Social Studies of Science最新文献

The birth of thermopolitics: Wet-bulb temperatures, industrial microclimates, and class struggle in the early 20th century.

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-04-04 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251326878

Grégoire Chamayou

{"title":"The birth of thermopolitics: Wet-bulb temperatures, industrial microclimates, and class struggle in the early 20th century.","authors":"Grégoire Chamayou","doi":"10.1177/03063127251326878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127251326878","url":null,"abstract":"Today, wet-bulb temperature is of vital importance in assessing the health effects of global warming. How did this heat stress index emerge? In this article, I turn to the research of industrial hygienist J.S. Haldane, who studied working conditions in mines in the early 20th century. The first warming of the thermo-industrial era was local, not global. It affected work environments, providing a fertile field of observation for occupational medicine and experimental physiology. These investigations revealed a wet-bulb temperature threshold beyond which efficiency deteriorates, which I interpret as the manifestation of an internal, climato-physiological contradiction between microclimates of production and labor power. However, as the long struggle of the Lancashire weavers against 'steaming' illustrates, an emerging labor environmentalism targeted these hostile atmospheric conditions. There, wet-bulb temperature and class struggle are combined in what I propose to call thermopolitics, which is understood as both government and conflict over temperatures. It was not just about controversies over regulatory standards; it was also about a clash between two opposing normativities, one quantitative, reduced to the physio-economy of productive efficiency, the other qualitative, vital, inviting us to rethink the notion of a democratic atmospheric politics. This article also shows that the theoretical wet-bulb temperature threshold used in some recent scientific literature is overestimated compared to empirical results exhumed from the history of science. This implies that, without decisive action, the tipping point for human heat tolerance could be reached sooner and more widely than anticipated.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"3063127251326878"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143781902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Who knows what a mask is … and what it does? A bibliometric and textometric study of more than a century of scientific publications on sanitary masks (1892-2023).

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-19 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251322880

Franck Cochoy, Guillaume Cabanac, Wendeline Swart

{"title":"Who knows what a mask is … and what it does? A bibliometric and textometric study of more than a century of scientific publications on sanitary masks (1892-2023).","authors":"Franck Cochoy, Guillaume Cabanac, Wendeline Swart","doi":"10.1177/03063127251322880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127251322880","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the authors identify the disciplines that have taken an interest in masks over time, as well as how, in what proportions, according to what concerns, with what developments, and possibly with what effects. They ask whether the multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives is likely to lead to the emergence and sharing of new concerns, especially environmental ones, or whether the balkanization and juxtaposition of disciplines may leave certain aspects in the dark and thus contribute to the persistent production of a certain kind of ignorance. Based on a bibliometric and textometric study of more than 6000 scientific articles (1892-2023), they show the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic has turned the study of masks upside down. It has encouraged the development of multidisciplinary and even interdisciplinary approaches, even if the legacy of almost exclusively medical sciences and engineering tends to severely limit hybridizations. The study highlights the possible emergence of a new movement of 'scientization of the popular', which leads scientists to incorporate the everyday concerns of ordinary citizens into the conduct of their research, thus challenging and reversing the well-known process of popularizing science.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"3063127251322880"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143659397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Making modafinil: Classification and serendipity in drug development

IF 3 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251322113

Stephen J Scholte, Ohid Yaqub

引用次数: 0

From distance(s) to civilization(s): (Extra)terrestrial intelligence(s) of (post-) Soviet Armenian astronomy

IF 3 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251324659

Gabriela Radulescu

{"title":"From distance(s) to civilization(s): (Extra)terrestrial intelligence(s) of (post-) Soviet Armenian astronomy","authors":"Gabriela Radulescu","doi":"10.1177/03063127251324659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127251324659","url":null,"abstract":"This article draws on post-positivist conceptualizations of distance in human geography to look at how Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO) astronomers identified with an ancient scientific-cultural legacy and how a corresponding imaginary bonded this legacy, BAO, and extraterrestrial intelligence. As part of the growing prospect of reaching out to other civilizations through radio waves in the 1960s, radio astronomers from Russian research institutes initiated the theoretical and empirical study of extraterrestrial civilizations and engaged with their Armenian counterparts. In so doing, they set a framework for contact through electromagnetic waves with extraterrestrial civilizations. Thereby, the epistemological constraints and affordances of astronomical distance gave rise to an (extra)terrestrial narrative of development. Armenian natural scientists responded positively to the study of extraterrestrial civilizations, though their engagement with this field remained passive. The scientific imaginary of extraterrestrial civilizations, however, contained pillars for the study of Armenian ancient astronomical past. As a result, when Soviet radio astronomy legitimized the study of extraterrestrial civilizations, it also legitimized the study of distant civilizations situated in the perceived historical past of the Armenian astronomical intelligentsia. In the rediscovery of ancient Armenia as an astronomical civilization by BAO (archeo)astronomers, national identity and historical continuity were at stake. Today, this imaginary continues.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143653927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Platforms as laboratories of the social: How digital capitalism matters for computational social research in North America.

