Sociology of Science

Lotfi A. Zadeh, in his article entitled “The Birth and Evolution of Fuzzy Logic” discusses R.E. Kalman’s and W. Kahan’s strong criticisms of fuzzy logic and presents his answers to these criticisms. The main subject of this debate consisted of a discussion of the criticisms targeting at the concept of the linguistic variable and, consequently, at fuzzy logic. The main aim of my paper is to expose the methods of the positive natural sciences which generally form the basis of these criticisms, to analyze and to evaluate scientific and epistemological theories of science historians and philosophers of science such as T.S. Kuhn and K.R. Popper, and to try to show the importance of fuzzy logic in this context. There is a huge amount of work to be done within the framework of the philosophy and sociology of science in order to provide some hints about the future of fuzzy logic, therefore it must be stated that this paper can only be considered as a modest contribution to this vast field.

Federal and state laws present marijuana as a dangerous substance requiring coercive control and forbid private citizens from possessing, selling, or growing it. Possession cases brought under these laws depend on a forensic confirmation of taxonomic identity as Cannabis sativa to establish and successfully prosecute a case. Hemp Industries Association v. DEA (2003), a recent federal appeals court ruling, is at odds with this forensic process. American citizens may legally possess and even consume a similar substance—hemp and its derivatives—which can be made into such everyday objects as clothing, rope, and food products. Yet these two plants are both Cannabis sativa and differ only in physical structure and degree of natural

One of the most hotly debated ideas in science studies is the claim that contemporary science is in the midst of a transformation. While ‘transformationalist’ arguments and concepts vary, their core principle is that the norms, values, and practices that have enforced the separation of science from society are being challenged by new expectations that scientists pursue closer connections to industry, government, and/or civil society and address research questions of immediate value to non-academic partners. While many major funding agencies have embraced this idea and now pressure scientists to enhance the ‘societal relevance’ of their work, the impact of these changes on scientific practices is still unclear. This article reports findings from a comparative meso-level analysis of 14 large Canadian research networks funded by an agency with an explicit transformationalist mandate - the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. Documents and web communications from these 14 NCEs, as well as from the central program administration office, are analyzed and compared to key transformationalist concepts, such as Mode 2 science, post-normal science, the triple helix model, academic capitalism, and strategic science. We find that transformationalist ideas have a strong rhetorical presence across the 14 NCE projects and the central office, but that a great deal of inconsistency and confusion exists at the level of implementation and assessment of outcomes. Easily quantifiable outputs, such as the commercialization of research findings, are favoured over softer qualitative outcomes such as public engagement and knowledge sharing. We conclude by arguing that the NCE program is having an observable impact on the rhetoric of science, but any resulting transformations in practice are incremental rather than radical.

