The ArgumentIn the first part of this paper, issues concerning an “epistemology of time” are raised. The Derridean theme of the historial movement of a trace is connected to Prigogine's notion of an operator-time. It is suggested that both conceptions can be used to characterize the dynamics of experimental systems in contemporary science. It is argued that such systems have, to speak with Hacking, “a life of their own” and that this is precisely the reason for their inherent unpredictability.In (...) the second part, a case from the history of virology and cytomorphology is presented. The movement of a particular experimental system is followed in its peculiar tension between deferring and becoming different—i.e., between the persistence of a problem and the vagaries of its successive transformations. They are rendered possible by novel technical implementations, but they are not determined in any meaningful sense on a mere technological level.In conclusion, a point is made for a deconstructive approach to the history of science. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 301-305, September 2022.

: The main contribution of this paper for social studies of scientific practice is to use and further elaborate the concept of experimental system. It is expanded from mere epistemic concerns to also incorporate the built-in practicality and societal relevance of scientific research. For this, an analysis of object construction by a potato-biotechnology research group is presented. The group's object of activity is conceptualized as a dual one comprising both the epistemic and applied objectives. The application object points (...) to the virus-resistant cultivated potato under construction, the epistemic object to the knowledge on the virus-resistance mechanism. Two major phases of the group's work are perceived as distinct experimental systems. The transition between them is analysed in terms of a gradual evolution characterised by network collaboration, ad hoc improvization, resistance, opportunism and informal interaction. (shrink)

Attention to scientific practice offers a novel response to philosophical queries about how conceptual understanding is empirically accountable. The locus of the issue is thereby shifted, from perceptual experience to experimental and fieldwork interactions. More important, conceptual articulation is shown to be not merely ?spontaneous? and intralinguistic, but instead involves a establishing a systematic domain of experimental operations. The importance of experimental practice for conceptual understanding is especially clearly illustrated by cases in which entire domains of scientific (...) investigation were first made accessible to articulated conceptual understanding. We thereby see more clearly how experimental systems themselves, and not merely the theories and models they make possible, have an intentional directedness and ?representational? import. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that the development of the modern sciences is rooted in experiment. Yet for a long time, experimentation did not occupy a prominent role, neither in philosophy nor in history of science. With the ‘practical turn’ in studying the sciences and their history, this has begun to change. This paper is concerned with systems and cultures of experimentation and the consistencies that are generated within such systems and cultures. The first part of the paper exposes the forms (...) of historical and structural coherence that characterize the experimental exploration of epistemic objects. In the second part, a particular experimental culture in the life sciences is briefly described as an example. A survey will be given of what it means and what it takes to analyze biological functions in the test tube. (shrink)

Data production in experimental sciences depends on localised experimental systems, but the epistemic properties of data transcend the contingencies of the processes that produce them. Philosophers often believe that experimental systems instantiate but do not produce the epistemic properties of data. In this paper, we argue that experimental systems' local functioning entails intrinsic capacities to produce the epistemic properties of data. We develop this idea by applying Derrida's model of arche-writing to study a case of theory-oriented (...) experimental practice. Derrida's model relativises or dissolves the conceptual distinction between the moment of data production and a subsequent moment of data dissemination. It thus has consequences for understanding both data production (despite being intrinsically local, data production a priori generates transferrable and modellable information) and data dissemination (when modelling information, researchers needs to refer this information to the context of its production). We study a case of data production in a non-exploratory experimental system designed to test a pre-existing hypothesis in visual neuroscience. A case of theory-oriented experimental practice should allow us to identify the autonomous functioning of experimental systems in data production more clearly, insofar as it allows us to study the limits of pre-existing theory in the activities of these systems. We suggest that pre-existing concepts, hypotheses and theories condition the relevance but not the production of experimental data. (shrink)