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-25 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251321826

Onurhan Ak

{"title":"Platforms as laboratories of the social: How digital capitalism matters for computational social research in North America.","authors":"Onurhan Ak","doi":"10.1177/03063127251321826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127251321826","url":null,"abstract":"The contemporary prevalence of artificial intelligence and machine learning methods has resulted in a rich literature on the factors that shape computational research. This article draws on the laboratory studies literature to examine how platforms' socio-technical infrastructures shape contemporary computational social science research. Based on 18 months of online ethnography of a university laboratory and 15 in-depth interviews with its researchers, the article makes two main arguments. First, for computational social sciences, platforms function as laboratories where the social is selectively carved and transformed, to make it knowable with computational methods. Thus, it makes the case that platforms manufacture the objects of analysis in computational social research and provide the social as a domain. Second, because of the significance of social media platforms as data laboratories for computational research, in contrast to the claims of data sciences to be domainless, these sciences may derive some of their epistemological and occupational power, as well as their cultural authority, from digital capitalism.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"3063127251321826"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143493753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Reconsidering the 'post-truth critique': Scientific controversies and pandemic responses in Brazil.

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-19 DOI: 10.1177/03063127251317718

Daniel Edler Duarte, Pedro Rolo Benetti, Marcos Cesar Alvarez

{"title":"Reconsidering the 'post-truth critique': Scientific controversies and pandemic responses in Brazil.","authors":"Daniel Edler Duarte, Pedro Rolo Benetti, Marcos Cesar Alvarez","doi":"10.1177/03063127251317718","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127251317718","url":null,"abstract":"Science and Technology Studies (STS) has long been criticized for eroding science's authority and blurring the line between opinions and facts, and more recently for contributing to the emergence of 'far-right populists' and 'anti-science movements'. This article argues that 'post-truth politics' does not necessarily entail epistemic democratization. This claim is based on an investigation of the controversies surrounding public health policies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil. In 2021, the Brazilian parliament established an inquiry into allegations that President Jair Bolsonaro neglected expert advice and actively promoted contagion, causing a surge in hospitalizations and deaths. The analysis of testimonies and ensuing debates suggests that so-called 'science deniers' did not contest scientific authority but instead positioned themselves as critical thinkers who sought to expose political interests masquerading as facts. Bolsonaro's allies claimed to be supported by unbiased experts who had more prestige and credibility than those cited by the opposition. In short, they were not against modern scientific knowledge and methods but claimed to speak in the name of the best available scientific evidence. Thus, instead of blaming STS for the 'post-truth era', we should further engage with its conceptual tools to understand the complex relations of 'far-right politics' and scientific institutions. More specifically, we need to investigate how expertise gets distributed, how different statements accumulate authority, and how scientific knowledge is enacted across multiple fields of practice.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"3063127251317718"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143450910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Bettie's travels: How pigs enable new connections between human health innovations and industrial agricultural pork production in Denmark. 贝蒂的旅行在丹麦，猪如何在人类健康创新和工业化农业猪肉生产之间建立新的联系。

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-16 DOI: 10.1177/03063127241268772

