Compare, standardize and settle agreement: On some usual metrological problems

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 571-601

  Mallard, Alexandre ^a  

^a ORANGE LABS   (France)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0032358072     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631298028004003     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. International Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology (Bilingual French-English) (Paris: Organisation Internationale de Métrologie Légale, 1993), Sections 1.18-1.19.
2. Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Chapter 14, 233-45; see also Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
3. Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Chapter 14, 233-45; see also Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
4. The following volumes contain many (but not all) of these studies: Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 1992); Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Albert Van Helden and Thomas Hankins (eds), Instruments, Osiris, Vol. 9 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
5. The following volumes contain many (but not all) of these studies: Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 1992); Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Albert Van Helden and Thomas Hankins (eds), Instruments, Osiris, Vol. 9 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
6. The following volumes contain many (but not all) of these studies: Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 1992); Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Albert Van Helden and Thomas Hankins (eds), Instruments, Osiris, Vol. 9 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
7. The following volumes contain many (but not all) of these studies: Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 1992); Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Albert Van Helden and Thomas Hankins (eds), Instruments, Osiris, Vol. 9 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
8. The following volumes contain many (but not all) of these studies: Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens (eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions, and Science (Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 1992); Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990); David Gooding, Trevor Pinch and Simon Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Albert Van Helden and Thomas Hankins (eds), Instruments, Osiris, Vol. 9 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
9. In this paper, I do not address the debate over the strict definition of the terms 'precision', 'exactness' and 'accuracy': see Wise (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 7.
10. Christian Licoppe, La Formation de la Pratique Scientifique: Le Discours de l'Expérimentation en France et en Angleterre (1630-1820) (Paris: La Découverte, 1996).
11. Jan Golinski, 'The Nicety of Experiment: Precision of Measurement and Precision of Reasoning in Late Eighteenth-Century Chemistry', in Wise (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 47-78.
12. Simon Schaffer, 'Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation', Science in Context Vol. 2 (1988), 115-45.
13. Kathryn M. Olesko, 'The Meaning of Precision: The Exact Sensibility in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany', in Wise (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 103-35.
14. The notion of a 'quantifying spirit' is particular to Heilbron's approach: see J.L. Heilbron, 'The Measure of Enlightenment', in Frängsmyr, Heilbron & Rider (eds), op. cit. note 3, 207-42. For some critical comments on this approach, see Olesko, op. cit. note 8, 105.
15. The notion of a 'quantifying spirit' is particular to Heilbron's approach: see J.L. Heilbron, 'The Measure of Enlightenment', in Frängsmyr, Heilbron & Rider (eds), op. cit. note 3, 207-42. For some critical comments on this approach, see Olesko, op. cit. note 8, 105.
16. See Simon Schaffer, 'Accurate Measurement is an English Science', in Wise (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 135-73.
17. Ken Alder, 'A Revolution to Measure: The Political Economy of the Metric System in France', in Wise (ed.), op. cit. note 3, 39-72.
18. See, for instance, the role of the Excise system in British brewery industries in the Victorian period, as documented by Otto Sibum in his paper, 'Les gestes de la mesure: Joule, les pratiques de la brasserie et la science', in Yves Cohen and Dominique Pestre (eds), Special Issue on the History of Technology, Annales Histoires, Science Sociales (forthcoming, Spring 1998). See also the works of Ted Porter, on quantification in accountancy and in various domains of science and technology: Theodore M. Porter, 'Making Things Quantitative', Science in Context, Vol. 7 (1994), 389-407; Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
19. See, for instance, the role of the Excise system in British brewery industries in the Victorian period, as documented by Otto Sibum in his paper, 'Les gestes de la mesure: Joule, les pratiques de la brasserie et la science', in Yves Cohen and Dominique Pestre (eds), Special Issue on the History of Technology, Annales Histoires, Science Sociales (forthcoming, Spring 1998). See also the works of Ted Porter, on quantification in accountancy and in various domains of science and technology: Theodore M. Porter, 'Making Things Quantitative', Science in Context, Vol. 7 (1994), 389-407; Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
20. See, for instance, the role of the Excise system in British brewery industries in the Victorian period, as documented by Otto Sibum in his paper, 'Les gestes de la mesure: Joule, les pratiques de la brasserie et la science', in Yves Cohen and Dominique Pestre (eds), Special Issue on the History of Technology, Annales Histoires, Science Sociales (forthcoming, Spring 1998). See also the works of Ted Porter, on quantification in accountancy and in various domains of science and technology: Theodore M. Porter, 'Making Things Quantitative', Science in Context, Vol. 7 (1994), 389-407; Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
21. Simon Schafter, 'Late Victorian Metrology and its Instrumentation: a Manufactory of Ohms', in Bud & Cozzens (eds), op. cit. note 3, 23-56; Bruce Hunt, 'The Ohm is Where the Art is: British Telegraph Engineers and the Development of Electrical Standards', in Van Helden & Hankins (eds), op. cit. note 3, 43-62.
