引介Science Studies （之一）

[Ming Yuen Yee]

前言

很早以前應承了介紹Sociology of Scientific Knowledge的最新發展，但發現真的要說，便要原原本本的從頭說起，那就等於差不多要寫一本書。:o 最後決定以兩帖，分別推薦一些比較算是introductory和overview的書，以及特別短介Science Studies中一位重量級人物的書。各位請隨便提意見或發問，我應承過張會長，待遲些我有時間，而大家又有興趣的話，我願意開一個讀書小組。

Mapping the (mine)field

“Science Studies” (much like its elder sister Cultural Studies) defies definition. In any case, it is one of the fastest growing academic fields in the past three decades or so. It is a contested field populated by old heads and new hats, including the more "traditional" disciplines of Philosophy of Science and History of Science, as well as practitioners trading under these rubrics (many with their own acronyms – trappings of scientific appearance):

History and Philosophy of Science (HPS); (New) Sociology of Knowledge; Strong Programme (the so-called Edinburgh School); Empirical Program of Relativism (EPOR); Social Construction of Technology (SCOT); Sociology of Science; Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK, or sometimes New Sociology of Science); Science, Technology, and Society (ST&S); Social Studies of Science (SSS); Science and Technology Studies (STS, or S&TS); Critical Studies of Science; Rhetoric of Science; Social Epistemology; Anthropology of Science; Cultural Studies of Science, Technology, Computing and Medicine (or Cultural Studies simpliciter); Social or Cultural History of Science and Technology, et cetera.

Clearly, even the nomenclature itself is already a source of dispute, disciplinary pride and prejudice. One thing at least is certain: these labels are not meant to have the same referent. Most of them, e.g. SSK, designate research programmes, approaches, or traditions which are understood to be constituents of a larger, loose conglomeration or alliance, which is referred to variously by other more general or generic terms, e.g. STS. However, this does not mean that there is always a clear-cut part-whole relationship between these two levels of reference. Among the myriad of epithets, many are not just designators of sub-fields of Science Studies. They are the vehicles through which their patrons and partisans advocate their views on what Science Studies as a whole actually is and/or ought to be. Perhaps this phenomenon of a “school” of thought or a sub-field within a discipline posing itself and its banner to stand for the whole of the discipline is not unique to Science Studies or any newly emergent field. In the social space of the academy, as in the larger social universe, every name posits a demand for recognition, and every recognition has the character of naming

Yet, besides the question of appellation, it is indeed not difficult to delineate more or less reliably several “neighbourhoods”, to borrow an American suburban life metaphor from the anthropologist David Hess, populated by science studies practitioners who are occasionally friendly, and sometimes hostile, to each other. They may look either totally indistinguishable or radically different in a stranger’s eyes, but they are easily recognisable by each other by their citation practices. Alternatively, we may apply the terminology originated in Science Studies for describing scientific networks: Science Studies scholars themselves form overlapping "co-citation clusters".

The best introductory book on Science Studies is written by Hess, who is now teaching at the Science and Technology Studies Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

David Hess, (1997), Science Studies: An advanced introduction, New York University Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Philosophy of Science: An interdisciplinary perspective
The Institutional Sociology of Science
Social Studies of Knowledge
Critical and Cultural Studies of Science and Technology
Conclusions

Hess’s presentation of the philosophical and methodological issues involved in traditional philosophy and sociology of science is very concise and accurate, which is a great achievement given that Hess is not a professional philosopher.

A landmark book also suitable for new students of Science Studies is the anthology Science as Culture and Practice (1992) edited by Andrew Pickering. The essays collected here herald the birth of a new paradigm of understanding science-in-the-making as a practice (as opposed to science as the final, finished product).

For a philosophically sophisticated attempt to engage the insights and pitfalls of Science Studies, I strongly recommend Joseph Rouse’s Engaging Science: How to understand its practices philosophically (1996).

To be continued ...

