Speakers included:
- Peter Galison, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
- Michael Lynch, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University
- Steve Woolgar, InSIS, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Summarising discussants:
Peter Galison is Joseph Pellegrino University Professor and Director of Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University. The central component of Peter Galison's work involves the exploration of twentieth century microphysics (atomic, nuclear, particle physics). In particular, he examines physics as a closely interconnected set of scientific subcultures: experimenters, instrument makers, and theorists. For example, in How Experiments End (Chicago, 1987), he examined the ways in which experimenters come to the decision that they have an effect, not an artifact of the apparatus or environment. What role does theory play in the establishment of data reduction strategies, in triggering, or in the experimental set-up itself? How do large groups decide something is real? More recently, he has been interested in the long-standing competition between image-producing instruments such as bubble chambers, cloud chambers, and nuclear emulsions on one side, and the "logic" devices such as counters, spark chambers, and wire chambers on the other. Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago, 1997) examines this duality and seeks to locate specific experimental technologies in the wider scientific and nonscientific world. Professor Galison is now turning to a history of postwar quantum field theory, in which he views QFT as a "trading zone" between different domains of physics (e.g. particle cosmology, mathematics, condensed matter physics). On the side, he has tried to examine links between the history of science and neighboring fields - how, for example, historians of science and historians of art share methods and strategies.
Michael Lynch is a professor at the Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University. He is trained in sociology, but has worked in interdisciplinary departments for much of his professional career. He was one of the first social scientists to conduct an ethnographic study of laboratory research, and has published widely on laboratory discourse, legal uses of scientific evidence, and visualisation with optical and digital instruments. He was co-editor (with Steve Woolgar) of Representation in Scientific Practice, and is currently working on visualisation in nanoscience/nanotechnology. Since 2002, he has been editor of Social Studies of Science, and was President of the Society for Social Studies of Science in 2007-09.
Steve Woolgar is Professor of Marketing and Head of Science and Technology Studies at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Saïd Business School, Oxford University. Steve has published widely in science and technology studies, social problems and social theory. He is currently conducting a project on Neuromarketing with Tanja Schneider that will examine practices and claims made by some neuroscientists and market researchers that they are able to target products and services to consumers based on detection of brain activity. His work has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. In 2008 he was named winner of the J. D. Bernal Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).