Syllabus
1. Introduction (October 7) 2. The Suspicion
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966), chapter 2: Secular Defilement. 3. The Contamination
Carol Nemeroff, Paul Rozin, The Contagion Concept in Adult Thinking in the United States: Transmission of Germs and of Interpersonal Influence. Ethos, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1994), 158-186.
(group 1)
Cyrus C.M. Mody, “A Little Dirt Never Hurt Anyone: Knowledge-Making and Contamination in Material Science”, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb. 2001), 7-36.
(group 2) 3. The Fomite Transmission of Covid-19
Selected papers (medicine, virology, epidemiology). 4. Replications
G. D. L. Travis, Replicating Replication? Aspects of the Social Construction of Learning in Planarian Worms. Social Studies of Science , Feb., 1981, Vol. 11, No. 1, Special Issue: 'Knowledge and Controversy: Studies of Modern Natural Science' (Feb., 1981), pp. 11-32. 5. The Fomite-Thesis: Replicating Experiments?
Selected papers (medicine, virology, epidemiology). 6. Controversies
Robert K. Merton, "The Normative Structure of Science", in Merton, Robert K. (ed.), The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 267–278. 7. Controversies
Harry M. Collins, "Son of Seven Sexes: The social Destruction of a Physical Phenomenon", Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11, No. 1, Feb. 1981, pp. 33-62. 8. Missing Controversies
Helga Nowotny, “Social Aspects of the Nuclear Power Controversy,” IIASA Research Memorandum. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: RM-76-033. 9. Missing Controversies
Andrew Pickering, “Constraints on Controversy: The Case of the Magnetic Monopole.” Social Studies of Science, vol. 11, 1981, pp. 63-93. 10. Fading Theories
Selected papers (medicine, virology, epidemiology). 11. Fading Theories. Conclusions
The Aerosol-Thesis.
Annotation
“Sociology and Uncontroversial Science: the Fomite Transmission of Covid-19”
The growth and success of the modern sociology of science is closely related to the study of scientific controversies. The works of H. Collins (1975, 1981, 1985), M. J. S. Rudwick’s book (1985), and S. Shapin and S. Schaffer’s study (1985) are widely regarded as having helped to constitute the “new” sociology of science, which brought the social studies of science to the center stage of sociology more generally. From the methodological point of view, scientific controversies have proven to be a richly exploitable situation in which the internal organization – or rather the process of organizing – of science can be comfortably observed. In contrast to what already established scientific facts suggest, it has been shown that the laws of pure reason do not govern science as exclusively as one might believe. Consequently, scientific controversies have become for many scholars the “strategic research site” the need for which was stipulated by the classic representative of the “old” sociology of science, R. K. Merton (Merton 1963).
When such privileged epistemological position is ascribed to scientific controversies, how to deal then with uncontroversial science? The still evolving case of the thesis according to which Covid-19 may spread via contaminated surfaces (called fomites) will provide us with abundant study material.