Showing papers in "Science, Technology, & Human Values in 2013"
TL;DR: In the policy discourses of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC), modern biotechnology and the life sciences are represented as an emerging "bioeconomy" in which the latent value underpinning biological materials and products offers the opportunity for sustainable economic growth.
Abstract: In the policy discourses of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC), modern biotechnology and the life sciences are represented as an emerging “bioeconomy” in which the latent value underpinning biological materials and products offers the opportunity for sustainable economic growth. This articulation of modern biotechnology and economic development is an emerging scholarly field producing numerous “bio-concepts.” Over the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to theorize this relationship between biotechnologies and their capitalization. This article highlights some of the underlying ambiguities in these conceptualizations, especially in the fetishization of everything “bio.” We offer an alternative view of the bioeconomy by rethinking the theoretical importance of several key economic and financial processes.
256 citations
TL;DR: Through semistructured interviews, institutional review board (IRB) chairs and human genetics researchers at US research institutions revealed their perspectives on the Havasupai lawsuit, raising important questions of justice for indigenous and minority participants.
Abstract: In 2004, the Havasupai Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona State University (ASU) researchers upon discovering their DNA samples, initially collected for genetic studies on type 2 diabetes, had been used in several other genetic studies. The lawsuit reached a settlement in April 2010 that included monetary compensation and return of DNA samples to the Havasupai but left no legal precedent for researchers. Through semistructured interviews, institutional review board (IRB) chairs and human genetics researchers at US research institutions revealed their perspectives on the Havasupai lawsuit. For interviewees, the suit drew attention to indigenous concerns over genetic studies and increased their awareness of indigenous views. However, interviewees perceived no direct impact from the Havasupai case on their work; if they did, it was the perceived need to safeguard themselves by obtaining broad consent or shying away from research with indigenous communities altogether, raising important questions of justice for indigenous and minority participants. If researchers and IRBs do not change their practices in light of this case, these populations will likely continue to be excluded from a majority of research studies and left with less access to resources and potential benefit from genetic research participation.
182 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how the practices of computer scientists design affordances that influence the uses and impacts of these technological objects, and describe how these affordances influence the use and impact of these objects.
Abstract: As information systems transform our world, computer scientists design affordances that influence the uses and impacts of these technological objects. This article describes how the practices of de...
166 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology with integral product integrity.
Abstract: The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) has gained prominence as an agricultural RD each favours a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and its remedies in agro-food innovation. Each vision links a technoscientific paradigm with a quality paradigm: the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology with integral product integrity. From these divergent visions, rival stakeholder networks contend for influence over research policies and priorities, especially within the Framework Programme 7 (FP7) on Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology (FAFB), which has aimed to promote a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy. Although the FAFB programme has favoured a life sciences vision, agro-ecological approaches have gained a presenc...
146 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the ongoing debates over the role of certain agricultural insecticides in causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) as an opportunity to contribute to the emerging literature on the social produc- tion of ignorance.
Abstract: This article utilizes the ongoing debates over the role of certain agricultural insecticides in causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—the phenom- enon of accelerated bee die-offs in the United States and elsewhere—as an opportunity to contribute to the emerging literature on the social produc- tion of ignorance. In our effort to understand the social contexts that shape knowledge/nonknowledge production in this case, we develop the concept of epistemic form. Epistemic form is the suite of concepts, methods, mea- sures, and interpretations that shapes the ways in which actors produce knowledge and ignorance in their professional/intellectual fields of practice. In the CCD controversy, we examine how the (historically influenced) pri- vileging of certain epistemic forms intersects with the social dynamics of academic, regulatory, and corporate organizations to lead to the institutio- nalization of three interrelated and overlapping types of ignorance. We con- sider the effects of these types of ignorance on US regulatory policy and on the lives of different stakeholders.
137 citations
TL;DR: The relationship between trust in the professional institutions responsible for municipal water development and willingness to drink reclaimed water has been assessed in a survey of over 250 residents of Tucson, Arizona as discussed by the authors, showing that public acceptance of potable reuse is contingent on trust in authorities who influence design of sociotechnical systems for water supply and reuse.
Abstract: In the coming decades, highly treated wastewater, known as reclaimed water, is slated to be a major element of municipal water supplies. In particular, planners propose supplementing drinking water with reclaimed water as a sustainable solution to the growing challenge of urban water scarcity. Public opposition is currently considered the primary barrier to implementing successful potable water reuse projects; nonetheless, public responses to reclaimed water are not well understood. Based on a survey of over 250 residents of Tucson, Arizona, this article assesses the relationship between trust in the professional institutions responsible for municipal water development and willingness to drink reclaimed water. Results demonstrate that public acceptance of potable reuse is contingent on trust in the authorities who influence design of sociotechnical systems for water supply and reuse—including water and wastewater utilities, regulators, consultants, academics, and elected local officials. Findings
107 citations
TL;DR: The linear model of innovation has been criticised for the lack of alternatives to explain technological innovation for decades, and alternatives did exist as mentioned in this paper, such as the Alternating Linear Model of Innovation (ALM).
