The historiography on American science and technology in the 1970s is still small, yet there are already three distinct strands of work: studies of countercultural scientists, portrayed as enacting or advocating ‘groovy’ research; studies of the politically polarized debate pitting conservative and libertarian ‘cornucopianists’ against environmentalists and modelers forecasting resource scarcity; and studies of the early commercialization of technoscience (e.g., biotechnology) that took off in the 1980s. Left out, I argue, are a class of ‘square scientists’ with little sympathy for (...) the counterculture, and yet open to (even eager for) a new kind of science oriented to the same problems activists said they wanted science to solve: pollution, mass transit, housing, biomedicine, disability technologies, pedagogical machines, etc. Square scientists at places like NASA and Texas Instruments adapted military-industrial-academic templates to a wide variety of socially ‘relevant’ topics in the 1970s. Yet square scientists still looked to the military-industrial complex for allies, rather than to countercultural colleagues. This potential middle ground remained excluded – contributing, in large part, to the failure of schemes to reorient US R&D to civilian social problems, and to the invisibility of the squares in today's historical accounts. (shrink)

Works in science and technology studies have repeatedly pointed to the importance of the visual in scientific practice. STS has also explicated how embodied practice generates scientific knowledge. I aim to supplement this literature by pointing out how sound and hearing are integral aspects of experimentation. Sound helps define how and when lab work is done, and in what kinds of spaces. It structures experimental experience. It affords interactions between researchers and instruments that are richer than could be obtained with (...) vision alone. And it is a site for tacit knowledge, providing a resource for the replication of results, and the transmission of knowledge, and the construction of social boundaries within instrumental communities. (shrink)

This paper follows the history of an object. The purpose of doing so is to come to terms with a distinctive kind of research object – which we are calling a ‘test object’ – as well as to chronicle a significant line of research and technology development associated with the broader nanoscience/nanotechnology movement. A test object is one of a family of epistemic things that makes up the material culture of laboratory science. Depending upon the case, it can have variable (...) shadings of practical, mathematical and epistemic significance. Clear cases of test objects have highly regular and reproducible visible properties that can be used for testing instruments and training novices. The test object featured in this paper is the silicon 7×7, a particular surface configuration of silicon atoms. Research on this object over a period of several decades has been closely bound up with the development of novel instruments for visualizing atomic structures. Despite having little direct commercial value, the Si 7×7 also has been a focal object for the formation of a research community bridging industry and academia. It exhibits a complex structure that became a sustained focus of observation and modelling. Our study follows shifts in the epistemic status of the Si 7×7, and uses it to re-examine familiar conceptions of representation and observation in the history, philosophy and social study of science. (shrink)

In October of 2002, Rick Smalley, Nobel laureate chemist at Rice University, was pondering what to say to a Congressional Hispanic Science and Literacy Forum hearing in Harlingen, Texas. Smalley used the opportunity to craft an all-encompassing justification for science's importance in the modern world-a justification so persuasive and broad it could be presented to any audience on any occasion. Indeed, variants of his talk have since been given some 200 times, from Dallas to Dubai.

This introductory essay frames our special issue by discussing how attention to the history of research integrity and fraud can stimulate new historical and methodological insights of broader import to historians of science.

This introductory article frames our special issue in terms of how historicizing research integrity and fraud can benefit current discussions of scientific conduct and the need to improve public trust in science.

Stanley, M.C., A Π12 singleton incompatible with 0#, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 66 27–88. A non-constructible Π12 singleton that is absolute for ω-models of ZF is produced by class forcing over the minimum model.

Objectives The objective of this research was to develop ethics accreditation standards for hospitals. Research design Our research methods included a literature review, an expert focus group, the Delphi technique and a hospital survey. The entire process was separated into two stages: (1) the development of a draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards; and (2) conducting a nationwide hospital survey of the proposed standards. Results This study produced a tentative draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards comprised of six chapters and (...) 62 standards based on the expert focus group and Delphi technique. The six chapters are: Medical ethics policies, regulations and leadership; The establishment and operation of a medical ethics committee; The establishment and operation of research-related ethics committees; Medical ethics education; Organisational ethical climate; and Respect for patients' rights and establishment of good hospital-patient relationships. The hospital survey indicated that the concept of an organisational ethical climate was new to most hospital managers, most hospitals disliked the idea of having a separate hospital ethics accreditation system, and small hospitals were concerned about their ability to comply with all of the standards. Conclusions Regardless of whether hospital ethics accreditation can be a stand-alone accreditation or just part of existing hospital accreditation programmes, we hope this draft can serve as a good reference for future endeavours by hospital accreditation authorities. (shrink)

Considering the lack of substantive scientific or theoretical studies about ethics in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America, this paper examines the context of an existent paradox, based upon the perspective of experts and academicians of Latin America and the Caribbean. These countries live different realities, due to their respective European cultural influences, as well as to racial and economic issues. Such facts impact the size and characteristics of their industries. On the other hand, the SMEs face (...) more similarities in the region, so they will be treated as a group in the discussion of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Latin American SMEs. As this topic has not been sufficiently investigated in this geographic area, the objective of this exploratory study is to offer a contribution for future research. It raises the main dilemmas and intends to explain how legislation and common practices enable and perhaps lead SMEs to choose unethical strategies to survive and compete in the market. These enterprises are growing in number and in job creation, but do not participate in the Gross National Product in the same proportion. Informality, tax evasion and corruption are gradually caused or erode morality in business, but can contribute to corporate social responsibility in the region. The paper tries to show positive and negative aspects of apparently unethical practices and discusses challenging ways to solve complex problems that are common in most Latin America. (shrink)

If desire is conceived as investment in a sex object, why is sexual objectification regarded as intrinsically degrading? The distinction between the "objectification " of pornographic depiction and the "beauty " of erotic depiction can be understood as a difference in degree between the uni-dimensional enframing of one treatment and the multidimensional enframing of the other. The phenomenon of context includes the anticipations of the participating witnesses: the object of pornographic or erotic depiction cannot be isolated from the posture, situation, (...) and desire of the persons participating in the revelation. Erotic depiction which strives to represent the full range of structures, connections, and relationships constitutive of sexlove-that is, forms of mimesis that elaborate the horizons of erotic encounter, that seek to contextualize the intertwining of flesh rather than focus on the slappings of meat-might well meet the most discerning standards of artistic production. (shrink)