Muddling eRe Pursuing Science tC and Truths in the SU NESE Mike Fortun and Herbert J. Bernstein fe) i) N i E R oy o f DyCopyright © 1998 by Mike Fors ana Herbert J. ernstein All rights resaved oder Irzertsoral ane PuyAnserican Copy part of thisbook may be wsed or reproduced in any manner wh permission from the Publisher, ex nwentions, Nes risoever whiouc writen no ded in eitica inthe case af bel gana ticles and 1 Libary of Congress Catal Foitun, Michael eit Publication Pata ‘Mudaling through: pursuing sesence ant tru in che went ceniuy/ Mike Fortan and Hels J. Bernstein bibliographical refemees eel ISBN [887 178-48-1 all, eps) LSeience, 2 Selenee—Sucial pects. 3 Research—Sorial aspects. 1. taernsiein, Hebert]. U, Title QU2 Fer 1998 507.05—dedL 98.3851 ar Jacket ane bok design hy Amy Evans Me Cor ‘Composiion by Nesteiew Press Primed in be United Sates America nacidh-five poper that meets the American ational Standards tnsitute £30.48 Sand COUNTERPOIN FO. Box 5793 ington, BAC, 2004 793 CCaumenpotnt is 2 member ofthe Perseus Boles Group. loos Tosaa2tContents Acknowledgments nt Prologue te PART 1: “..practicing a rationality.” Chapter! Experimenting 3 Ghapter2 Articulating 3 Chapter 3 Powering/Knowing 14 Ghaprer + Judging, 109 PART 11: “..we go by sidevoats Chapter $_ Cleaning Up: On {and Under) the Ground with Military Toxies 153 Chapler Defining Disease: Questioning Chemical Sensitivities 174 Chapter? Producing Multiplicities: Inquiry Infrastructures, ar Mala net 17 Chapter 8_Weird Interactions and Entangled Events: Quantum Teleportation 2B! PART 11: *..a tolerance for contradictions..." Ghapter9_ Mustdling Through 259 Appendix 295 Notes 305 IndegCopyrighted materialAcknowledgments Thank Studies ISIS), who over the years have helped make a “Honase of Expert 1° im the beat sense of that seventeenth century concept: Jeff Green, Karen Sutherlin, Ehasbeth Motyka, Kelly Ervin, Risa Silverman, Jane Bev (Oldham, Scott Tundermana, Erich Schienke, Lily Louie, and Abby Di Gamiber has beer a true, steal First ts all of our colleagues at the institute for Science and lnterdiseiplin: ist, and wise pteom and cotheoreticiary, ta simple face that ISIS soul ot ext without hin, Gre Mendelsohn, Nichele Murmain, William Nugent, and Sean Decatut have shared the esponstbiry, work, and oceasionat worry of Board service. We thank all our colleagues at Hampshite-college and the Five College Consortium whe providethe situtional and IntellectuoE arena in which ISIS hus flourished Thanks to Marcus Raskin, who stasted us om the path to this wk, WS had 60 say exactly when that was—a collaboralorand mentor foralmast twenty years, he has helped to develop and understand those forme of knowledge that go beyand ¢ story of sclemce-as-usial—what Marc originally called reconstructive Brow He was. principal coaunhor of New Ways of Kiowing Slence, Society and Re: consinacive Knowledge a precursor to this book, This book itself owes its at Mare’ ‘Paths to the Twenty-First Century” project, whish initiated a sexies of yok pro 10 his umesoa knowledge and its public purposes. Our own intellectual and sexi jects in the democratic reconstruction of te scientes bear an enormous d ccxaumple andl wisdom, Thanks to all the people, too many to mame, who have shared with us their knowledge in aad of the sciences, their challenges, and their He situations. Their resiliice and anventiveress are to itary bos aspiring, They include the neighbors of mil wanting to know'if toxic sites at “their” anstallatéon danger health or pment; the indigenous people of the Eeusdorian rainforest, conterding, lems who vsith the incursions of oul exploration into their lives; and our st mechanics and teach as well asleamn, wanting to know the intricactes of quantus‘§ —— Mating Throsigh cher seiences, ot the cultural analyses of the eclences. And thanks te cur many humanities, and all, other teachers, the professional colleagues in the sciences, th the disciplines in bewwoen—thet is, al the disciplines, There are mote of them than we could directly relerence is the following pages. Whether of atoms or words, Irom the Inborateny or the hibeary. their inven is have powered andl shaped our own Thanks to another group who fort a sont of invisible callege of support, Their work and dleeds show that actton anet care canbe joined mand for life: Harry Sal, Danny Greenspun, Michael Ubell, Core Weiss, Peter Weass, Paula Hawthorne Thomas Ewing, joek Merton, Jacnet Gi sm, Gae Eizenhardlt, Hawa berg. Arlene Cisenbeng, Adele Simmuons, Timi Joukowsky. Woody Wickham niet Barlow; Michael Shaner, Lucy McFadden, Michel M; Scott Nadel, Kate Downes, David Wiener, Sam Wiener, andl Nick Seamen, Less invisibly: thanks to the National Science Foundation for its grant (SBR. wan, Carol Sal: 9601757) in support of Fortan’s weds. Thanks atso wo tbe John D. and Catherine T, MacAnthuir Fourdiation, the Satnwsel Rubin Foundation, the Institute for Sel werchange, Hampshire Callege, and Five Colleges In Thanks 10 Rich Dog readingof the entire manuscript kept us and it going throsigh the initial uncertain ties Thanks to Jack Shavemaker for both is patience and encou ragemen to Trish Hoard and the rest of the stall at Counter able geod fortune 