Chemistry Reference
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The answer to the former surely has to involve the relationship be-
tween the group's production of new knowledge (in the form of publica-
tions, patents, and textbooks for students) and the prevailing culture: I
cannot do better to define this otherwise vague and catch-all entity than
to refer to anthropological practice. I adopt a by now classic characteriza-
tion:
(The ethnographer figures out what the devil natives are up to) by
searching out and analysing the symbolic forms - words, images, institu-
tions, behaviors - in terms of which, in each place, people actually repre-
sented themselves to themselves and to one another. [Geertz 1983]
As to the second question, given the difficulty of the task, my methodol-
ogy will be eclectic. My first tool for gaining a glimpse at the self-image
of chemists takes advantage of the strong iconic dimension of chemical
language. Modes of representation may somehow provide insight into
their self-representations too. My second tool is to focus on landmark
achievements, those which the chemical community regards as highly
significant, as another step towards this elusive goal, the definition of a
collective self-image. The third, obviously related tool is the considera-
tion of eminent chemists. These women and men, selected for admiration
by their peers, stand for something. A fourth tool is topographic: what is,
at a given time, the territory of the chemist? What does it include? Even
more important, what does it exclude? Blind spots, delayed recognition
of achievements can thus be highly significant. The fifth and last tool, all
too obvious, is a look at the vogues and fads: when a large number of
chemists rush towards the same goals, this involves individual self-inter-
est, which in turn reflects the image individuals hold of themselves, an
image both furthered and reinforced by the group.
I shall resort to periodization, to subdivisions into decades.
1
It has the
advantage of simplicity, and the further merit of being neither too coarse
nor too fine-grained.
1
The periodization I suggest is of course debatable. For instance, it has been proposed
to decompose the activity in chemical science during the last 25 years along the cate-
gories of determination of protein structures; genetic engineering's debut; molecular
mass production (combinatorial chemistry); microscopes, polymers, and lasers; light,
sound, and atmosphere (sonochemistry & atmospheric chemistry); buckyballs and
beyond (Gwynne 2001).