Masui Kiyoshi (1887–1981), a prominent Japanese geneticist, is best known for inventing the sex-sorting method of chicks and his contributions to experimental genetics in Japan. Masui drew inspiration from Goldschmidt’s sex determination theory and used chickens, transplantation techniques, and his own “chick sexing” methods in his scientific work. This paper examines the intersection of genetics and industrial breeding by tracing the evolution of Masui’s experimental systems. During the early 20th century, poultry farming emerged as a significant industry in (...) Japan, resulting in the development of standardized organisms and techniques for chicken farming. Masui, a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, collaborated with the Imperial Zootechnical Experimental Station to use these organisms as models for sex determination theory while exploring their further industrial possibilities. First, the paper show how Masui viewed chickens as epistemological objects and transformed his anatomical discoveries into standardized industrial practices. Next, it describes how Masui’s collaboration with German geneticist Richard Goldschmidt led to new academic questions about sex determination mechanisms and how he integrated his knowledge of chicken physiology into his research on “experimental gynandromorphs” to elaborate the theories. Lastly, the paper discusses the biotechnological ideals that Masui aimed to achieve and how they were co-constructed with his mass-production method of intersex chickens from the early 1930s. The trajectory of Masui’s experimental systems highlights the dynamic relationship between agroindustry and genetics in the early twentieth century and demonstrates the ‘biology of history’ in which the biological processes of organisms intertwine with their epistemological history. (shrink)

This article explores the development of a rat model of mother-infant relationships from its origins in the psychosomatic investigations of the mid-1960s to its elaboration into a theoretical system in neurobiology. I reconstruct the research trajectory of a group of neurobiologists in the United States, with a focus on the experimental practices they adopted while building this animal model. Providing a microhistory of this decade-long undertaking, I show that what drove the development of the model in practice was (...) a serendipitous finding about infants’ response to maternal separation. Detected inadvertently, the pup’s separation response acquired an epistemic significance of its own and reoriented the experimental system towards unanticipated paths. To explain this intriguing phenomenon, the neurobiologists kept on refining their material manipulations and stabilizing their experimental outcomes. They thus established a series of causal relationships that connected dysregulations of the infant’s physiological systems to disruptions in maternal care. As important as this interactive stabilization of technique and objects in the laboratory was how the researchers theorized the network of relationships derived from this technically constituted objectivity. Highlighting the practice-driven aspects of model-building, I demonstrate that what facilitated this theoretical process was an integrated design of complementary experiments. The outcome of each separate experiment of the research program came to bear upon the outcomes of other experiments, informing the development of future manipulations. It was this strategically driven integration process that allowed the experimenters to build expanding networks of causal relationships and consolidate them into a neurobiological theory. (shrink)

This paper presents a narrative history of technologies in cancer research circa 1920-1978 and a theoretical perspective on the complex, intertwined relationships between scientific problems, material practices and technologies, concepts and theories, and other historical circumstances. The history presents several active lines of research and technology development in the genetics of cancer in the United States which were constitutive of protooncogene work in its current form. I write this history from the perspective of technology development. Scientists participating in cancer research (...) created tools with which to study their problems of interest, but the development of the tools also influenced the questions asked and answered in the form of concepts and theories developed. These tools included genetic ideas of the 1920s, inbred mouse colonies, chemicals and antibiotics developed during World War Two, tissue cultures and their technical procedures, and viruses. I examine these tools as standardized experimental systems that standardized materials as well as practices in laboratories. Inbred animals, tissue culture materials and methods, and tumor viruses as experimental systems gave materiality to 'genes' and 'cancer'. They are technical-natural objects that stand-in for nature in the laboratory. (shrink)

Philosophy of Experimental Biology explores some central philosophical issues concerning scientific research in experimental biology, including genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology, neurobiology, and microbiology. It seeks to make sense of the explanatory strategies, concepts, ways of reasoning, approaches to discovery and problem solving, tools, models and experimental systems deployed by scientific life science researchers and also integrates developments in historical scholarship, in particular the New Experimentalism. It concludes that historical explanations of scientific change that are based (...) on local laboratory practice need to be supplemented with an account of the epistemic norms and standards that are operative in science. This book should be of interest to philosophers and historians of science as well as to scientists. (shrink)

