Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
structions. Rejecting positivist notions that science obtains knowledge
through neutral observation of what happens in nature, many scholars
assert that knowledge is to a large extent constructed rather than “dis-
covered.” From this belief it becomes possible to reexamine or “inter-
rogate” objects in the world once regarded as purely natural, and find
them to be intricate combinations of cultural, social, and physical fea-
tures. An eagerness to identify and interpret social constructs and
blended entities now extends to the names of the activities and institu-
tions once called “science and technology,” but now renamed “techno-
science” to acknowledge that, if one looks carefully, the two realms
continually flow into and through each other.
There are a number of ways in which terms like hybrid and cyborg,
and the intellectual strategies associated with them, have been useful to
scholars. This terminology and perspective makes it possible to account
for the interactions of scientific knowledge, technological change, and
social practice in ways not limited by conceptions of nature and society
inherited from earlier times. Thus, discussions of power and how it
works—including power derived from natural sources—can be depicted
in a new light, as a set of hybrid creations whose description enables us
to propose new strategies for dealing with sources of power. Similarly,
discussions of various knowledge claims about the natural realm need
not commit us to judgments that naturalize things that are better
regarded as social and cultural constructions, as the history of biologi-
cal taxonomy and medical definition of various diseases, to cite two
examples, clearly reveals. By looking at products, institutions, and living
inhabitants of modern society as hybrids, elaborate mixes of elements
from culture and nature, social theorists sidestep the badly mistaken
identifications and explanations inherited from earlier generations.
Approaches of this kind have played a significant and, in my view,
largely positive role in helping historians, philosophers, and social sci-
entists reexamine the concepts, theories, research programs, political ide-
ologies, and social policies that have surrounded science and technology
in modern society. There have been many fruitful debates about when
and how distinctions among animals/humans/machines have been
drawn, and about the practices involved in drawing them.
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Inquiries in
this vein also have interesting political implications, for it is evident that
projects in Western science and technology frequently have imposed