10 work with a publisher so committed to beautiful and for bis afirmarions of multiplicity: His early enthusiastic and also nt Press, IL was our unbeliew thoughtful books, We werent sure whut 4 “developinent editor” was when Nancy Heneson was assigned to us i this capacity; now we know the standasd by which the Field should be judged. She broke us of ovr worst habits, taking the mass of words we fad heaved upand helping us turn itinto a book, Whatever ambiguities remain were either beyond the reach of even her eatiaord ents, oF in Ldonal ots ar part, In either case, se are olely reaps site for any residing comke sions, cravts, omissions, and excesses in the text Lastly, our deypest thanks to those for whom the wont “thanks” seems espe cially Frail bu who—lucky us—hnow our frailties all too well, aad Lave us any way: Kim Fortun, Mary Slayers Bernstein, Carolyn Joy Bernstein, and Lala Jacl Bernatsin, tb to them, and wo all of our parents—Alise ond Raymond Fostun, Edith and Harty Bernstein, and Lillian Bemstein—that we dedicate this bootPrologue Just because we are fin ings located, situated, embodied, we can, and can only muddle through. ... Scientists muadle though with stagerin success is rather diferent than they immagine. Itdcpends nat on any possibilicy of sranslating thought ino actions, but on the conjoining practices ofa cotlading ovntaunity of comion language speakers, Our task. is ta make sense ofthe successes of science in terms of the particular finguistic and maveril conventions that scientists have forged for their own soxts of muudling through. Evelyn Fox Keller success. Only ther For the sclemisie who work within thetn daily. and for the people wha avidly tune their work thiough the media, te sciences are an endless source of exhilara _ and anvention. The don, insigh ss dernand seine of one best thinking ane most dextrous manipulations. to terms that seem uttetly dependable and authori {atively inal the sciences tellus about what rudy happening in ibe gees, ces, sand organs of our badies; shout the evolution of life: shout how our brains and minds really work, as well as about tte brains and (pethaps) minds of computers about the lawful and awe-ful realaes of subatomic panicles and! vast cusmalegical stctches of time and space. The ingenuity of scientists connects tothe inteicacies fof mature, and the resulting combination of the these forees feeds us, heals us, ‘ransports us inspires us, Yet lew things are move unset he sciences 1 quer truths just than working in or absers day. Yesterdays truths are quickly forgotten, made obsolete by 1 released, Medical breaktitrvogs seon show setious limatzons or disturbing side cellects. The next cosmic discon wall cost taxpayers a billion dollare mose than the previous one. Many & fenists ith great ideas see those ideas go unsupported or undeveloped, and they encounter a public that & often wnunteested, ill-i formed, of hostile, Urgent controversies over health, behavior, and<— Mating Throsigh resit consensus and ten seer to spliter int buter disagreements. among lex bur also opaque and even downright ommery: Anil sothe problems pile up, and distrust and disillusion: scientists, Nature seems net only more and more eo rent se These are contradictions. to say the Rast, This book will fo ts work not lay ne solving them, bur by asking the questi these contradictions is perhaps the hardest challenge for democracy ih the xt Fallin berween, Making sense of y= ist century, Of cautse we need te cultivate sciemilic literacy, but first we need ta sorme baste questions about how the sctences ate produced, applied, and san- estoc The sciences of today create the worlds of comorzow, They show theireffects on cour harles, ox conce and out polity Yet part to be viewed as a resource of abiolutely certain, objective answers nel frou a pure and exact “scientific method” This is, co pu st bluntly, wrong, wl all the realy great (and some not so great) setentists now it. They know that the relationship Between creative sctemtiie wneisiry aad the requitements of 4 ph alist demecratic saciery a anything but the straightforward application of sup posedly neutral cts wo social problems. They know that today we are ving “ier the fact,” n-a world in which sei can no longer be regarded as the oracle of hose cultural and material reforms necessary 10 ajust society This word demands a hind of hteracy haem terms of infinity and transcendence, but of finitude and location; notin testns of sawecome translations [rom te real to the ileal, but of complex conjunctions and 8 sense of the sctenices not in collusions among th 1s swords, and deeds; not dn temas of a book of naire di covered and decoded bya stnall yroup of experts, but of an ongoing essay! witt anal spoken by many, in a shifting, generative Language. In short, te have ta sige with the seienves as the kind of activities shy fave always been, the wnly faa of sctiites they can be: muddling throssgh Muditing Througitis& book shout the seiences inthe late ewentietts century and about the kind of sciences we need for the pwenty-firs, It bsa book about hew the sciences ntake sense ofthe world and provide sense to the world. Think of Mad dling Through asthe basic