This study explores the history of nanotechnology from the perspective of protein engineering, which differs from the history of nanotechnology that has arisen from mechanical and materials engineering; it also demonstrates points of convergence between the two. Focusing on directed evolution—an experimental system of molecular biomimetics that mimics nature as an inspiration for material design—this study follows the emergence of an evolutionary experimental system from the 1960s to the present, by detailing the material culture, practices, and (...) techniques involved. Directed evolution, as an aspect of nanobiotechnology, is also distinct from the dominant biotechnologies of the 20th century. The experimental systems of directed evolution produce new ways of thinking about molecular diversity that could affect concepts concerning both biology and life. (shrink)

According to the so-called Quantum Darwinist approach, the emergence of “classical islands” from a quantum background is assumed to obey a principle of maximal information. We illustrate this idea by considering the coupling of two oscillators. As our approach suggests that the classical limit could have emerged throughout a long and progressive Evolution mechanism, it is likely that primitive living organisms behave in a “more quantum”, “less classical” way than more evolved ones. This brings us to seriously consider the possibility (...) to measure departures from classicality exhibited by biological systems. We describe an experimental proposal the aimed at revealing the presence of entanglement in the biophotonic radiation emitted by biological sources. (shrink)

Discusses the various theories of consciousness from different perspectives: psychological, neurophysiological and philosophical. Theories regarding the interaction of pain, schizophrenia, the brain and the nervous system with consciousness are included. Also includes a discussion of the relative merits of the different theories together with the latest data from the experimental disciplines.

Experimental Semiotics (ES) is the study of novel forms of communication that communicators develop in laboratory tasks whose designs prevent them from using language. Thus, ES relates to pragmatics in a “pure,” radical sense, capturing the process of creating the relation between signs and their interpreters as biological, psychological, and social agents. Since such a creation of meaning-making from scratch is of central importance to language evolution research, ES has become the most prolific experimental approach in this field (...) of research. In our paper, we report the results of a study on the scope of recent ES and evaluate the ways in which it is relevant to the study of language origins. We coded for multiple levels across 13 dimensions related to the properties of the emergent communication systems or properties of the study designs, such as type of goal (coordination versus referential), modality of communication, absence or presence of turn-taking, or the presence of vertical vs. horizontal transmission. We discuss our findings and our classification, focusing on the advantages and limitations of those trends in ES, and in particular their ecological validity in the context of bootstrapping communication and the evolution of language. (shrink)

The experimental philosophy of law is a recent movement that aims to inform traditional debates in jurisprudence by conducting empirical research. This paper introduces and provides a systematic overview of the main lines of research in this field. It also covers the most important debates in the literature regarding the implications of these findings for the philosophy and theory of law. It argues that three challenges arise when addressing (old) legal-philosophical questions in (new) experimental ways by drawing normative (...) implications from empirical data: such implications are value-driven, depend on explanations of empirical findings and vary across legal systems. (shrink)

Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of (...) the central concepts associated with experimental design, including controlled variation and randomization, this chapter will provide a summary of key ethical issues that tend to arise in experimental contexts. In addition, by exploring assumptions about the nature of causation and by analyzing features of causal relationships, systems, and inferences in social contexts, this chapter will summarize the ways in which experimental design can undermine the integrity of not only social and behavioral research but policies implemented on the basis of such research. (shrink)

The emergence of human communication systems is typically investigated via 2 approaches with complementary strengths and weaknesses: naturalistic studies and computer simulations. This study was conducted with a method that combines these approaches. Pairs of participants played video games requiring communication. Members of a pair were physically separated but exchanged graphic signals through a medium that prevented the use of standard symbols (e.g., letters). Communication systems emerged and developed rapidly during the games, integrating the use of explicit signs with information (...) implicitly available to players and silent behavior‐coordinating procedures. The systems that emerged suggest 3 conclusions: (a) signs originate from different mappings; (b) sign systems develop parsimoniously; (c) sign forms are perceptually distinct, easy to produce, and tolerant to variations. (shrink)