[Ming Yuen Yee]

One founding (or better, emblematic) figure of Science Studies is the Frenchman Bruno Latour. He is also (in)famous for being one major protagonists in the Science Wars (see my previous post below). Here is a brief introduction to some of his major books:

Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. 1986 [1979]. Laboratory Life: The construction of scientific facts. Second edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This book is acclaimed as pioneering the participant-observer method of “anthropology of science”. Though in reality, Latour was not the first person (neither is he really a professional anthropology as would be recognised by socio-cultural anthropologists in the English-speaking world) to enter the laboratory with a notebook. Among the other parallel discoverers of anthropology of science is the “authentic” anthropologist Sharon Traweek, who has also carried out fieldwork among nuclear physicists but published her work rather late: Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The world of high energy physicists (1992). Empirical findings of the book are widely hailed by Science Studies scholars as “confirmation” of social constructionism regarding scientific knowledge, facts and artefacts.

This book has become a minor classics in the field, and many students are initiated into Science Studies by reading (about) this book. That said, it also means that the book is a bit dated. And there may be nothing much to discuss in a book that reports some empirical findings of a case study. The reader may simply either agree or disagree with the methdology or the theoretical conclusions the authors try to draw from the findings.

As I said elsewhere, SSK in particular has since then suffered from a kind of "descriptivism" where case studies describing how scientific truth, knowledge and facts are "socially constructed" are piling up one after another. But so what? No big deal! The fact that science is socially constructed proves nothing of the objective truth (or otherwise) of science. For there may be at least these possibilities:

A1. The "social" element is harmless to arriving at scientific truth (or objectivity).
A2. The "social" element is conducive to truth inadvertently (the so-called "cunning of reason").

B1. The "social" element is harmful but the damage is not fatal (truth always wins out).
B2. The "social" element is harmful and the damage is irreparable (so we must try to eliminate the "social" by all means and at all costs).
B3. The "social" element is "harmful" but that is how science (or everything human) has always already been and how truth as attained by human means is always "tainted" and fallible. The kind of intersubjectivity in science is the best objectivity you can have.

And none of the above should be taken as general truth. In reality, different kinds of "social" elements may have different effects under different circumstances. It is all contingent, subject to empirical tests. And the task of SSK should be to sort it out and cross-check over different single case studies. But SSKers very seldom do that!! One group of them firmly believe in science (and that SSK is scientific) and there is no need to touch the thorny epistemological issues. Another group don't believe in anything like "objectivity" of scientific "truth" at all and they don't want to be called "anti-scientific" either, so they also avoid the issues.

Among Science Studies scholars, Steve Fuller is the one who advocates directly confronting the normative (both epistemic and political) issues about science. He trades under his own brandname of Social Epistemology. His The Governance of Science: Ideology and the future of the Open Society (2000) is quite useful in supplementing the macro, political economic side (often missing in mainstream SSK) of not only "What is science?", but "What science ought to be?" or "What kind of science do we want?".


Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour here spells out more explicitly and systematically the methodological presuppositions and the theoretical implications of “anthropology of science”. Latour also began to outline his famous Actor-Network Theory (ANT) here. According to ANT (and what Latour openly said later), guns do not kill people, its people killing people. Guns (like other non-human objects or subjects) are the “co-actants” in our actions (which are irreducibly socially and naturally embedded). Another pivotal (and no less notorious) figure in Cultural Studies/Critique of Science, the arch-feminist Donna Haraway was the one who made the best use of ANT.

Again, there is not much to discuss by reading this book for it is more like a DIY guide for new SSKers to learn the trade. If readers are interested in ANT, another choice is Actor Network Theory and After (1999) edited by John Law and John Hassard which takes stock of the ups and downs of ANT since its birth and its future in social sciences in general (not just Science Studies).


_____. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
When everyone else was still talking of social construction, Latour was the first one to "deconstruct" such talk as dualistic. If Nature is constructed by Society, which/who constructs Society? This book is extremely influential among some socio-cultural anthropologists because it touches their nerve. A more serious philosophical treatment of social constructionism (or constructivism) is the anthology The Politics of Constructionism (1998) edited by Irving Velody and Robin Williams. Although Ian Hacking’s Social Construction of What? (2000) is very well-written and edifying, it is too lay back (characteristic of him), or as philosophy students would say “without enough philosophical muscle”. In any case, Latour is off the hock, since he has earlier on rejected any naïve version of social constructionism.

Reading this book requires imagination, and a bit of interest in cultural studies/history and the human sciences, for it does not only discuss the dichotomy of Nature vs Society in Science Studies but its broader cultural and philosophical significance.