text foradifleremt kind of science literacy fect to rsimagine and then enact the sciences as operations of langurge and thought and as atempts, trials, lit about everythingin berween, roe experiments involving tbings, ideas, and just This isalso a book shout politics (not policy) and euleure—ahat fs, abont how the sciences are made thimugh arduous and diverse political processes. This book. nat only through tecluafogieal invention ating the images and metaphors that we ay phenomenon se encounter, and hy providing the blueprints we wse ta make and legitimate crucial social decisions, The connections hetween the stiences. and fsubout how the selenees alleet polit but by gener ply to every situation anddemocratic pluraliem neee 0 be revitalized, chrough both new #0 sacepis and ia nowative social fi We use the plursl "connections" deliberately to illustrace thatthe sciences and demoerac mmust link upat many levels, hom tbe policy parelsin Washington ane amd inquiry in each of us, Demoeratic soxcety needs pluralisen and participation not only in the bs ly ints production. In the words af Francois Jacobs “Ary Brussels tathe workings of curios culture is characte ed less by the extent of is knowledge than by the nature of questions it puss forward.” We want more people asking more, and different keine questions abous wins “really” the cue, snd we wank them in the hho tories, in the fiekd, in the bospital wards, iv the elasstuams, andl on the fund panels For this kind of sectal innovation to happen, and to happen it a way'that helps ‘prextuce giond science rather than being simply profubitve, people needan under: standing ofthe sciences that smote complex than conventional accounts provide Such accoaints often hinge on the image tnd Imagination ofthe hess, 4 "peat sk centist” ike Einstein or Newton. But the notion of greamess making history, and as the proper hasts for writing history 4s passe. Sull, sere wall be many’ places un this book: where we will imvolee the wards of people from the high culture of science In doing so we play a risky double gume: using their authory and heroic stature not so undermine that authonity or stayune bat to call shern into quession, Where, precisely, does the force of their teas come fron? Was it waested fom nature? Did ie spring full-blown frome helt tn ? Or ate other things, other processes, and other people involved? Indeed, many of the scientists we discuss have often been most skilled at calling their own authority, «6 conventionally understood, inte «question. AL their bes the sciences themselves put both the world, and their own, ne of snquiry: Wealso me of the great hgures of si provesses of questioning char world, mito the picture, the fs tise recent historical and cultural explorations of £0 cence Copernicus, Gallen, Darwin—to work toward 2 more complex rendering of what the $0 : ces actally are, and yery they ate often so sucexsslul, as wel sometimes risky and desteuctive wes are far more thant what these noble figures reprecemt. $0 Even so, the aay bouks today tke thet locus, parveying the convemlionsl picture of science mode of wondrous discovery: intellectual adventure, and abstract iderualen by a chosen few. We chouse toinclude stories about lessee. theorizing, known scientists, with an expitass om the sciences as practice, an activity Ua is socially complicated as well as intellectually complex. Our stories come not just frouy the reali of high culture and theory but from the laboratory, the courtroom, Lowe waste ste, the popular television program, These stories are more frequently included, and at greater lengjl, than the reader may be used 1 finding in books of this type, We darthis because its neces:s* —— Mating Throwagh sary both ta convey the complexity of the issues involved, the enormous anxou of detail and the subilety and diliculty of the questions, and to provide a beater sense of just what Kind of remarkable achievement the sciences én fact represent We mix the old and the new jumping across tine, disciplines, and cultures, Wi range ll over the scientific territory displaying fraganents thar don always assem. Ible into any overall lesson, a moral, a sense of certainty, or some other foruing whole, We want these brief, detailed, bur incomplete looks int particular episodes ts ark skeptical terest and further inquiry. Anel while we certainly want to convince and persuade, we do not want to oversimplify. Ahove all, we wnt to upset fsith in, and move far heyord, the usta] aceoueys ofthe setences, The famidtar story goes like this: The “sciemific method” shways starts foo, stable, gaven facts—observations, measurements in the form of numbers, isolated: and purified substances thal are part of an unchanging, solid reality. Logic then compels the assembling (2 process carefully conmolled by existing theory) of these indieputable pieces of the real world into a theory whieh literally 1e-pre sentsthat world: perfeet match that, when done correctly adenits ho elouby. The theory is checked by the fact, by the real world, and underwritten by the rigor parity ofthe sclemtifie metho. Together, hand fact and rebable metho pros viele the sciences with a unique and powerful root for sell-correction that elim nates (in the long run} all forms of bias and erto, ng a neutral and objective truths, Fact ane ions: Does this paeticular progressive approach to equally neutral and objective fil thea thus answer what we call the “eclly? 