Johann Gottlob Krüger’s Experimental psychology is commonly considered as one of the first empirical anthropologies in the German-speaking space. On closer examination, however, the foundations of his psychology appear to be both Wolffian rationalism and an epistemological empiricism of Lockean origins. His methodical conception of experimentalism, thus, expands Wolffian empirical psychology. On this basis, Krüger also supplies a quite precarious defence of materialism, and a view of experiments on humans that conflicts radically with present standards.

This chapter contains section titled: The Diversity of Experimental Practices in Biology Model Organisms Experimental Systems and the “New Experimentalism” in Biology The Nature of Evidence Objectivity and Realism Acknowledgment References Further Reading.

This paper uses the figure of the inbred laboratory mouse to reflect upon the management and mobilization of biological difference in the contemporary biosciences. Working through the concept of shifting experimental systems, the paper seeks to connect practices concerned with standardization and control in contemporary research with the emergent and stochastic qualities of biological life. Specifically, it reviews the importance of historical narratives of standardization in experimental systems based around model organisms, before identifying a tension in contemporary accounts (...) of the reproduction and differentiation of inbred mouse strains within them. Firstly, narratives of new strain development, foregrounding personal biography and chance discovery, attest to the contingency and situatedness of apparently universal biotechnological production. Secondly, discoveries of unexpected animal litters challenge efforts to standardize mouse phenotypes and control the reproduction of murine strains over space. The co-existence of these two narratives draws attention to the importance of and interplay between both chance and control, determination and emergence, and the making and moving of experimental life in biomedical research. The reception or denial of such biological excess reflects the distribution of agencies and the emerging spatialities of the global infrastructures of biotechnological development, with implications for future relations between animal lives and human becomings in experimental practices. (shrink)

My paper draws on examples from molecular biology, the details of which I have developed elsewhere (Rheinberger 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997). Here, I can give only a brief outline of my argument. Reduction of complexity is a prerequisite for experimental research. To make sense of the universe of living beings, the modern biologist is bound to divide his world into fragments in which parameters can be defined, quantities measured, qualities identified. Such is the nature of any "experimental (...) class='Hi'>system." Ontic complexity has to be reduced in order to make experimental research possible. The complexity of the research object, however, is epistemically retained in the rich context of an experimental landscape, where the eruption of "volcanic systems" can change the scenery dramatically as the result of particular, unprecedented findings. (shrink)

In this book, the extend to which we can equip artificial agents with moral reasoning capacity is investigated. Attempting to create artificial agents with moral reasoning capabilities challenges our understanding of morality and moral reasoning to its utmost. It also helps philosophers dealing with the inherent complexity of modern organizations. Modern society with large multi-national organizations and extensive information infrastructures provides a backdrop for moral theories that is hard to encompass through mere theorising. Computerized support for theorising is needed to (...) be able to fully grasp and address the inherent complexity. Using moral reasoning capacity will help us addressing the challenges that technological artefacts pose. They do not only contain information about us, they start to act on our behalves.With the increasing autonomy comes an increased need to ensure that their behaviour is in line with what we expect from them. To investigate and address these issues a laboratoy for philosophy is outlined: SophoLab. It consists of a methodology; a framework of modal logic, DEAL; and multi-agent software systems. SophoLab provides the basis for an experimental, computational philosophy. Its viability and usefulness are demonstrated through several experiments. (shrink)

Geoengineering is defined as the ‘deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming’. The technological proposals for doing this are highly speculative. Research is at an early stage, but there is a strong consensus that technologies would, if realisable, have profound and surprising ramifications. Geoengineering would seem to be an archetype of technology as social experiment, blurring lines that separate research from deployment and scientific knowledge from technological artefacts. Looking into the (...) experimental systems of geoengineering, we can see the negotiation of what is known and unknown. The paper argues that, in renegotiating such systems, we can approach a new mode of governance—collective experimentation. This has important ramifications not just for how we imagine future geoengineering technologies, but also for how we govern geoengineering experiments currently under discussion. (shrink)

