--brings abou resolution for no one side. Nature adds to the dispute only after its ended (98).

The third rule of Method
Scientists engage in double talk. (99) "since the elements of controversy is the cause of nature's represetation not the consequence, we can never use the outcome--nature--t explain how and why a controvery has been settled (99). Scietists shift from:
hardcore activists to dyed in the wool realists (100)

Tribunas of reason
From weak to strong rehtoric
establishing proof is a costly and drawn out process; that means only a few ca do it, hence techno science comes about in new circumstances using a big amount of resources--powerful, yet small. A NETWORK. Techno-sciece fuses together the technological and social context of science. Scientific knowledge is social, historical, and sustained by material networks.
Non-technicians/experts are often seen as offering mere opinion that do not hold up to reason. Through networks, scientific knowldge can be widely dissemniated (187) or risk two binaries--rational (focuses on the phenomena) /irrational (focus on the people who conjecture). Accusations of irationality can be broken (190). differences in beliefs and knowledge are not a result of cognitive abilities, methods, adverbs. the world is logical only--it's symetery between claims. We can undertsnd ideas by mapping associations. How cause and effect are attributed; what points link to which> what size, strengths the links possess..legitimacy of the spokesperson. How when controversy arises, these elements are modified. All these questions can be raised anywhere.
Hard facts--claims encounter other claims, which may or may not be hard claims.


This view of science may be unsettling, however, lets focus.
Focus on: what ways science is rhetorical and the significance of that; the fact that science is rhetorical does not in any way undermine its power because the rhetoric is invisible. We are now making rhetoric visible. The authority of science remains a source/ standard of knowledge, as a social, educational, cultural force. We are creating transparent the knowledge that makes science.
Latour gives us a new phase: a social study of science. He moves us from abstract philosophy, paradigms, epsitemological anarchies to what goes on isnide those anarchies. We are inside the paradigms and examine how they work.

p14
The graphic presentation
Scientists rarely quote; when they do they want to distance themselves from the idea while demonstrating that they are aware of its existence. The sentence moves from a stable fact to a controversy--making it disputable. Moves from fact-->blackbox-->controversy-->lab-->quote-->fact-->lead to the nature/cycle of scientific fact.

A big piece is about modalities--the level of certainty. You have a statement, make a claim and get the paper published. There is no reaction; you are not read (ignored). To be read, you need to find an opening, a crack, a niche in the discipline so you can construct knowledge in that field. Death: you have no impact
The alternative is people pick up your ideas and cite you.
Latour focuses on who you are cited (modalities). your claim is not taken at face value; it's used to make their own arguments. You could be misquoted (which weakens the person's argument); take a piece of the claim and run with it, which misconstrues if you beleive there is a special truth. The criteria for determining misuse--


Citations al Latour
Invisbile colleges--a dimension of science--where certain authors do the work repeatedly so they get cited in that field more times. The interconnections between colleagues where the collaboration often leads to dis/association.

The Prospectus
Title--working title
Journal--mention possible ournal
Overview
Problem/opportunity/niche
Objectives/Criteria (think Latour)-- acouple of sentences
Reources
Plan for delivering of article
Bibliography
Sample article and author guidelines from Journal
Submission
Due: October 10th.