1 realy cause cancer? Is stele cell che etic? fs the physical uni verse really mails up of quarks and leptons, held together by bosons? Is biodiver sity really important for the sursival of the planet? Is homwse vality really eooted 7 And so on, These answers, arrived at free from the disturbing influ. ‘culture, society, Hang the utmost assurance inthe larger sp or political power, ean then te applied with ses ol society and polities. Because ol thetr faithful objectivity and serupulous meutrality, the sclertces car be a So source —solving problems of health, hunger, and communication —precisely be cause they ate ipnanune to social ot politica inflcises. Theie hsed-wom apparent neutrality, paradoxically, makes the scien Se much lor conventional aecoumts. We con ne longer excuse the errors and s sovially powell, simplifications on which such popular tales are hased, na Tanger afford to have this, view ol the sciences circulate in the soctal and pobtical realms. The stakes are too high Where isa single concept certral tothe errors, simplifications, and negative so cia effects of this conventional account ofthe sciences tis puuity: And aeainst this ly of Lerms—purity, pure, purists—we will sun our ovn family of terms: muddied muddled, anid dled, messy, complex, hybridized and many oth.Profogue —— ers, We ate not particularly fond of suek stark oppositions as pusemuadelled, asthe reader will ee over the course of this book, but accasionally they come in handy lis better to think about the sclences as muddled eather than pure; to) borders between the sciences and the worlds of language, culture, and pol rolled rather tean clear and clistinct to know scientists as complex hybrid fig wher than rarefied hetves; to sce the workof the sciences as a complicated! Imeraction with a messy work, at exch ange involving tools, words, things, ane even more nebulous entities, rathe a methodical, pristine encounter between (Que point 1s nat to drag the sciences through the mud, nor to diese the po temtial of science for socal reform, Nothing we write bere should obscure the pas re andthe drive that the “great scientisis* embody, 1a cweate troly embracing, challenging, and productive encounters with the world. Pursuing the sciences can he an amazing enterprise of rigorous thinking and subtle geessing, creative manufsetaring and res prise, hard work and even harder play: We need the sciences now mote than ever, bur we hue to have them teimagined and re-formed=—re-formed by attention to fal stening, exercised will and inflicted sur- their owe history, by overt attempts to-enact them differently, ad new proto: cols for questioning and judging the sciences as they eevelop. In these vimes whe the desire 1 know ‘questions the seienees suns the beary risk of being labeled “aniscience,” a charge leveled as liberally as “aq 2s Avital Ronell plorases it, “America ts being emptied of yore who crits was, Ifwe have to make such silly generalizuions, our preference is 0 6 that we are staply “pro. hol sis scone cal practitioner ofthe el qwiry? E in which we were originally trained, yet we cross the lines as well. The physicist (Beemt considers it, at is best n) appreciates the work of scholars in the fields of science studies, andl be just as robust, intelfectully demanding, amportant, and valid—and just a fallible and culture-bourd —as the setences, The historian ofsc and through historical philosoph 2 dialogue between these endeavors hybridization van proshice bots better science and better eshularsbip on the sti reaprets the work of scientists, knevwing the power, macy of the sciences —and their limitations anf social em ity, fica, sddedness— aud cultura alps, We believe ie, but that such collaboration and e democratic soxial processes. Expanding on Evelyn Fox Keller’ imagery in the apening quote, we argue that the porsnit of boa the sciences and of dernoc racy is best imagined anc! enacted as “muddling through.” Few things idled absolute laith in any anower oF method, seiemtific or political, When it coms to the sei fences, there are no simple answers like “just purtly them,” “Just add values +6 them, “just keep therm in their place,” “just get nd of fe more daagernus than unmse —— Mating Throsigh ratige chem.” They e 1 he pute, they already ave wale they're everywhere, we cant get rid of them even ifenough of us were stupid enough ta want to, and de moceatizing them is an experiment, not an answer, We eeject these and all simular world; that they cconiribute (o the Foss of our souls, that they mechanize anc reduce an organic, imprecise, geancl fortaulations: tha the seiemees disenehanyt hat they are essentially a winlent way of knowing: that they de more, Very high-minded, and very unbelpful— which is hardly surprising, since these expressions o! he problem depend on concepts that are just as pure and idealized (souls, wholes, communities, and val- 1) as thett counterparts tn Ue sciences which they arn 4a oppose Thrvughout this book