_____. 1999. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This book was written by Latour after the Science Wars and therefore may sound almost apologetic. Here he affirms his own version of “realism” in response to the (ludicrous but common) charge against practitioners of Science Studies or social constructionists that they do not believe in the existence of the reality, or even "anti-scientific".

To fully appreciate this book, one really needs some background knowledge of the Science Wars and the persistent arguments for or against (scientific) realism. Personally I find it most fruitful to read it in parallel with Hacking's Social Construction of What? to help clarifying what Latour does and does not subscribe to if seen from the pov of philosophers in the Anglo-American analytical tradition.

In understanding Latour, we need to see that he belongs to the current generation of French philosophers who are rebellious against their old post-structuralist masters. Latour, for one, declares his works as a reaction to Bourdieu. (Latour’s teacher and mentor Michel Serres was some sort of intellectual rival to Bourdieu.) Francois Dosse’s Empire of Meaning: The humanization of the social sciences (1999) is very useful on the intellectual scene of France in the late 20th century. It is also in this context that we may try to comprehend why Latour lately has repeatedly hinted that his thinking is directing him from the politics of human and non-human actants to “theology” – of course, it is “theology” as used by the French phenomenologists that Latour is talking about.

Latour has a personal home page at: http://www.ensmp.fr/%7Elatour/


As for the Sokal Affair. Let me give everyone a “teaser” or to refresh your memory if you already heard about it. In the summer of 1995, NYU physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article on postmodernity and quantum physics to the small-circulation cultural studies journal (not peer-reviewed) Social Text. Right after the publication of his article, Sokal revealed to the (now defunct) magazine Lingua Franca (imagine it as the 壹週刊 for academicians, esp graduate students – honestly I miss it so much) that it was a “parody” of the sloppy scholarship of the so-called cultural studies (or criticism) of science, a hoax aiming at discrediting these cultural studies people. The story appeared on the front pages of NYT, WSJ, etc. and all hell broke loose!!

This scandal is known in history as the Sokal Affair, being a watershed in the larger Science Wars – namely scientists striking back at non-scientists who study or “critique” or defame science, or its authority. There are other protagonists in the Science Wars with whom some of you may be familiar, notably the French philosopher (and self-proclaimed “anthropologist of science”) Bruno Latour (he is a good case study for the topic on how can a philosopher make himself (in)famous).

For some years since, Sokal spent most of his time travelling around and giving speeches, I don’t know if he is still doing any real physics now.

[Ming Yuen Yee]

One more thing. I think the latest developments in Science Studies are extremely relevant to theological reflection on science or the relationship between science and religion. For example, the three most famous scientist-theologians, namely Polkinghorne, Peacocke and Barbour (I call them the “old guys”, no offence:p ), are all very outdated in their outlook on the nature of science. I surmise that they are not entirely ignorant of the growing body of literature, but they somehow dismiss it out of hand as “postmodernist” and they keep on pontificating on what science is, as if the Science Wars never happened.

One theologian who takes the “postmodernist” challenge seriously is J. W. Van Huyssteen, Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World (1998).

Addendum: As for why in our reflection on religion and science, we need to take into account the enormous body of empirical findings and theoretical adventures of Science Studies, and why the three old guys’ works are fast approaching obsolescence (if not irrelevance) in view of such tremendous intellectual developments, I think there are at least two reasons:

(1) We do not have to subscribe to any metaphysical doctrine of social constructionism (or its variants or its opposing rival theories) to appreciate the open-endedness of science. The "progress" made in Science Studies is to broaden the perspective from the final product of science (science-made) to the ongoing science-in-the-making (science actually done). Frontier and real science happens in the laboratory, not in the classroom, textbooks or not even in scientific journals (90% of journal articles die of a “citation death”). By focusing exclusively on the ideational products of science or the armchair "rational reconstruction" of the production process (as in the pre-SSK days and in the works of most theologians writing on science) is to severely misrepresent what science is, can be, or even ought to be. In other words, we risk comparing religion (or theology) with a false image of science or measuring the former against a false standard. You need to get your science (the substantial scientific knowledge and your understanding of the nature of science) right before you can talk about science and religion. At the very least, the literature of Science Studies demonstrates and strengthens the so-called disunity of science, that science as a practice is not monolithic. See e.g. The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, contexts and power (1996), eds. Peter Galison and David Stump.