Review\n\n"This bookas lucid, comprehensive presentation will enlighten both\nstudents and academicians in philosophy, biology, and science history,\nas well as scientists in other disciplines, while stimulating further\ndiscussion and analytical treatments." CHOICE May 2005 \n\n\n"Weber's overall approach is compelling; his book's focus on philosophical\nsignificance to be found in details of experimental biology is a\nwelcome addition to the philosophy of biology and to the philosophy\nof science more generally." - Jonathan Kaplan, Oregon State University\n\n\nProduct Description\n\nExploring central philosophical issues concerning scientific research\nin modern experimental (...) biology, this book clarifies the strategies,\nconcepts, reasoning, approaches, tools, models and experimental systems\ndeployed by researchers. It also integrates recent developments in\nhistorical scholarship, in particular, the New Experimentalism, making\nthis work of interest to philosophers and historians of science as\nwell as to biological researchers. (shrink)

In experimental settings, scientists often “make” new things, in which case the aim is to intervene in order to produce experimental objects and processes—characterized as ‘effects’. In this discussion, I illuminate an important performative function in measurement and experimentation in general: intervention-based experimental production. I argue that even though the goal of IEP is the production of new effects, it can be informative for causal details in scientific representations. Specifically, IEP can be informative about causal relations in: (...) regularities under study; ‘intervention systems’, which are measurement/experimental systems; and new technological systems. (shrink)

Industry is a major source of funding for scientific research. There is also a growing concern for how it corrupts researchers faced with conflicts of interest. As such, the debate has focused on whether researchers have maintained their integrity. In this article we draw on both the history of medicine and formal modeling to argue that given methodological diversity and a merit-based system, industry funding can bias a community without corrupting any particular individual. We close by considering a policy (...) solution that may seem to promote unbiased inquiry but that actually exacerbates the problem without additional restrictions. (shrink)

THE MORAL SYSTEM OF SHAKESPEARE INTRODUCTION WHAT IS IMPLIED IN "THE MORAL SYSTEM OF SHAKESPEARE " The title of this work, The Moral System of Shakespeare,..

The success of particle detection in high energy physics colliders critically depends on the criteria for selecting a small number of interactions from an overwhelming number that occur in the detector. It also depends on the selection of the exact data to be analyzed and the techniques of analysis. The introduction of automation into the detection process has traded the direct involvement of the physicist at each stage of selection and analysis for the efficient handling of vast amounts of data. (...) This tradeoff, in combination with the organizational changes in laboratories of increasing size and complexity, has resulted in automated and semi-automated systems of detection. Various aspects of the semi-automated regime were greatly diminished in more generic automated systems, but turned out to be essential to a number of surprising discoveries of anomalous processes that led to theoretical breakthroughs, notably the establishment of the Standard Model of particle physics. The automated systems are much more efficient in confirming specific hypothesis in narrow energy domains than in performing broad exploratory searches. Thus, in the main, detection processes relying excessively on automation are more likely to miss potential anomalies and impede potential theoretical advances. I suggest that putting substantially more effort into the study of electron–positron colliders and increasing its funding could minimize the likelihood of missing potential anomalies, because detection in such an environment can be handled by the semi-automated regime—unlike detection in hadron colliders. Despite virtually unavoidable excessive reliance on automated detection in hadron colliders, their development has been deemed a priority because they can operate at currently highest energy levels. I suggest, however, that a focus on collisions at the highest achievable energy levels diverts funds from searches for potential anomalies overlooked due to tradeoffs at the previous energy thresholds. I also note that even in the same collision environment, different research strategies will opt for different tradeoffs and thus achieve different experimental outcomes. Finally, I briefly discuss current searches for anomalous process in the context of the previous analysis. (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of the Tabby Cats knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and was not visible to us) to give us more information about the dreamer. Later the dreamer herself gave us more information. Of six predictions (...) four were confirmed. The dreamer’s apartment is repeatedly disturbed and, each time, a new cat appears. This record is another iteration of an experiment that will be described more fully in the paper The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System to Test Meaning, soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AUDIO RECORD OF CLASS AVAILABLE: link is on first page of the paper you download from this page. (shrink)