Abstract: Much has been written about the linear model of innovation. While it may have been the dominant model used to explain technological innovation for decades, alternatives did exist. One such alternat...
96 citations
TL;DR: Procedural justice, or the ability of people affected by decisions to participate in making them, is widely recognized as an important aspect of environmental justice (EJ). Procedural justice.
Abstract: Procedural justice, or the ability of people affected by decisions to participate in making them, is widely recognized as an important aspect of environmental justice (EJ). Procedural justice, more...
90 citations
TL;DR: The concept of the "funding effect" was coined in the mid-1980s when it was discovered that study outcomes could be statistically correlated with funding sources, largely in drug safety and efficacy studies as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the mid-1980s, social scientists compared outcome measures of related drug studies, some funded by private companies and others by nonprofit organizations or government agencies. The concept of a “funding effect” was coined when it was discovered that study outcomes could be statistically correlated with funding sources, largely in drug safety and efficacy studies. Also identified in tobacco research and chemical toxicity studies, the “funding effect” is often attributed, implicitly or explicitly, to research bias. This article discusses the meaning of scientific bias in research, examines the strongest evidence for the “funding effect,” and explores the question of whether the “funding effect” is an indicator of biased research that is driven by the financial interests of the for-profit sponsor. This article argues that the “funding effect” is merely a symptom of the factors that could be responsible for outcome disparities in product assessment. Social scientists should not suspend their skepticism a...
77 citations
TL;DR: In the last few years, justice has emerged as a matter of concern for the contemporary constitution of technoscience as discussed by the authors, and increasingly, both practicing scientists and engineers and scholars of science...
Abstract: In the last few years, justice has emerged as a matter of concern for the contemporary constitution of technoscience. Increasingly, both practicing scientists and engineers and scholars of science ...
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that the forms of selective ignorance illustrated in cases like this one are both socially important and difficult to address, and suggested several strategies for responding to them in a socially responsible manner.
Abstract: Scholars working in science and technology studies (STS) have recently argued that we could learn much about the nature of scientific knowledge by paying closer attention to scientific ignorance. Building on the work of Robert Proctor, this paper shows how ignorance can stem from a wide range of selective research choices that incline researchers toward partial, limited understandings of complex phenomena. A recent report produced by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) serves as the paper’s central case study. After arguing that the forms of selective ignorance illustrated in cases like this one are both socially important and difficult to address, I suggest several strategies for responding to them in a socially responsible manner.
TL;DR: Scholarship on technological change in academe suggests that the adoption of instructional technologies will erode professional control as mentioned in this paper, and researchers have documented the pervasiveness of new technol...
Abstract: Scholarship on technological change in academe suggests that the adoption of instructional technologies will erode professional control. Researchers have documented the pervasiveness of new technol...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the e-mail affair in the light of two normative analyses of science, one proposed by Robert Merton (and developed further by some of his followers), the second by a recent suggestion to use the concept of honest brokering in science policy interactions.
Abstract: In late 2009, e-mails from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were released that showed some climate scientists in an unfavorable light. Soon this scandal was known as “Climategate” and a highly charged debate started to rage on blogs and in the mass media. Much of the debate has been about the question whether anthropogenic global warming was undermined by the revelations. But ethical issues, too, became part and parcel of the debate. This article aims to contribute to this debate, assessing the e-mail affair in the light of two normative analyses of science, one proposed by Robert Merton (and developed further by some of his followers), the second by a recent suggestion to use the concept of honest brokering in science policy interactions. On the basis of these analyses, different aspects of malpractice will be discussed and possible solutions will be suggested.
TL;DR: A special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values assembles papers that consider relations among science, ethics, and justice as discussed by the authors, drawn from a 2011 National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop that brought together interdisciplinary scholars to consider, incorporate, and attend to the meanings, uses, and social consequences of ethical questions and justice ideals in technoscientific projects.
Abstract: This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values assembles papers that consider relations among science, ethics, and justice. The papers are drawn from a 2011 National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop that brought together interdisciplinary scholars to consider, incorporate, and attend to the meanings, uses, and social consequences of ethical questions and justice ideals in technoscientific projects. The papers included in this special issue examine key areas that emerged from this workshop, including public participation, the production of knowledge, what counts as consent, ownership of biomaterials, and others. Together, the papers raise questions about new directions and articulations of power, justice, and inequalities in science and technology studies.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on stories and storytelling practices as explanatory resources in standardization processes and argue that narratives can serve as effective organizing principles within institutional settings, thereby providing an approach to understand the practical, substantive difficultiesthat occur in work with data in the sciences.
