Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
assistant. It is the place in which illegitimate experiments are carried out.
This implies that dangerous research is taking place outside of public
institutions such as university laboratories and government facilities
(although, in fact, such institutions house their share of dangerous prac-
tices). Scientists working in their home basements are outsiders. They
have isolated themselves from the critical observation of the scientific
community because they feel misunderstood, often because they are
obsessed with research of questionable goals and methods which they see
justified, however, by the success they expect to have.
A fifth of all films in the sample portray science as a secret activity
carried out in private basements. In contrast, over 40% of the movies that
deal with chemistry are in the alchemist tradition,
i.e.
showing research
being carried out at home. Next to chemistry, no other field except medi-
cal research stands out for being associated with this characteristic. Other
fields are more likely to be associated with research taking place either as
field work (anthropology, zoology, biology, psychology) or at universi-
ties (humanities). Chemistry as a discipline depicted in movies has the
second highest share of secrecy (behind robotics!) as a feature.
On the level of disciplines we may conclude, albeit with some simpli-
fication, that fields that are generally considered socially and/or ethically
problematic are also associated with research taking place in secrecy and
in places isolated from the critical eyes of scientific peers or the lay pub-
lic. The unproblematic disciplines typically operate outdoors or in public
settings such as universities and government laboratories (Weingart
et al
.
2003, p. 285).
3.4 How knowledge is gained
The activity of 'doing science', of research, is usually hidden from the
public eye. Precisely because the laboratory is a strange world, because
the instruments used by scientists are foreign, and above all, because the
methods used are both obscure and powerful, the ways in which scien-
tists gain their knowledge are of particular interest. They arouse suspi-
cion like the methods of jugglers at country fairs who were, after all, the
eighteenth-century traveling demonstrators of electricity in public places
(Hochadel 2003, ch. 4).
