Suchergebnisse

Russian measurements of the quality factor (Q) of sapphire, made 20 years ago, have only just been repeated in the West. Shortfalls in tacit knowledge have been partly responsible for this delay. The idea of `tacit knowledge', first put forward by the physical chemist Michael Polanyi, has been studied and analysed over the last two decades. A new classification of tacit knowledge (broadly construed) is offered here and applied to the case of sapphire. The importance of personal contact between scientists is brought out and the sources of trust described. It is suggested that the reproduction of scientific findings could be aided by a small addition to the information contained in experimental reports. The analysis is done in the context of fieldwork conducted in the USA and observations of experimental work at Glasgow University.

Different audiences at different distances from the core-set read scientific papers in different ways. If the institutional circumstances are right, an `inner audience' may try to control an outer audience's reading. In Physics, the literature is sufficiently open to allow some papers that have no credibility with the mainstream to be published. This normally causes no problem within `core-groups' of scientists, because the orthodox interpretation is widely understood. There can still be trouble, however, from those who have not been socialized into the core-group's interpretative framework. Strangers to the field may give credence to papers which the core-group considers to be interpretatively dead. The `strangers' to which I refer are not scientific antagonists but scientists in different specialisms to those in the core-group, as well as policymakers and funders. A problem arises for the core-group when non-core-groupers are drawn into important decisions - as when a Big Science is fighting for funds. The case of heterodox publications in gravitational radiation is examined. It is shown that papers published between 1985 and 1995, of which the core-group could normally be expected to think, `Ho hum - more of this', were strongly attacked. The institutional background of these attacks is explained.

Calls for sociologists of knowledge to be committed to their subjects are examined critically. The idea of `commitment to commitment' is shown to be based either on fallacious reasoning or on a disguised call for commitment to the author's favoured causes. The `universal' and `local inevitability' arguments are analyzed and shown to be wrong. The former suggests that every scientific claim includes a commitment, willy-nilly; the latter says that analysts will be `captured', whether they like it or not. A particular case of the reception of a case study of a controversy is described; the reception of this case went against expectations, and some speculations are offered about the cause. Instances where the subject of a sociological study is also the object of study are looked at. Finally, good reasons for commitment are set out: one thing that the sociologist of science should engage in is `analytic critique of science', and this involves commitment.

When surgeons drape human bodies in green or blue cloths, when they erect a barrier between their eyes and the patient's face, when they narrow their gaze to that small portion of the body into which the scalpel is to penetrate, when they surround their activities with antiseptic walls, what are they doing? Are they `objectifying' and `depersonalizing' the body? How might one tell? What method might one use to find out? What might such a claim mean? This paper explores these methodological and philosophical issues, comparing surgery and other assaults on the body in a variety of contexts. The conclusion is that existing treatments of the problem fail to understand the surgeon's world as routine. Much of the drama and ritual that analysts read into the operating theatre results from transference of the naive observer's viewpoint to the world of the surgeon.