Abstract: The article focuses on stories and storytelling practices as explanatoryresources in standardization processes. It draws upon an ethnographic studyof the development of a technical standard for data sharing in an ecologicalresearch community, where participants struggle to articulate the difficultiesencountered in implementing the standard. Building from C. Wright Mills’classic distinction between private troubles and public issues, the authorsfollow the development of a story as it comes to assist in transforming individualtroubles in standard implementation into an institutional issue for theecological scientific community. The authors present the ‘‘hands-on’’ socialscience collaboration in this study as an example of a mechanism for supportinginstitutionalization of issues. Finally, the authors argue that narrativescan serve as effective organizing principles within institutional settings,thereby providing an approach to understand the practical, substantive difficultiesthat occur in work with data in the sciences.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at some common assumptions and associated work practices within a military intelligence community and discuss the use of raw data as a common sense catego-word.
Abstract: This article looks at some common assumptions and associated work practices within a military intelligence community. There intelligence practitioners use the term raw data as a common sense catego ...
TL;DR: The foundation necessary to develop quantified knowledge about society is the population as mentioned in this paper, which constitutes the social universe of which they are gathered, and the foundation necessary for developing quantified information about society.
Abstract: Statistics constitute the social universe of which they are gathered. The foundation necessary to develop quantified knowledge about society is the population. If quantified knowledge changes socie...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that commons-based peer production, in conjunction with the emerging technological capabilities of three-dimensional printing, can also produce promising hardware, globally designed and locally produced.
Abstract: Through the case of the Helix_T wind turbine project, this article sets out to argue two points: first, on a theoretical level, that Commons-based peer production, in conjunction with the emerging technological capabilities of three-dimensional printing, can also produce promising hardware, globally designed and locally produced. Second, the Commons-oriented wind turbine examined here is also meant to practically contribute to the quest for novel solutions to the timely problem of the need for (autonomous) renewable sources of energy, more in the sense of a development process than as a ready-to-apply solution. We demonstrate that it is possible for someone with partial initial knowledge to initiate a similar, complex project based on an interesting idea, and to succeed in implementing it through collaboration with Commons-oriented communities, while using peer-produced products and tools. Given the trends and trajectories both of the current information-based paradigm and the problems of the predominant ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate a forensic courtroom case which started in the early 1990s and focus on three modes of making similarities: (1) creating equality before the law, (2) making identity, and (3) establishing standards.
Abstract: The social and legal implications of forensic DNA are paramount. For this reason, forensic DNA enjoys ample attention from legal, bioethics, and science and technology studies scholars. This article contributes to the scholarship by focusing on the neglected issue of sameness. We investigate a forensic courtroom case which started in the early ’90s and focus on three modes of making similarities: (1) creating equality before the law, (2) making identity, and (3) establishing standards. We argue that equality before the law is not merely a principle but a practice. In the context of DNA research, equality refers to using standardized technology and procedures to identify the criminal suspect. Our case shows the work at stake in introducing a new technology into the courtroom and serves as a lens, magnifying how contingencies and uncertainties are managed and ordered in everyday court practices to arrive at an equal treatment of the suspect.
TL;DR: The authors argue that, considered as emergent biosocial phenomena, climate change and antibiotic resistance “diffract” deliberate human action and thus limit the value of this frame by rendering the human/nonhuman and intended/nonintended distinctions that are crucial to its practical operation locally irrelevant.
Abstract: The authors present climate change and antibiotic resistance as emergent biosocial phenomena—ongoing products of massively multiple interactions among human lifestyles and broader life processes. T...
TL;DR: Sweden's road safety policy, Vision Zero, seeks to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes, and it recognizes that the bottleneck in improving road safety is displacing mobility as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Sweden’s road safety policy, Vision Zero, seeks to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes, and it recognizes that the bottleneck in improving road safety is displacing mobility ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore multiple contemporary conceptions of justice and illustrate that justice matters when considering outcomes in nongovernmental organization (NGO) assistance, and that it is important to consider justice when considering the outcomes in NOC assistance.
Abstract: Through exploring multiple contemporary conceptions of justice, this article illustrates that justice matters when considering outcomes in nongovernmental organization (NGO) assistance. In environm...
TL;DR: Attempts to standardize the biological offer a good way to see how a life form is always also a form of life, and ways in which these biological standards cross-validate life forms with forms of life such as publics, infrastructures, and forms of disciplinary compromise are highlighted.