(2) What’s wrong with focusing on the final product of science? Well, you already succumb to the “invincibility” of science – i.e. “science always wins out”, bad, inferior or pseudo-science automatically will lose out in the marketplace of ideas and be excluded from the canon (and official history) of science. You reap the most benefit of hindsight. Or as Popper said in his evolutionary epistemology, science dies for us (by means of falsification), such that we do not have to die for the errors we make. Science becomes an ethereal enterprise (much like the Invisible Hand which always knows what is the best in the market; or like the Holy Spirit who works mysterious ways), rather than a human enterprise. (We also ignore by implication the "discontinuist" discourse of the so-called New Production of Knowledge which really has something important to say about how the very nature science itself as a knowledge-producing practice may be irreversibly changing in the real world -- yes, science is not immutable! See Michael Gibbons et al, New Production of Knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies (1994).) What use (and good) does it have to compare religion (or theology) with the triumphant(ist) (self)caricature of science? By the same token, would we also commit a similar mistake in focusing exclusively on the product of religion (or theology), e.g. what we believe in propositionally, rather than the process of believing and living out our beliefs?

[Daniel_Cheung]

很早以前應承了介紹Sociology of Scientific Knowledge的最新發展，但發現真的要說，便要原原本本的從頭說起，那就等於差不多要寫一本書。:o 最後決定以兩帖，分別推薦一些比較算是introductory和overview的書，以及特別短介Science Studies中一位重量級人物的書。各位請隨便提意見或發問，我應承過張會長，待遲些我有時間，而大家又有興趣的話，我願意開一個讀書小組。

謝謝妳的用心介紹！我第一個報名　:)

我沒有看過這些書，但對Hess, Science Studies和Latour, Pandora's Box，尤感興趣，當然，看其他的亦沒所謂。

請恕我說回一些現實的問題。書介完後，可能總要選定一本書，或一些論文集，因這會比較容易開組，不是所有會員都像那些活在象牙塔的人有那麼多時間看這類書，而且還要是某類學科的才會比較有興趣。另外，妳可能要想想最少要有多少人妳才會願意開組。

最後，想問一問，妳介紹的書，這裡的會員若想看，他們對甚麼科目當有甚麼程度的基本知識？

[筆是大遲]

One more thing. I think the latest developments in Science Studies are extremely relevant to theological reflection on science or the relationship between science and religion. For example, the three most famous scientist-theologians, namely Polkinghorne, Peacocke and Barbour (I call them the “old guys”, no offence:p ), are all very outdated in their outlook on the nature of science. I surmise that they are not entirely ignorant of the growing body of literature, but they somehow dismiss it out of hand as “postmodernist” and they keep on pontificating on what science is, as if the Science Wars never happened.

One theologian who takes the “postmodernist” challenge seriously is J. W. Van Huyssteen, Duet or Duel? Theology and Science in a Postmodern World (1998).

Van Huyssteen的書我也有興趣看。但老人家的書仍然是十分重要的，他們三位都是科學家turn 神學家，而且是前"後現代"期的科學家，所以對後現代都有點抗拒。Van Huyssteen卻不是科學家出身。我不知道有沒有真的科學研究真踐經驗對科學論述的影響有何大。我也會報名參加，我都買了Duet or Duel，但一直未看。現在還看Fortress的Science and Theologies系列。最近因被傳道人的新約聖經研究吸引了，所以放下了科學與宗教這題目多年。若能重拾，也是好的。

[Ming Yuen Yee]

已經有兩位「報名」，對我來說已經足夠。最重要不是人數，而是參加的人肯付出。

Hess 是最好的入門書，適合任何程度的人讀。如果我教undergrad，也會用來做textbook。

Latour 的書其實一點也不難，只要持開放的態度讀。當然有點philosophy of science的背景會有一點幫助；反而已經很熟悉realism vs anti-realism, non-realism, etc.那類問題的人會先入為主，認定Latour在狡辯。

Rouse 最適合graduate level讀，是很好、很嚴謹的哲學書，用來做philosophy of science的graduate seminar材料最佳。（我其中一個老師跟他是朋友，我知道他是個好人，也是個出色的哲學家。）