we will show the way such paired setsol opposites recur both in and anwund the sciences. Dichovomées such as soience/antiseience, me- Juve (and contntlese others) structure the wary we do and chaniealorganic, fat think about the sciences. White such polar oppositions are in som escapable, new scientific hteracies will depend om petting im Botmeen ther. It ts thetn.between, the nnuddled riddle, where change hapyiers, where ctestiv be found, where the new emexges, where abundance dances—wh e the sciences and worked in for The in-between isthe place scientists have infact sought Inundreds of years, and which they sill seek today. While heir own public repre sentations of their work and the ways in which we hear about it inthe media em: pphasize the seemingly miraculous, wondrous, and powerfully theoretical aspects ‘of very many are, they are et put fi ward to eonwinees nyone that they ane true, but merely to provide a correct basis for calculations.” The inscstion was anonymeus, and thus ybiguows ta readers Did Copernicus litnselfsubseribe to sucha view, that bi ter model for “saving the appearances’ and possibly impronng the calendar, but w the unive s4i—that philosaphy (and natural philosaphy) could provide plaust ble, probable explanatory models but never the ultimate trait of Gods causal rmechanisms—was not unusual in either phy more generally inthis period, (This conceptual image of a nature which exceeds cur eae represent it perfecty is ane which will come upatntamber of mes in the follow pages; and we val be taking stem Was just a het « really was constracted? Almost certainly not id not des But such av anomy or phil quite seriously later) Most scholars agroe that i ‘spernicass aclval convictions, Osiander’s anonymous dition to-misrepresenting inrtoduictory fetes served a strategic social function: it gave some protection 0 Copernicus: work in a tine of profound religious ars political upheaval. this apparently anonyiiots int eduction ad riot been inchided all that was sernuinely rnew and useful an Copernicusé book might hare ely overlooked redhately dismissed as simple heresy. The dissembling lntrochctio lorestlled and anictiortel that fate ‘nd infact, for decadesalter is publication, most astronomers and other schol ars sed De revoltonibus for prvi the better calla hhacentered system, and did $0 guste effectively. The Danish nobleman. son Oslandler suggested: to reake ns, The astronomer Practorias used it ta improve the Ptokemaic astonomer Tyehe Brahe employed it similatly, devising a hybrid system which made excellent predictions, it which the earth remained motionless al the center ‘ofthe universe where it had always been, with the sun goingaround i, while all around the sun. While nor exactly in the Middle Ages, Capen snheless best thought cofas “inthe midlle"—the middle betweet the Mickle Ages andl modemity. His ate tachment to the cir the geometric forms, a heay hang covee frum the anciem Greeks, made hin cling te baroque mechanisins like the corbiton-orbvt epicyele, the delerent, and the eccentric, and even more baroxue combinations of these. Such devices made his system seem py’ ally absued to contemporaties nat only in the He held on tightly to the iden of erystalline heavenly spheres can, but in the scienuific community as well He worked with old betel, sketchy data, ant “tational” co to both old and new dist plines of kmoveledge—and he did We will come back 1 Copernicus and his middled position in a Tater chapter Fox now, we only wanted to show ¢ wimet fe dependence ofa fact on a lanes frameworks To say: “Wdsa mater of fact chat the earth goes around the su stually exelades10 —— Mating Throsigh the crucial parenthetical remaric: “(Within the Copernican system of ealeulation, observation, and theorization) its a master ef fact that the earth goes around the “This fact ss no longera fact within the modern theory of General Relativity. Ir allows 1 to specify any fame of reference for centering eu factual met ssurernents: earth, sim, center of the galaxy, a any arbitrary point i space. Withisy the current Finsteinian systems of General Relativity its 2 matter of fact that the nents of eamth and sun carrespond to the curvatures of a foursdimensional construct calted sp Nevertheless, thete are stable relationships between the movements and ob- cerved postions of the planet, the stn, anel surrounding stars—a “brute © ence” of, im another of Dewey’ terms, “original res of experience.” But these relattonships arent all meanin Lor prirposelul, and thus for Dewey—and lor tue—do mot make a fact. They still mst be refined inte a sign force.” which i what the Protemaie, Copemican, Tychoan, or Finsteinian system does, Within any of those srstems, what was a jumbl and relationships gy 2.” With it, you! cas busld a Global Positioning System satellites asan aid to navigation—a thoroughly Ptolemaic technology. You can pre: dict the appearances and even the impacts ef con of observat aged site a "useful th lake Jupiter, we hope. Useful, reliable, even "enechanical” relationships and inter actions? Definitely: Universal truth? An unnecessary and immodest, allelt eassur- ing, metaphysteal claim, Thus, ionially, che people andl computers in