Abstract: Recent accounts of “the biological” emphasize its thoroughgoing transformation. Accounts of biomedicalization, biotechnology, biopower, biocapital, and bioeconomy tend to agree that twentieth- and twenty-first-century life sciences transform the object of biology, the biological. Amidst so much transformation, we explore attempts to stabilize the biological through standards. We ask: how do standards handle the biological in transformation? Based on ethnographic research, the article discusses three contemporary postgenomic standards that classify, construct, or identify biological forms: the Barcoding of Life Initiative, the BioBricks Assembly Standard, and the Proteomics Standards Initiative. We rely on recent critical analyses of standardization to suggest that any attempt to attribute a fixed property to the biological actually multiplies dependencies between values, materials, and human and nonhuman agents. We highlight ways in which these biological standards cross-validate life forms with forms of ...
TL;DR: The article shows that these tactics of standardization are a defining feature of regulatory science, and a resource for toxicity experts to defend their authority and credibility against competing expertises that arise during controversies.
Abstract: This article examines the way in which public controversies affect regulatory science. It describes the controversy that unfolded in Europe around the use of the ninety-day rat-feeding tests for th...
TL;DR: The New York Times (NYT) receives more citations from academic journals than the American Sociological Review, Research Policy, or the Harvard Law Review as discussed by the authors, and the reasons why they receive more citations are explored in this article.
Abstract: The New York Times (NYT) receives more citations from academic journals than the American Sociological Review, Research Policy, or the Harvard Law Review. This article explores the reasons why scho...
TL;DR: It has been convincingly argued that computer simulation modeling differs from traditional science as discussed by the authors, and if we understand simulation modeling as a new way of doing science, the manner in which scientist...
Abstract: It has been convincingly argued that computer simulation modeling differs from traditional science. If we understand simulation modeling as a new way of doing science, the manner in which scientist...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that "Much of the debate on sustainability is predicated on the belief that environmental demands lead to the production of sustainable technologies that induce environmental benefits".
Abstract: Much of the debate on sustainability is predicated on the belief that environmental demands lead to the production of sustainable technologies that induce environmental benefits. This fails to acco...
TL;DR: In the early 1970s, the idea of precaution, of heeding rather than ignoring scientific evidence of harm when there is uncertainty, and taking action that errs on the side of safety, was so appealing that the US Congress used it as the basis of the toxics provisions of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based its proposals for implementing those provisions on it, and the courts frequently tended toward it when resolving conflicts over the implementation of pollution control law as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the early 1970s, the idea of precaution—of heeding rather than ignoring scientific evidence of harm when there is uncertainty, and taking action that errs on the side of safety—was so appealing that the US Congress used it as the basis of the toxics provisions of the Clean Water Act of 1972, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based its proposals for implementing those provisions on it, and the courts frequently tended toward it when resolving conflicts over the implementation of pollution control law. In other words, precaution was written into toxic water pollutant control law and was beginning to be written into policy and regulations. By 1976, the tables were completely turned. The EPA abandoned the safety-providing approach in the implementation of the law, even though the law required it, and adopted a risk-taking approach in the creation of standards for the vast majority of toxic water pollutants. The article examines how this change was brought about. It builds on recent work on ...
TL;DR: The results indicate that couples pursuing family balancing understand justice primarily in individualist and familial terms rather than in terms of social justice for women and girls or for children resulting from sex selection.
Abstract: Bioethics and feminist scholarship has explored various justice implications of non-medical sex selection and family balancing. However, prospective users' viewpoints have been absent from the debate over the socially acceptable bounds of non-medical sex selection. This qualitative study provides a set of empirically-grounded perspectives on the moral values that underpin prospective users' conceptualizations of justice in the context of a family balancing program in the United States. The results indicate that couples pursuing family balancing understand justice primarily in individualist and familial terms rather than in terms of social justice for women and girls or for children resulting from sex selection. Study participants indicated that an individual's desire for gender balance in their family is ethically complex and may not be inherently sexist, immoral or socially consequential, particularly given the social context in which they live. Our findings suggest that the social conditions that contribute to prospective users' desires for gender balance in their families may direct them away from recognizing or engaging broader social justice concerns relating to sexism and stratified reproduction.
TL;DR: The configuration of the collective shapes the scientific findings, allowin... as mentioned in this paper, which is the outcome of a collective, for example, of experts, methods, equipment, and experimental sites.
Abstract: Scientific knowledge is the outcome of a collective, for example, of experts, methods, equipment, and experimental sites. The configuration of the collective shapes the scientific findings, allowin...