22. Simon Schafter, 'Late Victorian Metrology and its Instrumentation: a Manufactory of Ohms', in Bud & Cozzens (eds), op. cit. note 3, 23-56; Bruce Hunt, 'The Ohm is Where the Art is: British Telegraph Engineers and the Development of Electrical Standards', in Van Helden & Hankins (eds), op. cit. note 3, 43-62.
23. This situation arises when an experiment and the phenomenon that the latter is supposed to measure are highly uncertain: the reliability of the instrument and the existence of the phenomenon enter into an inextricable circularity relation, and this problematizes agreement on the meaning of results. Calibrating the instrument using metrological procedures is one way to exit from this vicious circle, provided that these procedures are themselves accepted in the associated scientific community. Some of the cases presented in this paper exhibit typical 'regress' situations, with different outcomes. See Harry M. Collins, 'The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiment in Physics', Sociology, Vol. 9 (1975), 205-24, and Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London: Sage, 1985), esp. 84.
24. This situation arises when an experiment and the phenomenon that the latter is supposed to measure are highly uncertain: the reliability of the instrument and the existence of the phenomenon enter into an inextricable circularity relation, and this problematizes agreement on the meaning of results. Calibrating the instrument using metrological procedures is one way to exit from this vicious circle, provided that these procedures are themselves accepted in the associated scientific community. Some of the cases presented in this paper exhibit typical 'regress' situations, with different outcomes. See Harry M. Collins, 'The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiment in Physics', Sociology, Vol. 9 (1975), 205-24, and Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London: Sage, 1985), esp. 84.
25. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tool for the Job: At Work in Twentieth Century Life Sciences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Fujimura, 'Crafting Science: Standardized Packages, Boundary Objects and "Translation"', in Andrew Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 168-211; Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, 'Institutional Ecology, "Translations" and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (August 1989), 387-420; Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, 'Standardization in Action Achieving Local Universality through Medical Protocols', ibid., Vol. 27, No. 2 (April 1997), 273-305.
26. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tool for the Job: At Work in Twentieth Century Life Sciences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Fujimura, 'Crafting Science: Standardized Packages, Boundary Objects and "Translation"', in Andrew Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 168-211; Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, 'Institutional Ecology, "Translations" and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (August 1989), 387-420; Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, 'Standardization in Action Achieving Local Universality through Medical Protocols', ibid., Vol. 27, No. 2 (April 1997), 273-305.
27. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tool for the Job: At Work in Twentieth Century Life Sciences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Fujimura, 'Crafting Science: Standardized Packages, Boundary Objects and "Translation"', in Andrew Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 168-211; Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, 'Institutional Ecology, "Translations" and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (August 1989), 387-420; Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, 'Standardization in Action Achieving Local Universality through Medical Protocols', ibid., Vol. 27, No. 2 (April 1997), 273-305.
28. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tool for the Job: At Work in Twentieth Century Life Sciences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Fujimura, 'Crafting Science: Standardized Packages, Boundary Objects and "Translation"', in Andrew Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 168-211; Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, 'Institutional Ecology, "Translations" and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (August 1989), 387-420; Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, 'Standardization in Action Achieving Local Universality through Medical Protocols', ibid., Vol. 27, No. 2 (April 1997), 273-305.
29. Karin Knorr Cetina, 'Laboratory Studies: The Cultural Approach to the Study of Science', in Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen and Trevor Pinch (eds), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (London & Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage/ 4S, 1994), 140-66.
30. Bruno Latour, 'Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World', in Karin Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay (eds), Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science (London: Sage, 1983), 141-70.
31. Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio, 'Interlaboratory Life: Regulating Flow Cytometry', in Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Ilana Löwy and Dominique Pestre (eds), The Invisible Industrialist: Manufacturers and the Construction of Scientific Knowledge (London: Macmillan, 1998), 250-95.
32. See Latour's striking formulation: Metrology is the name of this gigantic enterprise to make of the outside a world inside which facts and machines can survive. Termites build their obscure galleries with a mixture of mud and of their own droppings; scientists build their enlightened networks by giving the outside the same paper form as that of their instruments inside. In both cases the result is the same: they can travel very far without ever leaving home. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 251.
