Science in action

What Hacker News says

1. HillRatJul 2023
   Lots of options out there. A few from my bookshelf: Bijker's "Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs" is a case-study-centric work that seeks to build a general theory of STS. Nye's "Technology Matters" is less a work of theory than a critique that poses core questions about how society should seek to integrate technical advances. Latour's "Science in Action," "Reassembling the Social," and "Aramis" are great examples of his approach to whole-of-system analysis of sociotechnical systems. Rogers' "Diffusion of Innovation" is a classic work theorizing how innovation is communicated through social networks.

   MIT Press has a wide variety of books that cover specific topics in history, most of which have great theoretic interest: Agar's "The Government Machine," dealing with the evolution of technology and expertise within the UK government; Medina's "Cybernetic Revolutionaries," about Beer's Cybersyn project; and Ensmenger's "The Computer Boys Take Over," about the cultural development of the "programmer," are all great reads.

   Also, you can look beyond pure technology for interesting adjacencies: for example, Schatz's "The Genius of the System" describes how changes in technology and management production radically upended Hollywood, resulting in the studio system that dominated from the 1930s through the 1950s, while Harris' "Pictures at a Revolution" picks up the pieces at the end of that system, discussing the rise of "New Hollywood," driven by cultural and technical (particularly the French use of inexpensive filming technologies to create the New Wave) forces.

   Show morethread
2. tpetricekJan 2017
   If you'd like a longer read along the lines of this note, then you might enjoy Bruno Latour's Science in Action: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Action-Scientists-Engineers...

   I found the book super interesting in terms of explaining how innovations happen and how we talk about them in retrospect. Although it is about science, I think a lot of the thinking would apply to programming innovations too. And unlike most blog posts, there is actually some serious sociological research behind it :-).

   Show morethread
3. sunirAug 2009
   I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are rather than some more objective criterion like published papers or citations.

   Therefore, to some programmers, if someone else is likely to do something more brilliant than you, it's motivating to stop them. Especially so, since if you are successful in stopping them, your own perceived merit goes up as the smarter dog in the room.

   This game is reinforced by the game of karma on many programmer discussion sites. I have to admit, I succomb, as I want my karma to cross 200 so I can downvote. It's a stupid goal, but my ego is prone to it.

   P.S. Please note that science is also prone to this behaviour, and programming and science have the same solution to the problem: actually building a verifiable { experiment / correct theorem / more efficient algorithm }.

   cf. Science in Action by Bruno Latour (1987), which I tried to summarize on http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScie...

   Show morethread
4. idoubtitNov 2024
   I can agree with the "lyrical philosopher" quote, but for anyone with a background in science that think that Bruno Latour was a "serious man", I suggest reading the book that made him famous: "Science in Action". It's so bad that it's funny. Out of his 7 rules for studying experimental science, the third one is outstanding:

   > Since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Nature's representation, not its consequence, we can never use this consequence, Nature, to explain how and why a controversy has been settled. (Science in Action)

   Bruno Latour was among the selected few that were criticized in Sokal and Bricmont's "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science".

   Show morethread
5. ubasuDec 2015
   Please keep in mind that the book by Bruno Latour referenced here (Science in Action) and another of his articles was lampooned in the Sokal Affair because Latour was confused about relativity:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

   http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/trans...

   http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html

   http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html

   Show morethread