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Left: Sir John Kendrew
assembles a molecular model of myoglobin. Right: A computer-rendered 3-D model
of myoglobin. Kendrew photo courtesy of MRC
Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Used under a CC BY 2.5 license.
Myoglobin image by Aza Toth. Public domain image.
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What we do not see determines what we know at least as much
as what we do see. Science is no exception to this rule. It is as subject to
the vagaries of social, political and other contingent forces as any other
subject.
One of the classic examples of how expectations shape
outcomes is the “invisible gorilla” experiment, in which subjects are asked to
count basketball passes between two players. During the passes, a person in a
gorilla suit walks onscreen, looks at the camera, and pounds her chest before
exiting the scene.[i]
Only about half the people who watch the video see the gorilla. The
demonstration gave rise to the term “inattentional blindness” – that is, people
see what they expect to see, often at the cost of noticing more compelling
information.[ii]
The study of science’s history and institutions is replete
with examples of a given viewpoint resulting in a particular set of practices
or interpretations. Both material and social factors play a role in shaping
these viewpoints.
Materiality has a profound effect on science. Christoph
Meinel points out that three-dimensional stick-and-ball models, which were
ubiquitous in molecular research before the advent of sophisticated computer
programs, were a translation of the chemist's vision as a “builder of a new
world out of man-made materials.” Eventually, the models took on a greater
sense of the “reality” of molecular structure for these researchers than the
actual chemicals.[iii]
The predominance of physical molecular models had a major
impact on the graphics programs that replaced them. X-ray crystallographers
demanded the ability to manipulate the structures they were working with in
real time, and computer developers took pains to build this sense of physical
manipulation into their programs. Now, as then, crystallographers incorporate a
strong sense of embodied ownership into the work they do on molecular
structures. No one, they feel, can know their molecules the way they do. The
tacit knowledge they gain from their projects is something to which other
scientists, who eventually come to work with these same molecules, are blind.[iv]
Blindness finds its way into the scientific process through
social structures in many forms. Any student working in a lab toward a Ph.D.
soon discovers that, throughout her undergraduate years, she has been presented
with experiments that reinforce the notion that science is straightforward work
with a high success rate. These impressions are dashed when she begins doing
independent work and finds out that the majority of day-to-day science fails.[v]
Science historian Robert E. Kohler argues that the cultural
spaces of science laboratories themselves actively shape what goes on inside
them, and can be broken down broadly into distinct early modern, modern, and
postmodern styles that broadly reflect the elite social sensibilities of the
times in which they are built and used.[vi]
Language and the social milieu very much inform the
impressions people have about seemingly scientific phenomena. Definitions have
practical implications. The term “child abuse,” for instance, was not invented
until the early 1960s. It eventually won out over the term “battered child
syndrome.” The latter term did not include actions commonly recognized as abuse
today, such as sexual touching or neglect. The meaning of “child abuse” has
therefore been able to expand to encompass many more types of activity than
previously used terms, and has shifted significantly since its inception the
moral, judicial, and medical reactions used to deal with it.[vii]
Material and social characteristics often shape the practice
of science simultaneously. As in the transition from moveable molecular models
to manipulable computer graphics programs, social judgments about how a
procedure “should feel” can introduce path dependency into new technologies.
Early music synthesizer technology demonstrated this
phenomenon particularly well. Two rival inventors, Robert Moog and Don Buchla,
created machines to reproduce musical sound. Buchla did not standardize his
synthesizers, seeing them as a means for an exploration of the avant-garde.
Moog made his inventions easy-to-use, and even built them so they could play
using the familiar piano keyboard. Moog's more recognizable device succeeded,
whereas Buchla's faded.[viii]
Moog's success had nothing to do with technical superiority; he simply paid
more attention to what other people wanted and allowed those social forces to
modify his instrument.
Even historical judgments about the practice of science
change depending on which aspects one pays attention to. The “distortionist”
camp of science historians, for instance, tends to portray the militarized
science of the Cold War period as fundamentally perverting the scientific
process. Yet this was not the case for seismology, as science policy expert Kai-Henrik
Barth points out. While military programs invested heavily in the field, the
research agenda for seismology remained largely unchanged before, during and
after this influx. As Barth notes, the distortionist view assumes a normative
position based on unknowable speculation about how science would have
progressed without military patronage.[ix]
With the myriad opportunities for science to be blinded,
should we therefore lament that we cannot be absolutely sure of anything we
know? No. The foundation of science is provisional truth; its success rests on
the constant reevaluation of seemingly resolved questions. This is where new
vistas open, where discoveries challenge former dogmas. In those moments, the
gorilla suddenly becomes visible.
[i] Christopher
Chabris and Daniel Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive
Us (New York: Broadway Paperbacks,
2009), http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/, 8-23-13; http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html, 10-5-13;
Manohla Dargis, “What You See Is What You Get,” The New York Times (July 10, 2011), AR13, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/movies/why-difficult-movies-are-more-um-difficult.html?pagewanted=all, 10-5-13;
Anna Maerker, "Review: Why Do They Look Like That? Three-dimensional Models in Science," Social Studies of Science 37 (2007), 961-965, http://sss.sagepub.com/content/37/6/961.full.pdf+html, 10-23-13;
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