33. Joseph O'Connell, 'Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 1 (February 1993), 129-73. On metrology, see also the Special Issue of Culture Technique (No. 9, 1983).
34. Joseph O'Connell, 'Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 1 (February 1993), 129-73. On metrology, see also the Special Issue of Culture Technique (No. 9, 1983).
35. Alain Desrosières, La Politique des Grands Nombres: Histoire de la Raison Statistique (Paris: La Découverte, 1993).
36. See, for example, Jean-Claude Engrand, De la Métrologie Fondamentale à son Application Industrielle (Paris: A. Blanchard, 1976).
37. Several studies suggest that in order to describe the genesis of metrological networks, the 'reorganization' metaphor might be preferred to the 'extension' metaphor such as used, for instance, in the quotation from Latour reproduced in note 19. Schaffer, for example, writes: 'Exact measures were the product of reorganizations of working practices and of the management of a range of different workplaces' (Schaffer, op. cit. note 10, 164). Notably, the idea of reorganization does not privilege the scientific locus as the exclusive origin of metrology, and it allows us to ask what these metrological practices owe to other kinds of practices - for instance, legal and economic ones.
38. The examples used in this paper are the result of several field studies. The first case draws on an extensive study of the networks of French legal metrology, including interviews at different places in the metrological chain (manufacturers of instruments, users, administrative inspectors, experts involved in the elaboration of metrological norms, engineers in a metrological laboratory). The story of the sea-water analyzer is based on an interview with a researcher of the WOCE project in an oceanography laboratory in Princeton. Material for the third and fourth cases has been gathered during a study of the construction and industrialization of a DOAS instrument: this study was based on interviews with various participants in the project, including scientists, engineers who took part in the industrialization and commercialization, metrologists, and actors in the national agencies who financially supported the project. I also made ethnographic observations of laboratory activities at CREAT, and of the two-week-long intercomparison campaign. A detailed account is available in Alexandre Mallard, Les Instruments dam la Coordination de l'Action: Pratiques Techniques, Métrologie, Instrument Scientifique (unpublished PhD thesis, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, École des Mines de Paris, 1996). See also A. Mallard, 'Des Instruments à leur Usage: Aperçus sur la Coordination par la Mesure', in Cécile Méadel and Vololona Rabeharisoa (eds), Représenter, Hybrider, Cordonner: Actes du Colloque du CS1 9 et 10 mai 1996 (Paris: École des Mines de Paris, 1996), 179-88; and Mallard, 'L'interprétation Collective des Résultats d'une Expérience: le Cas de l'Intercornparaison des Instruments Scientifiques', Sociologie du Travail, Vol. 38 (1996), 293-310.
39. The examples used in this paper are the result of several field studies. The first case draws on an extensive study of the networks of French legal metrology, including interviews at different places in the metrological chain (manufacturers of instruments, users, administrative inspectors, experts involved in the elaboration of metrological norms, engineers in a metrological laboratory). The story of the sea-water analyzer is based on an interview with a researcher of the WOCE project in an oceanography laboratory in Princeton. Material for the third and fourth cases has been gathered during a study of the construction and industrialization of a DOAS instrument: this study was based on interviews with various participants in the project, including scientists, engineers who took part in the industrialization and commercialization, metrologists, and actors in the national agencies who financially supported the project. I also made ethnographic observations of laboratory activities at CREAT, and of the two-week-long intercomparison campaign. A detailed account is available in Alexandre Mallard, Les Instruments dam la Coordination de l'Action: Pratiques Techniques, Métrologie, Instrument Scientifique (unpublished PhD thesis, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, École des Mines de Paris, 1996). See also A. Mallard, 'Des Instruments à leur Usage: Aperçus sur la Coordination par la Mesure', in Cécile Méadel and Vololona Rabeharisoa (eds), Représenter, Hybrider, Cordonner: Actes du Colloque du CS1 9 et 10 mai 1996 (Paris: École des Mines de Paris, 1996), 179-88; and Mallard, 'L'interprétation Collective des Résultats d'une Expérience: le Cas de l'Intercornparaison des Instruments Scientifiques', Sociologie du Travail, Vol. 38 (1996), 293-310.
