Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
of control. Doing good and interesting work means keeping watch and
being watched.
All these observations suggest that biological knowledge produc-
tion—in genomics at least—has undergone a fundamental transforma-
tion. Authorized and valuable knowledge is high-quality, high-quantity
knowledge; it must be checked for errors, scrutinized, and monitored
throughout its production. It must be accountable, both in the sense
that it be carefully costed and that its provenance (recorded in the data-
base) be rigorously checked. It was the computer—as a data manage-
ment machine—that allowed the concepts of lean management, Six
Sigma, and so on to be implemented in biology; the mass production of
(sequence) data as a product required computers in order to make the
sequencing process visible, manageable, and accountable. At the Broad,
the organization of biology in accord with “business principles” has
deeply shaped practices of knowledge making. Computers have created
new ways of making authorized and valuable knowledge through care-
ful accounting and management of data.
Conclusions
Wet-lab biologists, computational biologists, and system administrators
use and relate to the spaces around them differently. These different
workers are acutely aware of these differences—the status that is attrib-
uted to biological knowledge is dependent on the spaces from which it
emerges. The highest status is accorded to knowledge produced in the
highly visible front spaces and wet labs, while lower status accrues to
knowledge associated with the sorts of technical production that take
place in the back spaces of the Broad. Moreover, the layout and de-
sign of the spaces recapitulate and reiterate the kinds of knowledge that
are produced within them: back spaces promise reliable practices of
replication and production, while front spaces adhere to more stereo-
typical images of scientifi c practice. And the movement of people and
data through and between spaces plays a crucial role in validating and
certifying knowledge.
All economies benefi t some and disadvantage others: they are sets
of power relations. The production and consumption of bioinformatic
knowledge confers prestige on academically trained biologists while
restricting credit for data producers. As a consequence, bioinformatic
work continues to be described and understood as fundamentally bi-
ological—that is, differences in visibility and power cause us to under-
estimate and undervalue the contributions of managers, physicists,