Van Huyssteen那本其實並非Science Studies的書，只不過如果大家想讀一點跟神學和科學有關的書，暫時我只發現這本可以「接受」。三位「老人家」的書真的越來越不行了，因為他們很多時even don’t care to argue for their own meta-theory of the nature of science against other rival accounts, or test it against historical and contemporary evidence – sometimes they are merely exploiting their authority: “I say so, you have to believe me, because I am/was a scientist”！

關於讀那本書好，我沒偏好，還想聽聽多些人的意見。其實我還有很多別的這方面的好書介紹，視乎大家的興趣。

[Daniel_Cheung]

由於Van Huyssteen那本書不是談science studies，所以我會偏好別的書。這科目我在我的大學好像未見過，但內容十分重要，所以很有興趣。

[Ming Yuen Yee]

On second thought, the anthology Science as Culture and Practice edited by Andrew Pickering is perhaps the best for a reading group if members have at least some knowledge (undergrad level) of philosophy, or philosophy of science, or history and sociology of science. The essays collected very well represent the numerous positions of a whole spectrum of Science Studies scholars. Moreover, readers can learn very quickly what are the major disagreements between these different approaches within Science Studies (and how the internal debates can sometimes become acrimonious!) and what are the common concerns shared by all of them. This is my usual way of initiating myself into a new area of enquiries – get to know the polemical context first.

Nonetheless, for “general readers”, Hess’s book may still be more suitable.

I have also beefed up #2 and #3 above to facilitate your consideration.

[Alan Leung]

Yuen yee, thanks for your introduction! I am not certain whether I have understood what this field is all about. It seems that this field touches on virtually all disciplines which use scientific methods for their researches. I am more interested in the practise of the front-line scientists (well, this is difficult to define who is a front-line scientist but what I am refering to is those who have no interest in what the science studies is doing), e.g., in how to design and conduct the experiments and, also, in interpreting the corresponding results. Is this field of study contributing to these? Or, rather, it is only interested in describing the structures and relationship within and among the various scientific disciplines but have little to do why they have these structures and relationship?

[Ming Yuen Yee]

Yuen yee, thanks for your introduction! I am not certain whether I have understood what this field is all about. It seems that this field touches on virtually all disciplines which use scientific methods for their researches. I am more interested in the practise of the front-line scientists (well, this is difficult to define who is a front-line scientist but what I am refering to is those who have no interest in what the science studies is doing), e.g., in how to design and conduct the experiments and, also, in interpreting the corresponding results. Is this field of study contributing to these? Or, rather, it is only interested in describing the structures and relationship within and among the various scientific disciplines but have little to do why they have these structures and relationship?
If you are interested in this kind of (more traditional) philosophy of science, you may like e.g. Peter Galison, How Experiments End (1987). Or his monumental Image and Logic: A material culture of microphysics (1997). Galison is a physcist turned philosopher and is teaching both physics and history of science in Harvard. He is very familiar with the latest developments in the broader Science Studies, somehow sympathetic to some of them, but keeps on doing his kind of solid and robust philosophical work that no one can easily dismiss as "postmodernist" or "anti-scientific".

[Daniel_Cheung]

我在別處寫了這個，想一想，還是抄過來好一點：

由於進深閱讀小組參與人數不多，只要有興趣的朋友相約到適合的時間（包括，若您同時參與兩個閱讀小組，您覺 得仍能應付），就可以自行開始。故此，請有興趣的會員積極表態，會否 commit 一段時間看這書，和表示在甚麼時候看。

以上做法適用於近日同時談論的別的讀物。


另外，我在五月底和六月底均會出門旅遊，所以大家不要以為我會自動地參與所有進深閱讀小組，參與了，大家也不要期望我會很定時和積極地發言。

我是想參加這一組的。

[Ming Yuen Yee]

I copy below from another thread some of my recommendations of introductory books to science for ease of your reference.:D

Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch. The Golem: What you should know about science (Canto edition, 1998)

Collins was a major figure in the now virtually defunct “Edinburgh School” of Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK). (I know him personally. He is not a bad guy, but a bit difficult to work with.) Contrary to some critics (like what you find in amazon’s site), the authors do not attempt to discredit scientific authority. The Edinburgh School is among other streams in Science Studies the most “pro-science”, and they firmly believe that what they are doing, namely SSK, is itself “scientific”. So it’s a bit ludicrous to suppose that they are predisposed to be as “anti-science” as other usual suspects in Science Studies.