the NASA conttal within an earth-cemtered Tychoam system to launch inhabitants of the Lente ans worked cceitaty tothe moon, the first ofthe heavenly sphetes, You could sec this briefly i the it mvovie Apollo 13, where the historically obsolete but pragimatically elicit view af the eartheas-caleulatiag.centerofahe-cosmos flashed briefly across the led lor other jobs inve an air parilier that would get thers borne agaie. Suck ludlge jobs" KSee Chapter 2), whether cosmelogical or air-cleaming systems, can bbe remarkably ellecive, exible, and keroic, oven in the face of disaster Merging Beliefs and Facts to Make Experimental Science ‘You might think that, given a corpus of alchemical investigations and writings th was fs Famous work in natural phulosophy andl mathe matics, we would present fstac Newton as a study iv muddling contradictionsExperimenting ——1 Instead, we take a brief [vol a be lesser Anon ut nevertheless ip of Robert Boyle. Boyle work in natural ne figure Jilosophy was of the kind we would new “chemistry” the less glamorous status of whiel might sore way toward explaining why fewer people would recent anacheonistically refer to his na would recegnize Newton, (Boyles Law states that the volume of a ga proportionately as its pressure decreases at constant temperature. Most often wait teas part of the "as ave” pV = WRT. it leseibes the eeliable relationship between he pressure (p), volume (V9, and temperature cofyas Bor Boyle, as one ofthe key figures inthe founding of expen and af one ofthe earliest scientific in of a specific amaxznt (n moles) tuations, England? Riyal ety, deserves.at Feast as much attention as Newton, With Leviathan nd the Airs history I if ah of science Steven Shapin ad Simon Schaffer have produced one of the ‘most empirically and thematically net and suggestive works on the ongins of made cnteenth-century England. We ext consider all oftheir thenses here isthe detail they deserve-—how science 4s both enter ip: Habkes, Boyle, and the Expenimen taining specracle as well as an engine for facts; how expen ments had to be publicly witnessed, and how new literary devices a stituted (and still aperate powerfully today); how the li oratory becamiea separate and privileged socal space; how the problem of replication haunted all enacts rents of experiment;and many others. What we focus on hee is thetr explication of how facts became centrally important to science, and how objectivity and truth came to be defined! in tertne of se fact, nil the wvidale of the seventeenth century, “knowledgy” and “ssience” were kept markedly distinet from matters of “opinion.” The firmer akered to the ab solute certainty of “demonstrative sciences” like logic and geometry Natural phi ink of as physical scien ‘ets —emulated these dlemonstrstive sciences, and so produced “the kind of cer tainty that compelled absolute assent.” But over the second fal experimentaliss like Robert sophers—whom # wouldnt be tently wrong 10 of the century, ayke and others associated! with the newy estate lished Royal Society came to redefine ou expectations of science it trans of bat ‘was probaly (that middling, gray area between knowledge and! opinion) the case about siure, “Physical Bypothe 3 wore provisional and cevisable; aascan ve them obligatory. asit was to mathentatical demonstrations; and physic was, to varying degrees, removed {rom the realm of the demonstrative. The prob abilistic conception of physical Knowledge was net reyansed by ts proponents as ambitious goals; it was cel ss regrettable retreat from mor rated as a wise rejec tion of a filed project. By the adoption oa probabilistte view of knowledge could attain 1 an eppropréate ce Iknowkedye claims.”2 —— Mating Throsigh Ue was the “enatterof fact” that would undergi nd his mew project af probable hy. potheses, because the fact was what could pravide the greatest dey anee, or mori] cenainty Like Copernicus—or at least like Copernicus’ preface-writer and, as weil see in a later chapter, like Galiley—Bayle and the English experimentalisis hetieved that Goul could prauhuce similar effects through of How to get toa "matter of fac “ then? According to Bayle, by aggregating indi vyiclual belies, Blere isan interesting Soll, Foundatfonal matters of fact hod thems chakier matter of belief, Te be more precise: The beliefs to he aggregated ant Facts would be thoscof individuals whe coull be trusted, whose eyes aad been propel trained, and who would report faithfully on what they witnes muddle at the origins of experimental science: Ives oe founded on the somewhat an a-word, gem tlemen. Experimental science would bave to be a noble pursuit (Were simplifying. bit here, andl also excluding much interesting detail, One cellect of the “gentleanen” argument at the time was to exclude those people, i cluding, women, associated with alchemy and ol keeping them oar of the historical pracess of defining what the sciences would be traditions of knowledge, come, And things would get came te be celebrated as the best route cut of the lower or midile classe the more refined strata of society) even mone complicated later, as experimental science nd into Shapin and Schalfer point 10 what they call three “technologtes” that