Abstract
In recent years, there has been a wide, interdisciplinary focus on experiment in science (Batens & Van Bendegem, 1988; Collins, 1985; Galison, 1987; Hacking, 1983; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Knorr-Cetina & Mulkay, 1983; Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Pinch, 1986; Rouse, 1987; Shapin & Schaffer, 1985). All are agreed in portraying the laboratory as a site where an activity central to science occurs. From the perspective of the sociology of scientific knowledge it is in the laboratory that scientists, instead of passively discovering reality, actively manufacture knowledge. Scientific experiment, rather than being in Reichenbach’s (1951: 97) phrase, simply ‘a question addressed to nature’, is seen as the opportunity for scientists through a variety of social, literary and technical practices to accomplish ‘facticity’, ‘truth’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘efficacy’ (Latour & Woolgar, 1979, 180–3).
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Turnbull, D., Stokes, T. (1990). Manipulable Systems and Laboratory Strategies in a Biomedical Institute. In: Le Grand, H.E. (eds) Experimental Inquiries. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2057-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2057-6_6
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