“How Many Individuals Consider Themselves to Be Cell Biologists but Are Informed by the Journal That Their Work Is Not Cell Biology” (2022)
Hanna Lucia Worliczek (Author)
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 45
Issue: 3
Pages: 344-354
Edition Details: Issue theme: Embracing Ambivalence and Change
Language: English
What can we gain from co-analyzing experimental cultures, regionalization, and disciplinary phenomena of late twentieth century life sciences under our historiographic looking glass? This essay investigates the potential of such a strategy for the case of cell biology after 1960. By merging perspectives from historical epistemology inspired by the work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger with a focus on boundary work in the realm of scientific publishing, community building, and disciplinary norms, a set of understudied scientific practices is exposed. These practices, historically subsumed under the label descriptive, have been as central in cell biology as hypothesis-driven research aiming at mechanistic explanations of cellular function. Against the background of an increasing molecular-mechanistic imperative in cell biology since the late 1960s, knowledge from descriptive practices was often judged as having low value but was nonetheless frequently cited and considered essential. Investigating the underlying epistemic practices and their interactions with disciplinary gatekeeping phenomena (as policed by journals and learned societies) provides historiographic access to the plurality of experimental cultures of cell biology, scattered into many interdisciplinary research fields—with some of them only partially engaged with mechanistic questions.
...MoreArticle Lara Keuck; Kärin Nickelsen (2022) Introduction: Embracing Ambivalence and Change. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp. 291-300).
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History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Science, Technology and Human Values
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
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