https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/b8515t35g

Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection

A small but vocal community of critics has questioned the epistemological value of DNA barcoding by suggesting that either it ‘cannot work’ for the identification or discovery of species or that it ignores the ‘richness’ inherent in traditional approaches. We re-examine these arguments through a comparison of DNA barcoding and morphological taxonomy in terms of their accuracy and diversity of characters employed. We conclude that morphology often does not work and that it is often nowhere near as ‘rich’ as has been argued. Morphology is particularly poor in numerous important situations, such as the association of larvae with adults and discrimination among cryptic species. The vehemence of some of the criticisms is surprising given that morphology alone is known to be inadequate to the task of species-level identification in many instances.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1755-0998.2009.02631.x

DNA barcoding and the mediocrity of morphology

A profile on a social network site or a Twitter account is created and constructed against the background of an audience—as something to be looked at. This paper argues that the dual gaze of social surveillance—surveying content created by others and looking at one‘s own content through other people‘s eyes—is a normative part of constant ongoing social media use. Social surveillance is distinguished from ―surveillance‖ along four axes: power, hierarchy, symmetry, and individuality. Based on ethnographic work in the San Francisco technology scene from 2008-2009 and amongst teenagers in the Southeastern United States in 2010, I look at this surveillance, how it is practiced, and its impact on people who engage in it. I use Foucault‘s concept of capillaries of power to demonstrate that social surveillance assumes the power differentials evident in everyday interactions rather than the hierarchical power relationships assumed in much of the surveillance literature. Social media involves a collapse of social contexts and social roles, complicating boundary work but facilitating social surveillance. Individuals strategically reveal, disclose and conceal personal information to create connections with others and protect social boundaries. These processes are normal parts of day-to-day life in communities that are highly connected through social media.

The Public Domain: Social Surveillance In Everyday Life DRAFT VERSION

/pdf/making-sense-of-science-for-policy-under-conditions-of-iqkkgww6ws.pdf

Making sense of science for policy under conditions of complexity and uncertainty

Via a historical reconstruction, this paper primarily demonstrates how the societal debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gradually extended in terms of actors involved and concerns reflected. It is argued that the implementation of recombinant DNA technology out of the laboratory and into civil society entailed a “complex of concerns.” In this complex, distinctions between environmental, agricultural, socio-economic, and ethical issues proved to be blurred. This fueled the confusion between the wider debate on genetic modification and the risk assessment of transgenic crops in the European Union. In this paper, the lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology is interpreted as signaling an ongoing social request – and even a quest – for an evaluation of biotechnology with Sense and Sensibility. In this (re)quest, a broader-than-scientific dimension is sought for that allows addressing the GMO debate in a more “sensible” way, whilst making “sense” of the different stances taken in it. Here, the restyling of the European regulatory frame on transgenic agro-food products and of science communication models are discussed and taken to be indicative of the (re)quest to move from a merely scientific evaluation and risk-based policy towards a socially more robust evaluation that takes the “non-scientific” concerns at stake in the GMO debate seriously.

/pdf/ethics-in-the-societal-debate-on-genetically-modified-19zd77xgf2.pdf

Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (Re)Quest for Sense and Sensibility

It is hard to specify the exact philosophical focus of Michel Foucault. He has been described as a post-structuralist, post-modernist, sociologist, phenomenologist, social theoretician, transcendental historicist, and even a nihilist. Another way that his work has been categorized is as a contribution to the field of epistemology. Ian Hacking, for instance, describes Foucault’s book The Order of Things as being about “some immature sciences—chiefly those whose foci are ‘life, labor, and language’” (Hacking 2002, 88). Hacking concludes that Foucault’s work “is philosophical because life, labor, language and ‘Man’ are among the topics of philosophy. It is also philosophical because it exemplifies a theory of knowledge, in both theoretical and practical terms. His archaeology, as he calls it, is a way of investigating the groundwork of bodies of knowledge” (88). In the index of Hacking’s book Historical Ontology, in which he examines The Order of Things very closely, the term “technology” is listed only once. I find this to be a curious fact, because in the first dozen pages of the Order of Things one finds numerous instances of technological terminology and metaphor, such as the following: “system”, “schema”, “framework”, “procedure”, “structure”, “technique”, “institution”, “formulas”; “division of labor”, “system of institutions”, “systems of exclusion”, “complex grid”, “ritualized forms”, “forms deployed”, “instrumental investments”, “strata of practices”, “system of books”, “prodigious machinery”, “construction of new statements” and “a play of rules and definitions, of techniques and instruments” (Foucault 1998, 1-12). In the following I argue that an apt title for the field of Foucault’s work might be that of the Philosophy of Technology.