In vocational education, there is an ongoing discussion about problems
occurring in school-work transitions and in relating school and work-based learning processes. Apprenticeships have been identified as valuable learning and working trajectories for making successful transitions and relations between school and work. However, they have been mostly located as activities taking place solely in the workplace with hardly any attention for what students do and learn during release days at school. Deploying the theoretical notion of boundary crossing, we conducted a study in Dutch senior secondary vocational laboratory education, investigating the
actions and interactions taking place between school and work during apprenticeships, taking into account both the cognitive and identity-related challenge of students’ boundary crossing. Specifically, we conducted workplace visits and analyzed how apprentices’ experiences at work are discussed and reflected upon with students and teachers at school. The findings reveal that what students are expected to learn in work practices is largely rendered invisible by the technologymediated, scripted and socially distributed nature of their work. They are educated as lab technicians doing much manual work, but become more operators of machines in the workplace. The release days seem to provide initial ways to explicate and reflect with the teacher on what is going on in work, but they can be exploited more fully
for vocational learning. Based on the results we discuss how school and work institutions can mutually feed each other in facilitating apprentices’ learning.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, migration has come up against new challenges. In all OECD countries except Turkey and Colombia, attitudes towards immigrants had seen improvements over the past decade. This progress is now put at risk because of the pandemic (OECD, 2020). The COVID-19 crisis is affecting the health, education, and jobs of already vulnerable immigrants and their children, as well as their broader integration. What is more, immigrants are considered as “scapegoats” for the spread of the virus. Hence, the German anti-discrimination agency has observed a rise of racist and anti-Semitic discrimination in light of the pandemic.
As the crisis continues and its negative impact increases, a number of policy options could be considered: 1.Monitoring the situation of immigrants and their children regarding health, housing, employment, and education while ensuring good living conditions, in order to avoid the spread of the virus. 2. Ensuring immigrants access to testing and treatment for COVID 19, so as to alleviate the disproportionate impact on migrants’ health. 3. Raising awareness of discrimination and reinforcing anti-discrimination measures. It is therefore important to provide financial help to  immigrants in order to mitigate unequal social and economic opportunities, which are a threat to social cohesion.
Finally, it would be useful to contemplate whether the real causes of racism which appear on any occasion, like the one of the pandemic, are mainly psychological. It would be beneficial to be aware and respect ourselves and the “Other” (foreigner) so as to avoid racist behaviour. People should be “sociable” in order to coexist in harmony (Tsatsaris, 2009, 2002).

One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. This article is an excerpt of pages 98-99 from the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson with a numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depicting the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Mural photograph: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

The article is concerned with the analysis of efficiency of the main scientific research impact indicators: the quantity of publications, citing index, Hirsch index, the impact-factor of scientific edition. Their efficiency is analyzed according to the results of the qualitative and quantitative estimation. The history of genesis of the standards of scientific citing and the process of formation and development of the Russian index of scientific citing system are studied.

Le vicende del Premio Nobel come chiave per comprendere l’immagine pubblica della scienza e i suoi cambiamenti tra società, politica e cultura.

Raccontando la storia e le storie del Premio Nobel, le singolari vicende, controversie e conflitti dietro al più prestigioso premio scientifico del mondo, i loro riflessi ed intrecci con la società, la politica e la cultura, il libro riflette sull’immagine pubblica della scienza e sui suoi cambiamenti dal primo Novecento ad oggi. Un percorso originale e avvincente per comprendere il ruolo sociale della scienza, attraverso le storie e i personaggi che hanno segnato il premio più famoso del mondo. Dalla appassionante e tormentata vicenda del Nobel ad Einstein, ai «fantasmi» dei Nobel clamorosamente mancati, fino alle assegnazioni più controverse e alle scoperte premiate, ma rivelatesi errate.

Healthcare workers were among the primary sectors that stood on the frontline amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. They play a significant role in giving medical aid and services, especially at the time when the world requires them the most. In addition, because of their direct exposure to the pandemic, they faced a variety of challenges, including physical risk from excessive workloads, psychological distress, and financial difficulties. This study explores the lived experiences and challenges faced by healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic, specifically: (1) to describe the experiences of healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic; (2) to describe the challenges faced by healthcare workers amidst the COVID 19 pandemic; and (3) to describe their coping strategies. Given that, the study utilized an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with ten (10) respondents from the community. Based on the study, the findings are the following: (1) All of the respondents were phy...

Despite their relative semantic proximity, the fields of public understanding of science (PUS) and social studies of science (SSS) / science and technology studies or science, technology and society (both STS) 1 appear to acknowledge their origins in different traditions, types of practice and trajectories. My purpose in this paper is to examine recent developments in both fields, observing the way they have been shaped in varying contexts and attempting to establish the extent to which they are converging towards a unified space of theory and practice, or whether each one operates relatively independently from the other. With this in mind, I provide a brief summary of the emergence of these fields in Europe, the United States and Latin America in order to identify the modulations characteristic of each context. I then go on to discuss the role played by PUS studies at two types

