Abstract
This contribution will first describe some of the contexts for cross-field collaborations within the life sciences, and then will highlight relevant theoretical reflections, including the concept of “insertion,” “modulation,” and “trading zones.” Based on what can be learned from trading zones, we will use synthetic biology as a case-study to explore one of the inherent difficulties in evaluating the promises of our biotechnological futures: the role and faith of engineering concepts and metaphors within and beyond the walls of life sciences. We will then reflect on the importance of mutual learning between the two cultures of natural sciences and humanities to unpack what might be lost in translation through the use of engineering concepts and metaphors. We conclude with a range of institutional challenges to be tackled when it comes to promoting cohabitations within and beyond the walls of life sciences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Several STS academics have suggested that the traditional “Republic of Science” is being replaced by a new “Mode 2” of knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994). Two properties linked to this new “Mode” – transdisciplinarity and an orientation toward problem-solving – are particularly relevant for our discussion.
- 2.
This concept of the “Agora” was introduced by Andy Stirling in the Session “Sustainability and Emerging Technologies” at the 2009 Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), October 29, 2009.
- 3.
The Two Cultures is the title of an important 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. It explores how the lack of interactions and knowledge-sharing between the “two cultures” of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a significant obstacle to solving the world’s problems. Several influential thinkers within the field of Science and Technology Studies have successfully begun to revisit C.P. Snow’s divide. Jasanoff (2004, 2005), for example, explains through the analytical framework of co-production how the objects and practices of scientific research are embedded in larger moral, legal, and social environments, and vice-versa.
- 4.
In (2007), J. Craig Venter – the renowned scientist who plaid a significant role in the race to deciphering the Human Genome – published his biography “A Life Decoded – My Genome: My Life.” In (2010), Rob Carlson, another active proponent of the development of the new biology, published a book on synthetic biology written for a large readership “Biology is Technology – The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life.”
- 5.
The field of bioethics has been quite successful at collaborating with teams of natural scientists and might be a source of learning for what mode of collaboration works and which does not work. But we also may want to be “reflexive” and examine the cases where ethicists might have been used as “token ethicists” and lacked room for questioning the research design, questions and trajectories.
- 6.
Sheila Jasanoff (2004) is noted for her work on co-production: the analytical framework of co-production directly pertains to governance issues by exploring how the objects and practices of scientific research are embedded in larger moral, legal, and social environments, and vice versa.
- 7.
See Chap. 3 by Rip and Robinson.
- 8.
Andrea Loettgers is currently a researcher at the California Institute of Technology and has a background in physics and philosophy of science; Eleonore Pauwels is a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington DC and has a background in linguistics and public policy.
- 9.
Source: Web of Science
- 10.
- 11.
In 1989, almost coincidentally with the release of the first U.S. patent on a complex organism, the Oncomouse, the Office of Technology Assessment (“OTA”) published the report entitled Patenting Life. In order to stress the analogy between mechanical and biological inventions, and thus the inevitable patentability of organisms, the OTA showed, side by side, the two drawings accompanying, respectively, the Mousetrap (patented in 1900) and the Oncomouse.
References
Baird, D., & Cohen, M. (1999). Why trade? Perspectives on Science, 7, 231–254.
Balmer, A., Bulpin, K., Calvert, J., Kearnes, M., Mackenzie, A., Marris, C., Martin, P., Molyneux-Hodgson, S., & Schyfter, P. (2012). Towards a manifesto for experimental collaborations between social and natural scientists. http://experimentalcollaborations.wordpress.com. Accessed 3 July 2012.
Bedau, M., Parke, E. C., Tangen, U., & Hantsche-Tangen, B. (2009). Social and ethical checkpoints for bottom-up synthetic biology or protocells. Systems and Synthetic Biology, 3(1–4), 65–75. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
Boogerd, F., Bruggeman, F. J., Hofmeyr, J.-H. S., & Westerhoff, H. V. (Eds.). (2007). Systems biology: Philosophical foundations. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Bowker, G., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bromme, R. (2000). Beyond one’s own perspective – The psychology of cognitive interdisciplinarity. In P. Weingart & N. Stehr (Eds.), Practising interdisciplinarity (pp. 115–133). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Brown, T. (2003). Making truth: Metaphors in science. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois.
Calvert, J., & Fujimura, J. (2009). Calculating life? A sociological perspective on systems biology. EMBO Reports, 10(1), 46–49. doi:10.1038/embor.2009.151
Carlson, R. (2010). Biology is technology – The promise, peril, and new business of engineering live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Collins, H. M., & Evans, R. (2002). The third wave of science studies. Social Studies of Science, 32, 235–296.
Fisher, E. (2007). Ethnographic invention: Probing the capacity of laboratory decisions. NanoEthics. doi:10.1007/s11569-007-0016-5. Springer.
Fisher, E., & Mahajan, R. L. (2006). Midstream modulation of nanotechnology research in academic laboratory. ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE2006), Chicago, pp. 1–7.
Fisher, E., & Schuubiers, D. (2009). Lab-scale intervention. EMBO Reports Science & Society, 10(5), 424–427.
Fujimura, J. (2005). Postgenomic futures: Translations across the machine-nature border in systems biology. New Genetics and Society, 24(2), 195–226.
