We increasingly view the world around us as a product of science and technology. Accordingly, we have begun to appreciate that science does not take its problems only from nature and then produces technological applications, but that the very problems of scientific research themselves are generated by science and technology. Simultaneously, problems like global warming, the toxicology of nanoparticles, or the use of renewable energies are constituted by many factors that interact with great complexity. Science in the context of application is challenged to gain new understanding and control of such complexity—it cannot seek shelter in the ivory tower or simply pursue its internal quest for understanding and gradual improvement of grand theories. Science in the Context of Application will identify, explore and assess these changes. Part I considers the "Changing Conditions of Scientific Research" and part II "Science, Values, and Society". Examples are drawn from pharmaceutical research, the information sciences, simulation modelling, nanotechnology, cancer research, the effects of commercialization, and many other fields. The book assembles papers from well-known European and American Science Studies scholars like Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Janet Kourany, Michael Mahoney, Margaret Morrison, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Arie Rip, Dan Sarewitz, Peter Weingart, and others. The individual chapters are written to address anyone who is concerned about the role of contemporary science in society, including scientists, philosophers, and policy makers.
Author(s): Martin Carrier, Alfred Nordmann (auth.), Martin Carrier, Alfred Nordmann (eds.)
Series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 274
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 492
Tags: Philosophy of Science; History of Science; Sociology
Front Matter....Pages i-x
Science in the Context of Application: Methodological Change, Conceptual Transformation, Cultural Reorientation....Pages 1-7
Front Matter....Pages 9-9
Knowledge, Politics, and Commerce: Science Under the Pressure of Practice....Pages 11-30
Between the Pure and Applied: The Search for the Elusive Middle Ground....Pages 31-45
Science in the Context of Industrial Application: The Case of the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium....Pages 47-66
Multi-Level Complexities in Technological Development: Competing Strategies for Drug Discovery....Pages 67-83
Theory and Therapy: On the Conceptual Structure of Models in Medical Research....Pages 85-99
Materials as Machines....Pages 101-111
Front Matter....Pages 113-113
Holism and Entrenchment in Climate Model Validation....Pages 115-130
Computational Science and Its Effects....Pages 131-142
Expertise in Methods, Methods of Expertise....Pages 143-159
Recent Orientations and Reorientations in the Life Sciences....Pages 161-168
Transforming Objects into Data: How Minute Technicalities of Recording “Species Location” Entrench a Basic Challenge for Biodiversity....Pages 169-193
Front Matter....Pages 195-195
Protected Spaces of Science: Their Emergence and Further Evolution in a Changing World....Pages 197-220
The Cognitive, Instrumental and Institutional Origins of Nanoscale Research: The Place of Biology....Pages 221-242
Front Matter....Pages 243-243
Bringing the Marketplace into Science: On the Neoliberal Defense of the Commercialization of Scientific Research....Pages 245-269
Medical Market Failures and Their Remedy....Pages 271-281
Thoughts on Politicization of Science Through Commercialization....Pages 283-299
Political Effectiveness in Science and Technology....Pages 301-315
The Political Economy of Technoscience....Pages 317-336
Science, the Public and the Media – Views from Everywhere....Pages 337-348
Front Matter....Pages 349-349
Conditions of Science: The Three-Way Tension of Freedom, Accountability and Utility....Pages 351-370
Integrating the Ethical into Scientific Rationality....Pages 371-386
Front Matter....Pages 387-387
What Makes Computer Science a Science?....Pages 389-408
Black-Boxing Organisms, Exploiting the Unpredictable: Control Paradigms in Human–Machine Translations....Pages 409-429
An Epoch-Making Change in the Development of Science? A Critique of the “Epochal-Break-Thesis”....Pages 431-453
Everything New Is Old Again: What Place Should Applied Science Have in the History of Science?....Pages 455-466
Science in the Context of Technology....Pages 467-482
Back Matter....Pages 483-492