The book is suitable for the general educated public. By using a series of case studies, the authors try to show the power and limit of scientific reasoning in attaining objective or true scientific knowledge, despite the intrusion of (and sometimes with the help of) social and other “a-rational” factors if you will. The purpose of the authors is spelled out in their choice of the book’s title. Golem, the monster in Jewish legend, is used as a metaphor of science, which is so powerful that it may hurt itself (and others) if it is not aware of its powers. The authors think they are doing science a favour by advising it to cut down its promises (and restraint its self-aggrandising propaganda, especially the rhetoric used in securing more funding and pleading for less public accountability). In fact, science often over-sells and it backfires in the so-called Risk Society in which science is often asked by the general public and the politicians and government to deliver the kind of certainty that it cannot supply. In a word, the authors are against scientism, not science itself.

Ziman, John. Prometheus Bound: Science in a dynamic steady state. (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

This book is even more easier to read for it is intended to address the general public. Ziman is strictly speaking not a practitioner of Science Studies but a physicist who has been active in promoting public understanding of science (PUS). In this book (and many other essays), Ziman establishes the label “dynamic steady state” as a succinct description of how “science will have to exist for the future within a fixed or slowly growing envelope of resources”.

Ziman emphasises that the so-called “defunding” is not the only, or even the major, cause of change, thus “steady state” does not refer exclusively to the new economics of science. Rather, it is the changing balance of contrary forces internal and external to science which brings about the transition to the “steady state” conditions, which is captured by Ziman in a laboratory metaphor: “One can think of it as a highly expansive substance, contained in a cylinder with fixed walls, and pressed down heavily from the outside by a piston. The balance between these forces cannot be sustained for long without, so to speak, a chemical transformation in the substance under pressure”.

Ziman’s thesis can be paraphrased using an older idiom. The so-called “social contract” is not only a contract between science and society, but also a contract for science and scientists. The social institution of science and the ethos of doing “good science” evolved together under its terms, and they stand and fall with the contract. Since the contract gained its legitimisation from the ideology of basic research, when this notion of basic research is strained under force, the contract is also increasingly challenged.

Daniel Greenberg. The Politics of Pure Science. (Chicago University Press, 1999).

This is a minor classic in the "Low Church" of Science Studies (see Note below). The book explores the (historical) role of “Big Science” in American society and politics. “Big Science” in the literature refers to expensive researches directed towards military uses (including nuclear and particle physics in the days of the Cold War), then aerospace, or biotechnological applications (what are more “fashionable” now), etc. The fact that Greenberg is a reporter and columnist writing on science speaks for itself –anyone can read the book with no difficulties. Whether the readers agree with Greenberg’s not so subtle criticism of the “collusion” between the funders of science and the scientific establishment is another question.

Note: Self-proclaimed “Social Epistemologist” Steve Fuller coined the distinction between High Church and Low Church to distinguish between two major streams in Science and Technology Studies. The Low Churchers are those focusing on the macroscopic, social, political and economic aspects of the institution of science and technology and medicine, and they are usually employed by think tanks or corporations or Government as experts and policy advisors. The High Churchers are much more theoretically sophisticated and philosophically more ambitious who carry out empirical and philosophical studies of the microscopic manufacturing of scientific facts and knowledge, and they are usually university professors.

[if_chf24]

多謝明姊妹的分享,你在這方面真的很有研究啊! 這是你的專業嗎？對不起, 我要等到今天才"發現"這條thread．我雖然很感興趣，但我怕我暫沒有時間參與你提議的小組。
Sorry ar.

[Ming Yuen Yee]

多謝明姊妹的分享,你在這方面真的很有研究啊! 這是你的專業嗎？對不起, 我要等到今天才"發現"這條thread．我雖然很感興趣，但我怕我暫沒有時間參與你提議的小組。
Sorry ar.
客氣了！多多指教。我對Science Studies的認識恐怕自我離開學術界之後，已經落伍。不過，我仍然「癡心」地訂閱例如Social Studies of Science 等期刊，盼望與這學科繼續一點未了的緣分。

其實我不是正式讀Science Studies的，你看我的自我介紹便知我「身世」複雜。

至於讀書小組，相信短期內也開不成，來日方長。:D