Galison, P. (1997). Image and logic: A material culture of microphysics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Galison, P. (1999). Objectivity is romantic (ACLS occasional paper – The humanities and the sciences, No 47, pp. 15–43). Philadelphia: ACLS.
Gibbons, M., Nowotny, H., Limoges, C., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary society. London: Sage.
Gorman, M. E. (2004). Collaborating on convergent technologies – Education and practice. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1013, 1–13.
Gorman, M. E., & Mehalik, M. M. (2002). Turning good into gold: A comparative study of two environmental invention networks. Science, Technology & Human Values, 27, 499–529.
Gorman, M. E., Groves, J. F., & Shrager, J. (2004). Societal dimensions of nanotechnology as a trading zone: Results from a pilot project. In D. Baird, A. Nordmann, & J. Schummer (Eds.), Discovering the nanoscale. Amsterdam: Ios Press.
Gorman, M., Werhane, P., & Swami, N. (2009). Moral imagination, trading zones, and the role of the ethicist in nanotechnology. NanoEthics, 3(3), 185–195.
Greenberg, V. (1990). Transgressive readings: The texts of Franz Kafka and Max Planck. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Jamison, A. (2010). In search of green knowledge: A cognitive approach to sustainable development. In S. Moore (Ed.), Pragmatic sustainability: Theoretical and practical tools (pp. 68–80). New York: Routledge, forthcoming. http://people.plan.aau.dk/~andy/In%20Search%20of%20Green%20Knowledge.doc. Accessed 16 June 2012.
Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. London: Routledge Press.
Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on nature: Science and democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jasanoff, S. (2009). Governing innovation. Paper presented at the symposium knowledge in question – A symposium on interrogating knowledge and questioning science # 597. http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/597.htm. Accessed 16 Dec 2011.
Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination: Implications of cognitive science for ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2005). From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik or how to make things public. In B. Latour & P. Weibel (Eds.), Making things public – Atmospheres of democracy (pp. 14–43). Cambridge: MIT Press and Karlsruhe: ZKM.
Lewontin, R. C. (2001). Science, 291, 1263–1264.
Morreale, S. P., & Howery, C. B. (2002). Interdisciplinary collaboration: Down with the silos and up with engagement. Ohio Learning Network. http://www.oln.org/teachingandlearning/lci/lcarchive/lcresources.php. Accessed 15 June 2012.
National Research Council, Board on Life Sciences: Division on Earth and Life Studies. (2009). A new biology for the 21st century. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.
OTA. (1989, April). New developments in biotechnology: Patenting life (Special Report OTA-BA-370). Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Pauwels, E. (2009). Review of quantitative and qualitative studies on U.S. public perceptions of synthetic biology. Systems and Synthetic Biology, 3(1–4), 37–46. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
Pickering, A. (1995). The mangle of practice: Time agency and science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (Eds.). (2008). Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Rabinow, P., & Bennett, G. (2009). Synthetic biology: Ethical ramifications. Systems and Synthetic Biology, 3, 99–108. Springer.
Rabinow, P., & Bennett, G. (2012). Designing human practices. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Rose, N., & Novas, C. (2005). Biological citizenship. In A. Ong & S. Collier (Eds.), Global assemblages: Technology, politics and ethics as anthropological problems (pp. 439–463). Oxford: Blackwell.
Schot, J. W., & Rip, A. (1997). The past and future of constructive technology assessment. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 54(2/3), 251–268.
Sethi, L. M., & Briggle, A. (2011). Making stories visible: The task for bioethics commissions. Issues in Science and Technology, 28, 29–44.
Smith, A., & Stirling, A. (2008). Socio-ecological resilience and socio-technical transitions: Critical issues for sustainability governance (STEPS Working Paper 8). Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Specter, M. (2009, September 28). A life of its own – Where will synthetic biology lead us? The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_specter. Accessed 10 June 2012
Stirling, A. (2008). ’Opening up’ and ‘closing down’: Power, participation, and pluralism in the social appraisal of technology. Science, Technology and Human Values, 33(2), 262–294.
Stirling, A. (2009). Direction, distribution and diversity! Pluralising progress in innovation, sustainability and development (STEPS Working Paper 32). Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Venter, J. C. (2007). A life decoded – My genome: My life. New York: Viking Penguin.
Werhane, P. H. (1999). Justice and trust. Journal of Business Ethics, 21(2–3), 237–249.
Wynne, B. (2009). Daring to imagine. Paper presented at the symposium knowledge in question – A symposium on interrogating knowledge and questioning science # 597. http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/597/597_brian_wynne.htm. Accessed 15 Jan 2012.
Wynne B., Callon, M., Eduarda Gonçalves, M., Jasanoff, S., Jespen, M., Joly, P.-B., Konopasek, Z., May, S., Neubauer, C., Rip, A., Siune, K., Stirling, A., & Tallachini, M. (2007). Taking European knowledge society seriously. European Commission Report of the Independent Expert Group on Science and Governance (EUR 22700). Luxembourg: European Commission.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pauwels, E. (2013). Metaphors and Cohabitation Within and Beyond the Walls of Life Sciences. In: Doorn, N., Schuurbiers, D., van de Poel, I., Gorman, M. (eds) Early engagement and new technologies: Opening up the laboratory. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7844-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7844-3_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7843-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7844-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)