allowed Boyleand others to produce matters of fact: a material technology of experime ‘Won, jo this case the aipampsa literary techreology that made viral witnessing posible fora wider community thar couldnt be squcezed inte the Royal Society's emoasteution ch ers for every meetings aru @ social technology’ thal estab lished certain conventions for how experimentalists should deal with each other and with cach others knowledge-slaims. Gach of these thie technologies, a J none could be sind tobe Innowledge producing tools, “embedded the ote ‘mote fundatnental than the others, The rmaerial technology af the ale-pump te quired specific socta! organizations, such as the distingtion between commen me chattics, technicians, and demonstrators, and the gentlemen scientists, as weil as ileged laboratory space se spart from the rest of the warld stions which remain operative today). The literwy technelogy of the creation of a pi Gosial organi the new scientific repore extolled the value of those social area ied in its thetoric the new cecial values of modesty and prob. ements, embod eon, and opened the new experimental findings to wider questioning or affirmauion, Indeed, ran ning the machine of the literary technology—ie., readin equivalent to actualy running the machinery ofthe experiment. The air pump, as histonan of science A. Rupert Hall has pat it, was “the ey closton of the age.” Relatively few of them enisted, as they reqaied the patronage of astate, royalty or elite seienibe soetaty ta he hnult, They were eranky, prone toExperimenting — 5 malfunction and requiring constant tinkering and muintenanee, Tis wo was not always pretty and, as with all the sciences today, depended on a lot of craft knowledge and unseen, uncredited technicians, Akhough Bople wanted a largee air purnp than the shiny.quart one ke usec, he reported that his nanmeless “pass were at the linmis of their abyhities, As sealants and Tubricants, Boyle had recipes (which he did mot always write down) hat included smelted pitch, > and for 8 cracks, linen spread with a mixture of quicklime, cheese scrapings, and water ground t9 a paste “to fosin, anit wal -ashi ing sr have The central problem against wh rong and stinking smell” cf all thi versial Torrcelian phenomenon. First performed in 1644. the phenomenon ec ccors when you take a lang glass tube, closed at one end, andl ont was dhtected wats the contto: lace it in a tub of ‘mercury: The tube fils completely with mercury. and is then inverted so the open end remains in the tub and the closed end isa the top. You then see that the mer ccury no longer fills the tube, but leaves the lop erapty-or looking empty anyway We call it barometer today, andl tegand it a& a good measute of siz pressuse, For the seventeenth century, it might an retraspect he called a scandalometer, becanse 1 measure of the scandalous variey of deetrines and opinions about what actually vas, oF what possibly could be, in thar soemingly empty space at the top of the tube. Torricelli, Pascal, Roberval, and Descartes were just a few of the natural philosophers who weighed in on this controversy: The empty space at the top ofthe tube couldn be isolited from other social andl philosophical cont sles; what was or wast at the top of te tube was a question inextricably benenel up vei disturb servative Scholastics andl radical era turbing asso le piriests, and even more dh ations among the concepts of "sul ster” andl spirit, and the practices of witedicrall It was seemingly emply space we x spare a sectningly endless serie pty disputes, Heres where Boyle thought his material-hterary-social tee logy of expert imental science could show iis preatest value: ft could stop, ar at least sidestep, all these endl 3s vikuperstive arguments that asily oimed with religious, tional, and poltical differences, and restrict the discussion (and the: would coun: as real Knowiedge) to matters of fact. fn terms that we fore bse Jaborate more on in Chapicr 2; where ethczs continvally ortcu late the phenomenon at the top of the ulations, Boyle sought to disarticulate oF mercury column with ather philosophical and religious beliefs or ar fe questions and statements about nature froin religious or political ones, and rearuiculate these statements vwothin the new material literaey-social technology of expermental science, Thus, inv his writing Boyle decided to “speak so doubingly, and se so ulten, perhaps, i buble, and such other expressions, as argue a difdence of the truth of che opinions I incline ta.and that | should be 30 shy of laying down pri ciples, and sometimes of so much as venturing at exphications,”* Tat deeision led4 —— Mating Throsigh to an extremely powerful and persistent “literary technologp the often strained Thetoric ofthis contrived modesty (as well as what Boyle called his "prolixity") sti characterizes sclentilc papers today: This moxiesty was nat a disadvarmaye or deferral, But an asset, Js dhete ot isn ‘here a vacuum—ahose side are you en?; Boyle would audroitly sidestep "so mice a question” and would not “dare ro take upon me to determine so difficult a contne versy” Dang so would "male the cand acuurn tathera metaphy's ical, than a physiological