Eva Vibeke Kofoed Pihl

{"title":"Bettie's travels: How pigs enable new connections between human health innovations and industrial agricultural pork production in Denmark.","authors":"Eva Vibeke Kofoed Pihl","doi":"10.1177/03063127241268772","DOIUrl":"10.1177/03063127241268772","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper unfolds the past and present uses of pigs that structured the emergence of a pig model of gut-hormone based appetite control, leading to the current scientific breakthrough in treatment of obesity. While the hyping of next generation medications for obesity and type 2 diabetes centers on the efficacy and profits attached to these drugs, I unfold how science embedded in this development had the in-vivo and in-vitro travels of Bettie-an obese Göttingen Minipig pig-at its heart. Tracing how she became embedded in a circuit of vitality connecting industrial agriculture and science on human health, I show how both are governed by a shared valuation of pigs' fat. Bettie's fat, however, was not to be eaten. Instead, Bettie was consumed in knowledge production. For pigs to enter this new trajectory, Bettie emerged as a promissory site for extraction of molecular information made possible by new visualization technologies and representational strategies that allowed for the coupling of human-pig physiology at the cellular level. While her travels were spurred by the hope of discovery of small molecules, Bettie allows us to grasp an important shift in science, as the insights derived from her work emphasized the importance of physiology and the environment for human obesity. In doing so, she served as a visceral model. On a larger scale, Bettie's entering science on human health reflects a recursive structure of knowledge in which the present problems with obesity and type 2 diabetes derive from the solutions to previous problems associated with alleviating hunger.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"109-130"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141989418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Precog visions: Predicting the future with the Minority Report sociotechnical imaginary. Precog 愿景：用《少数派报告》的社会技术想象预测未来。

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-28 DOI: 10.1177/03063127241270991

Mehitabel Glenhaber, Hamsini Sridharan

{"title":"Precog visions: Predicting the future with the Minority Report sociotechnical imaginary.","authors":"Mehitabel Glenhaber, Hamsini Sridharan","doi":"10.1177/03063127241270991","DOIUrl":"10.1177/03063127241270991","url":null,"abstract":"The 2002 film Minority Report regularly appears in tech press articles asking whether it 'predicted the future'. When such publications invoke the film as having 'predicted the future' or 'come true', what social and political claims are being made? How has Minority Report become a discursive tool for imagining, constructing, and criticizing sociotechnical worlds? In this paper, we evaluate the worldbuilding process and real-world trajectories of three technologies 'from' Minority Report, as refracted through the lens of tech journalism: gestural interfaces, targeted advertising, and predictive policing. We argue that science fiction does more than represent technologies; it participates in their social construction. Some technologies imagined in Minority Report operate as 'diegetic prototypes', and the journalistic witnessing public takes them up in complex ways, interpreting, misinterpreting, and remixing the technologies depicted in the film. We further argue that it is not only technologies that move between film and reality in this process, but entire sociotechnical imaginaries. We find that in tech beat interpretations of Minority Report, the interfaces between bodies and technologies reflect a Silicon Valley sociotechnical imaginary of disembodied cyborg subjects and deracialized surveillance that materially and discursively shapes how technologies depicted in the film are developed and received.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"37-61"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142082522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The art, science and technology studies movement: An essay review. 艺术、科学和技术研究运动：论文综述。

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-12 DOI: 10.1177/03063127241270917

Maja Horst

引用次数: 0

Chicken metabolism, immobilization, and post-industrial production. 鸡的新陈代谢、固定化和后工业化生产。

IF 2.9 2区社会学

Social Studies of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-01 Epub Date: 2024-06-02 DOI: 10.1177/03063127241247022

Catherine Oliver

{"title":"Chicken metabolism, immobilization, and post-industrial production.","authors":"Catherine Oliver","doi":"10.1177/03063127241247022","DOIUrl":"10.1177/03063127241247022","url":null,"abstract":"Chickens have become emblematic of the Anthropocene: They embody the age of acceleration, (post-) industrial value, and intensification in scientific and technological knowledge and practice. Contemporary chickens are the bearers of significant genetic and nutritional knowledge, experimented upon and 'tweaked' so much so that some have denied that contemporary commercial chickens are chickens at all. This article reconsiders chickens through a metabolic lens, and the notion of metabolism through chickens, arguing that attending to chickens opens up new conceptualizations of life and labour in the metabosphere. The article tells a metabolic history of chickens from ornament to enclosed monocrop, by way of the laboratory and nutritional experiments. Then, it looks at chicken metabolism in three conceptual modes: first, as a conduit for value, metabolizing and enhancing human life for the past century; second, through technological innovations extending the gut outside chickens' immobilized bodies; and third, through the planetary impacts of metabolic porosity in geological manifestations, toxic atmospheres, and viral overflow. Ultimately, this article shows how techno-scientific production of chickens has taken place in and created the metabosphere as a site of experimentation and exploitation.","PeriodicalId":51152,"journal":{"name":"Social Studies of Science","volume":" ","pages":"85-108"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11780976/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141200172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0