Il libro della psicologa del MIT di Boston Sherry Turkle, Insieme ma soli. Perché ci aspettiamo sempre più dalla tecnologia e sempre meno dagli altri, ha il merito di riuscire a far luce sull’intimità del rapporto uomo-robot. Tuttavia, ci troviamo di fronte ad un libro drammatico. In cosa consiste questo dramma? L’uomo che vive nelle società del cosiddetto benessere avanzato si trova di fronte ad un bivio: o cambiare la propria realtà oppure, costruirsene un’artificiale dove vivere assecondando i propri desideri, perlopiù inconsci. L’autrice ci dimostra, senza troppi moralismi, che proprio dove l’organizzazione del lavoro assorbe maggiori energie, le persone sono spinte potentemente verso un mondo virtuale dove realizzare i propri bisogni più intimi. Analizzando questo libro nella sua portata più ampia, mi pare che faccia da calco al reale e non da carta, e che non sia stato scritto per indicarci la via d’uscita per una realtà (che appare, per chi ha ancora occhi collegati a un cuore umano, di una tristezza disarmante) quanto piuttosto, per avvertirci dell’eventualità di una futura espropriazione da parte della logica dei robot e preparare il terreno per nuove e imprevedibili relazioni di dominio.

The process of informed consent is fundamental to basic scientific research with human subjects. As one aspect of the scientific enterprise, clinical drug trials rely on informed consent documents to safeguard the ethical treatment of trial participants. This paper explores the role of heteronormative assumptions within this process, postulating the ways in which the biomedical texts that make up the informed consent process may render gay, lesbian, and non-binary gender-identifying participants discursively invisible. We argue that trial criteria and informed consent practices may reproduce a binary sex and gender system in which ‘male’ and ‘female’ subjects are presumed to identify as heterosexual and engage in procreative sex. This binary is not one of equivalence as female subjects who are able to have children may be wholly excluded or excessively controlled in studies while male subjects are merely admonished to use medically sanctioned birth control methods. Furthermore, we claim that the assumption of procreative heterosexual behaviors may pervade the informed consent process and the mundane practices of biomedical research more broadly. Given that these assumptions have important implications for risk and inclusivity in clinical trials, in the last part of this paper we outline directions for future research on the reproduction of heteronormativity in scientific discourse and practice.

Keywords: heteronormativity, biomedical research, clinical trials, gender binary, scientific discourse.

O texto original de John Law aproxima a atividade científica da atividade empresarial, através da gestão que justapõe elementos heterogêneos para obtenção de determinados fins: Law, J. (1989). Le laboratoire et ses réseaux. la science et ses réseuax - genèse et circulation des faits scientifiques. M. Callon. Paris, Éditions La Découverte: 117-148.

Soziologische Zeitdiagnosen sind ein zwischen akademischem Diskurs und öffentlicher Debatte angesiedeltes Genre, in dem die Gegenwart als Epochenbruch dargestellt wird. In diesem Beitrag wird erstens das Verhältnis zwischen Zeitdiagnosen und akademischer Soziologie umrissen. Zweitens werden einige Unterschiede zwischen Zeitdiagnosen und Gesellschaftstheorien diskutiert. Drittens wird das für Zeitdiagnosen charakteristische Argumentieren im Modus "stiller Revolutionen" nachgezeichnet: die Behauptung, sozialer Wandel sei umfassend und gegenwärtig und dennoch unsichtbar, d.h. latent. Der Beitrag schließt mit einigen Überlegungen zur Legitimität zeitdiagnostischen Argumentierens in der Soziologie und einem Ausblick auf weiterführende Forschung zu einer Wissenschaftssoziologie der Sozialwissenschaften.