question; which therefore we shall no longer del hese..." As Shapin and Schath oversy abut The significance ofthis move must he stressed. Syke was not “a vacuist sor did he undertake bis New Experiments to prove a vacua. Neither ‘was het pleats,” and he mobilized p angumentsagaimst the me= chanical and nonmechanical prineiples adduced by those who mae tained that a vacuurn-was impossible. What he was cadeavnring to create ‘yo a natural philesopbical discourse im which such questions were in admissile, The abr pump could aot decile whether oF not a“metaphys- fal” vacuum existed, This-was not failing of the putmp insted, was fone of its strengths. Ex to nue oat of court those problems that bred dispute and divisiveness among philosophers, ad titey were tosubstite eee race mites of fact upon which philosophers might apres. those questions Haat could Unlike the alchemists, the experimentalists peacticed their teade in public, i the assembly room of the Royall Society (although eritics like Thomas Hobbes Al Society badly counted as ‘public"), There the experiments were witnessed and, in language drawn frorn the fegal world, the re sails were judged by many observers ofthe eral, QNel requrm to the iaesexepable cewaetngss of judging in the setencesin Chapter} But Boyle, perhaps to maximize the number of people whi could be recruited to the mew experimentalist ways, showed a more inclusive attitude toward alchemy andl the alchemists thar diel some of his contemporaries, stich as Istae Newton, Newton believed hat alchemy and the new science should be kept as distinct practices and fortas of knowledge, snl 30 engaged im boil while keeping bis extensive alchemical pursuits score. Newion enticized Boyle for simply publishing work thar dealt {albeit critically) ‘with the alchemical tradition. Workdng his new separation between matters of fact ‘ana the language of theory; Bayles set of social conventions sneaiporated sone (a though not enorme tolerance for social dilference: Let his opinions be never so false. bis experiments heing true, [am not obliged t believe the former, anal sen al libeny to benefit myself by the later." Taken seriowsly, that net only a Jaadable social convention forthe sciences, but aproductive one as well. tban ex cellent legacy fromm this period which needs ta he hetter preserved,Experimenting — Boyle saciotechnical innovation ts easy to “naturalize”: experimental practices were stmply beter at producing a better kind of knowledge, es subsequent history has shawn, But as we'll see, just what “better” meant at thot context, was hotly debuted, Thats where the work af the new “social technoy ‘was important, since it redefined conventions of proper siscoutr count as knowledge. Boyle argued For and extablished new sexal any haw knowwled Findings and not about the character of the investigator. ad hominem attacks were ‘out, Indeed, the status of the individual investigator or philosopher. 50 p dogmatism or “enhusitem,” was supposed to ehrinle in compartson to muna endeaver. And the community was ubliged not we believe in each other’ opinion, but only 0 assem to what they believed they saw in nisnare, apparent sar was not tobe produced: disputes were ta be: through the matters of fact produced by experiment, Again, these are in many ways actmirable ideals: publte witnessing, the neces: sty of judging, andl am agreement vo at least defer social political, and philosepht cal differences—to leave them aside ass read only the natural world as tt was presented through experiments. They can, with some cleaning up and rearticula ton, be sl ged as goals which the sciences can and should pursue today. Nature it ‘But how was such a consensus, based only on witnessiiny, possi self might be the basis for lure matters of fact, but did hat mean that it could ‘What makes some belies more believable than serve as the baits of knowledg ‘otheas? And just what does "judging" involve? Richard Feynman’ Half-Assed Atoms Alter all that ancient stony, AL might be nice to shift registers to something and someone a litte more recent, aitle more familiar, and perhaps a lle stranger at the same time Richanl Fe cists,and rightly so, From his contnbutions to unan is surely one ofthe twentieth century’ most farmous phy 3¢ Manhattan Project employing. the ancient abacus lor calculations of nuclear physics) to his work ee: the com mission investigating the space shuttle Choflenger disaster (running a tabletop csaperimeat wath ice water and O-ring in a congzesstonal hesring room), be bas worked unconventionally yet productively on science in epheres, His invention of “Feynman diagrams” was enormously important to the theory and practice of purticle physics. He wrote aboughidl and deservedfy in Huential physics tetboolss, and was also adept in the more popu Surely You'e Joking, Me Feynman’, isa’ physics-amazing-and-beautiful-even-if jon thal this cuba enost public srvein of the itis-a:bit-strange Genius, the word that science writer James Gleick picked for the utle of his Feynman biography fe Theres no qu16 —— Mating Throsigh Bur when Feynman was not so-concemed with tying up his oxen thinkin and ‘wonders of physics ino tidy publishable packages, did he see the world any