Was Foucault a Philosopher of Technology

The traditional vision of the role science should play in policy making is of a two stage process of scientists first finding out the facts, and then policy makers making a decision about what to do about them. We argue that this two stage process is a fiction and that a distinction must be drawn between pure science and science in the service of public policy. When science is transferred into the policy realm, its claims to truth get undermined because we must abandon the open-ended nature of scientific inquiry. When we move from the sphere of science to the sphere of policy, we pick an arbitrary point in the open-ended scientific process, and ask our experts to give us the answer. The choice of the endpoint, however, must always be arbitrary and determined by non-scientific factors. Thus, the two stages in the model of first finding the facts, and then making a decision about what to do, cannot be clearly separated. The second stage clearly affects the first. This conclusion will have implications about existing scientific policy institutions. For example, we advocate that the environmental assessment process be radically overhauled, or perhaps even let go. It will be our position that ultimately a better model for the involvement of scientists in public policy debates is that of being participants in particular interest groups (“hired guns”), rather than as supposedly unbiased consultants to decision-makers.

The Role of Science in Public Policy: Higher Reason, or Reason for Hire?

The ethics of food and agriculture is confronted with enormous challenges. Scientific developments in the food sciences promise to be dramatic; the concept of life sciences, that comprises the integral connection between the biological sciences, the medical sciences and the agricultural sciences, got a broad start with the genetic revolution. In the mean time, society, i.e., consumers, producers, farmers, policymakers, etc, raised lots of intriguing questions about the implications and presuppositions of this revolution, taking into account not only scientific developments, but societal as well. If so many things with respect to food and our food diet will change, will our food still be safe? Will it be produced under animal friendly conditions of husbandry and what will our definition of animal welfare be under these conditions? Will food production be sustainable and environmentally healthy? Will production consider the interest of the worst off and the small farmers? How will globalisation and liberalization of markets influence local and regional food production and consumption patterns? How will all these developments influence the rural areas and what values and policies are ethically sound? All these questions raise fundamental and broad ethical issues and require enormous ethical theorizing to be approached fruitfully. Ethical reflection on criteria of animal welfare, sustainability, liveability of the rural areas, biotechnology, policies and all the interconnections is inevitable. Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics contributes to a sound, pluralistic and argumentative food and agricultural ethics. It brings together the most important and relevant voices in the field; by providing a platform for theoretical and practical contributors with respect to research and education on all levels.

Paul B. Thompson: The Ethics of Intensification: Agricultural Development and Cultural Change (Volume 16: The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics)

Based on a survey of some popularintroductory anthologies and texts, I arguefrom my experience as a philosopher oftechnology that environmental philosophy mightbe conceived by some researchers in the fieldin terms of an overly narrow theoreticalfoundation. Many of the key figures in thefield take as a basic assumption that theenvironmental crisis is fundamentally bestexplained in terms of some failing in themetaphysical outlooks of most people. However,philosophers of technology typically present atleast two additional types of generalexplanation of the crisis. Environmentalethicists might benefit from consideration ofthese alternative ways of explaining the rootcauses of the ecological crisis.

Environmental Ethics: Should We Preserve the Red Herring and Flounder?

One c an find from a survey of the work of three prominent philosophers of technology in the late twentieth c entury, a very different kind of metaphor for describing the powerful, but not fully determinative influence that technology has on our lives. These three theories each centre on a concept I call "technological dependency." The most prominent exponents of technological dependency are Marshall McLuhan, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Ellul. Although there are similarities between their descriptions of the phenomenon of dependency, their discussions of this phenomenon are focused around very different sub-metaphors for describing the nature of the dependency. McLuhan portrays our relationship with technology as capable of becoming a form of addiction or habit, Marcuse portrays it as a form of bribery, and Jacques Ellul portrays it as a form of religious cultism.

James B. Gerrie

Papers

Was Foucault a Philosopher of Technology

The Role of Science in Public Policy: Higher Reason, or Reason for Hire?

Paul B. Thompson: The Ethics of Intensification: Agricultural Development and Cultural Change (Volume 16: The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics)

Environmental Ethics: Should We Preserve the Red Herring and Flounder?

Three Species of Technological Dependency