It is difficult to define perspective within sets that are self belonging. For example in the study of mankind, anthropology, both men and their studies fall into the same category that contains the topic outline. This situation entails a universal quality of uniqueness, an instance of it, to the topic of anthropology that may be viewed in parallel with the topic of nature as the set of unique particulars. Yet one might assent to the notion in the inclusive study of man, anthropology, that nothing in its’ content should conceivably be construed to exceed it, though in approaches to the topic, reference to the topic of nature, unavoided, refer to the scientific topic of nature in which contemporary notions, when contrasted, exceed the perceptual experience of nature. In this presentation problems in approaches and in the application of available tools for analysis to the study of man will be discussed. Framed with respect to a concept of parallelism, notions and stimuli are introduced to augment and reorient towards a more creative perspective with respect to the organization of first perspective considerations in studies. The theories of relativity, the idea of mathematical relations for simultaneous events, the presence of artifactual paradoxes as they are reflected in thinking and the scientific tools applied towards investigations are discussed and hopefully highlighted so that they may hopefully be perceived distinctly form realities involved in the pursuit of studies.

The expression of an Islamic political radicalism in Britain has been one of the most dramatic developments in recent decades. Islamic Radicalism and Multicultural Politics explores the nature of this phenomenon by analysing the origins of Islam and its historical contact with Western Europe and Britain, and the emergence of Islamic political radicalism in the Muslim world and in the West.

Tahir Abbas draws on historical analysis and contemporary case studies to explore the post-war immigration and integration of Muslim groups, the complex relations that exist between a secular liberal Britain and a diverse but multifaceted Islam, and the extent of social and economic inequalities that affect Muslims as individual citizens and in local area communities. He shows how violent extremism among British Muslims is in reality influenced by a range of issues, including the factors of globalisation and contemporary politics, media and culture. Analysing and dissecting public policy, Abbas offers suggestions for tackling the major social, political and economic questions facing British Muslims in the post-7/7 era.

An important contribution to the study of religion, ‘race’ and ethnicity in modern Britain, this accessible work will be of interest to anyone working in the field of Islamic studies, sociology and political radicalism.

Reviews

‘Much of the commentary on Islam today is shrill and one-dimensional which further widens the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims. Because Tahir Abbas’ Islamic Radicalism and Multicultural Politics is reasoned, scholarly and aims to provide historical context it is a powerful corrective. Being both British and Muslim allows him to present us with a truly insider’s account.’ - Professor Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University

‘In the face of so many superficial denunciations of radical Islam in Britain, Tahir Abbas provides an account that is both broad in its historical coverage and profound in its social analysis. In his sweep of several centuries of South Asian Islamic thinking, Abbas includes the conflicts engendered by British colonialism, and the complex processes of immigration and settlement in Britain. He is especially good in his own speciality, the patterns of inequality in education and in the labour market, through which he shows how the global growth in radical thinking can articulate with domestic social disparities. Here is a distinctive voice entering the debate.’ - John R. Bowen, Washington University in St. Louis.

‘Terrorist incidents have created controversy about Islam and Muslims, and British Muslims have been part of this debate. Media and lay people take a very superficial view and blame Islam and Muslims for radicalisation. This book is an in-depth study of the causes of radicalisation of a section of British Muslims. It is a very useful study indeed and all those who want to understand this complex phenomenon should read the book: Dr Abbas has done a good job!’ - Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, India

‘A remarkable book, well researched, comprehensive in its coverage and highly relevant to contemporary British political concerns.’ - John Rex, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Warwick University"

How can historical examination of the Pleistocene extinction question in Australia shed light on ways that scientific debate is influenced by the cultures of science and extra-scientific concerns? In Europe, investigation of the antiquity of man occurred against the background of the invention of glaciology and its incorporation into Charles Lyell’s gradualist paradigm, and speculation about fossil fauna. Broadly speaking, these three elements define the terms of a debate that continues today: climatic versus human causes for Pleistocene megafaunal extinction. This paper briefly considers four case studies which illuminate the often contingent nature of scientific knowledge. From nineteenth-century London to 1880s Adelaide to Melbourne in the first decade of the twentieth century to Australian Quaternists in the twenty-first, acceptance or otherwise of Aboriginal testimony and other more material evidence has been conditioned by scientific or political agenda as much as by its intrinsic reliability. These arguments are won in public forums by the weight of rhetoric more than the weight of evidence, perhaps one reason that less deterministic, multi-causal models are rarely debated in the popular media.