Background: Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT), the focus of a number of radiotherapy fundraising campaigns in the mid-2000s, was introduced accompanied by a fanfare of newness and discourses of ‘hope’, ‘inspiring clinical confidence’ and ‘accuracy’. The CBCT system, used in the delivery of Radiotherapy treatment, was incorporated into strategic planning priorities across the United Kingdom based on a rationale of self-evidence. During this time, the way in which the new system was discussed with patients was variable. Research objectives: (...) The purpose of this study was to uncover how experimental practices were embedded and enacted during the use of a new technological system, specifically relating to how patients were enrolled during introductory phases of technology adoption. Research design and context: Drawing on ethnographic work and interviews with staff members in one hospital, the study examines staff discussions prior to the introduction of the Cone-Beam CT imaging system in radiotherapy. It considers how staff views were at odds with practices that occurred during the ‘experimental’ stages of use and how these were shared with patients. Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from the Local National Health Service Research Ethics Committee and National Health Service Main Research Ethics Committee (REC 07/Q1308/16) for the interview and ethnographic stages, respectively. All names have been changed and participants signed a consent form. Findings: Staff reported a lack of evidence, absence of proof and perturbing doubts with the X-ray volumetric imaging. Both patients’ and practitioners’ partial understanding about the risks and benefits of the system created incommensurable ideas regarding its use and what the patients’ role was during these introductory stages. Conclusion: Maintaining partial truth telling renders patients’ experiences of new treatment at odds with ‘experimental’ practice. This has wide-reaching implications for practice. (shrink)

The aim of this work is the reduction of the throttling noise when the capillary is used as a throttling device. Based on the theory of bubble dynamics, two-phase flow, and aerated supercavitation, four different sizes of aerated devices used in refrigerator refrigeration systems are designed. Throttling noise and the temperature and pressure of inlet and outlet of the capillary are measured under stable operation. To compare the noise suppression effects in different groups of experiments, we introduced the cavitation number (...) to analyze, revealed the principle of aerated supercavitation to suppress noise, and combined the results of Fluent simulations to get the relationship between the noise suppression effect and the aerated quality. The experimental results showed that the aerated device can obviously suppress the throttling noise of the capillary outlet, up to 2.63 dB, which provides a new way for reducing the capillary throttling noise. (shrink)

The article reevaluates the reception of Mendelism in France, and more generally considers the complex relationship between Mendelism and plant breeding in the first half on the 20th century. It shows on the one side that agricultural research and higher education institutions have played a key role in the development and institutionalization of genetics in France, whereas university biologists remained reluctant to accept this approach on heredity. But on the other side, plant breeders, and agricultural researchers, despite an interest in (...) Mendelism, never came to see it as the breeders' panacea, and regarded it instead as of only limited value for plant breeding. I account for this judgment in showing that the plant breeders and Mendelism designed two contrasting kinds of experimental systems and inhabited distinct experimental cultures. While Mendelian geneticists designed experimental systems that allowed the production of definite ratios of different forms that varied in relation to a few characters, plant breeders' experimental systems produced a wide range of variation, featuring combinations between hundreds of traits. Rather than breaking this multiple variation down into simple elements, breeders designed and monitored a genetic lottery. The gene was a unit in a Mendelian experimental culture, an "epistemic thing" as Rheinberger put it, that could be grasped by means of statistical regularities, but it remained of secondary importance for French plant breeders, for whom the strain or the variety -- not the gene -- was the fundamental unit of analysis and manipulation. (shrink)