Key words: extinction, debate, knowledge, Australia, megafauna.

In this paper, we analyse patients’ perspectives on the introduction of artificial intelli- gence (AI) and robotic systems in healthcare. Based on citizens’ experiences when hospitalised for COVID-19, we explore how the opinions and concerns regarding healthcare automation could not be disassociated from a context of high pressure on the health system and lack of resources, and a politi- cal discourse on AI and robotics; a situation intensified by the pandemic. Thus, through the analysis of a set of interviews, a series of issues are identified that revolve around the following: the empirical effects of imagined robots, the vivid experience of citizens with the care crisis, the discomfort of the ineffective, the virtualised care assemblages, the human-based face-to-face relationships, and the automatisation of healthcare tasks. In light of these results, we show the variability in patients’ perspectives on AI and robotic systems and explain it by distinguishing two interpretive repertoires that account for different views and opinions: a well-being repertoire and a responsibility repertoire. Both interpretative repertoires are relevant in order to grasp the complexity of citizens’ approaches to automatisation of healthcare. Attending to both allows us to move beyond the dominant (political) discourse of technology markets as the only way to respond to healthcare challenges. Thus, we can analyse and integrate patients’ perspectives to develop AI and robotic systems in healthcare to serve citizens’ needs and collective well-being.

of the National System of Researchers (SNI) in Mexico.

*Paper presented at the 4th Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Social Sciences, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.



Análisis sobre el uso de redes sociales académicas por parte de investigadores adscritos al área de Sociología dentro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) en México.

*Trabajo presentado en el 4º Congreso Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Salamanca, España.

Conclusion générale d’un ouvrage collectif, ce chapitre fait la synthèse des enjeux et des problèmes soulevés par la notion de charisme en sciences sociales. Il revient à la fois sur les difficultés de la conceptualisation du charisme chez Weber lui-même et sur les usages extensifs qui ont pu être faits par la suite de cette notion, au point de la banaliser. Le charisme apparaît en définitive comme un concept provisoire dont l’ « utilité scientifique marginale » est aujourd’hui négative ; qui illustre les risques plus généraux pesant sur la méthode idéaltypique ; et qu’il faut donc oser abandonner au profit de concepts plus relationnels, comme « capital symbolique » et « saillance situationnelle ».

In an effort to carve a distinct place for social facts without lapsing into a holistic ontology, John Greenwood has sought to define social phenomena solely in terms of the attitudes held by the actor(s) in question. I argue that his proposal allows for the possibility of a “lone collectivity” that is (1) unpalatable in its own right and (2) incompatible with the claim that sociology is autonomous from psychology. As such, I conclude that the relevant beliefs need to be held by more than one person.

At first glance, Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree is an odd book to be reviewed in Cosmos and Taxis. It is largely about trees. Simard is a professor of Forest Ecology at UBC, Vancouver. She is best known for her initial extraordinary finding that many trees are connected together through mycorrhizal fungi, and these connections enable trees even of different species to support one another rather than simply existing as isolated individuals. Her Ph.D. dissertation detailing her research led to front page billing in Nature, one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. It was there the term "wood wide web" was coined to describe her discovery. It caught on. Simard and others' subsequent discoveries demonstrate trees are far more interlinked with one another, and with other organisms, than scientists had ever imagined. In her research, Simard demonstrated trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, recognized neighbors,

This article provides an overview of the origins and development of green
chemistry. Aiming to contribute to the understanding of green chemistry, basically from a
historical point of view, this overview argues that contextual influences and the user
friendliness of the term are drivers for the explosive growth of green chemistry. It is
observed that political support for its development has been significant, in which the
Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 was a formal political starting-point, but informally the
origins of green chemistry go back to before 1990. US EPA played an important role in all
this, but did not solely contribute to the growth of green chemistry.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.