40. The examples used in this paper are the result of several field studies. The first case draws on an extensive study of the networks of French legal metrology, including interviews at different places in the metrological chain (manufacturers of instruments, users, administrative inspectors, experts involved in the elaboration of metrological norms, engineers in a metrological laboratory). The story of the sea-water analyzer is based on an interview with a researcher of the WOCE project in an oceanography laboratory in Princeton. Material for the third and fourth cases has been gathered during a study of the construction and industrialization of a DOAS instrument: this study was based on interviews with various participants in the project, including scientists, engineers who took part in the industrialization and commercialization, metrologists, and actors in the national agencies who financially supported the project. I also made ethnographic observations of laboratory activities at CREAT, and of the two-week-long intercomparison campaign. A detailed account is available in Alexandre Mallard, Les Instruments dam la Coordination de l'Action: Pratiques Techniques, Métrologie, Instrument Scientifique (unpublished PhD thesis, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, École des Mines de Paris, 1996). See also A. Mallard, 'Des Instruments à leur Usage: Aperçus sur la Coordination par la Mesure', in Cécile Méadel and Vololona Rabeharisoa (eds), Représenter, Hybrider, Cordonner: Actes du Colloque du CS1 9 et 10 mai 1996 (Paris: École des Mines de Paris, 1996), 179-88; and Mallard, 'L'interprétation Collective des Résultats d'une Expérience: le Cas de l'Intercornparaison des Instruments Scientifiques', Sociologie du Travail, Vol. 38 (1996), 293-310.
41. See International Recommendation OIML R-99: Instruments for Measuring Vehicle Exhaust Emissions (Paris: OIML, 1991). A publicity document presenting its activities states that the International Organization of Legal Metrology 'aims to harmonize the activities of its Members in order to create an international legal metrology framework where mutual cooperation and confidence lead to acceptable ranges of measurement credibility, and strives to provide the metrology community with the structures and activities necessary for reaching agreements on metrological subjects relevant to public concern and international trade'.
42. OIML, op. cit. note 25, section 4.3.1.
43. Ibid., section 5.3.1.
44. Ibid., section 5.1.9.
45. The OIML recommendation was elaborated between 1985 and 1991, in the OIML subcommittee 'SP17-Sr1', devoted to the 'Measurement of air pollution', and mobilized various experts: metrologists and experts from the car industry, representative of different national states and other normalization insitutions. I have given some elements of this history in Mallard, Les Instruments, op. cit. note 24, 386-408.
46. The main reference here is the Décret No. 88-682 du 6 mai 1998, relative to the 'control of measuring instruments'.
47. Interview with Serge Miraucourt, engineer in the Direction Régionale de l'Industrie et de la Recherche Paris (Paris, 15 January 1993).
48. For the notion of the 'social life of things', see Igor Kopytoff, 'The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process', in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 329-48.
49. See Collins, Changing Order, op. cit. note 14, 100-11.
50. For an account of scientific work in a similar domain, see Charles Goodwin, 'Seeing in Depth', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1995), 237-74.
51. As Collins shows, replication of instruments is a delicate process because it mobilizes tacit knowledge and know-how that is hard to make explicit and share. It is easier to do when the 'replicator' is the original designer, as was the case here. On replication and tacit knowledge, see Collins, Changing Order, op. cit. note 14, 51-79 and 56-57.
52. Such a process of progressive adjustment to a standardized version of an instrument seems to be normal when research instruments are scaled up and mass-produced. For instance, the history of the ultracentrifuge related by Boelie Elzen supports this claim. See Boelie Elzen, Scientists and Rotors: The Development of Biochemical Ultracentrifuges (PhD thesis, Centre for Studies on Problems of Science and Society, Twente University; Enschede,The Netherlands: Alfa, 1988); Elzen, 'Two Ultracentrifuges: A Comparative Study of the Social Construction of Artefacts', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 16, No. 4 (November 1986), 621-62.
53. Such a process of progressive adjustment to a standardized version of an instrument seems to be normal when research instruments are scaled up and mass-produced. For instance, the history of the ultracentrifuge related by Boelie Elzen supports this claim. See Boelie Elzen, Scientists and Rotors: The Development of Biochemical Ultracentrifuges (PhD thesis, Centre for Studies on Problems of Science and Society, Twente University; Enschede,The Netherlands: Alfa, 1988); Elzen, 'Two Ultracentrifuges: A Comparative Study of the Social Construction of Artefacts', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 16, No. 4 (November 1986), 621-62.
54. Interview with John Sabine, a researcher working in the WOCE project (Princeton, NJ, 27 May 1993).
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid. The problem described here seems to be more familiar to researchers in the life sciences than in the physical sciences: attempts to normalize living organisms (or entities related to living organisms, like sea-water or blood) encounter kinds of resistance unknown for the analyses of chemical or physical components. The latter can more easily be subjected to the normative power of science. Having heard spectroscopists speaking of their molecules and atoms as if they had a life of their own (they can change their 'state of energy', interact with each other in an unexpected and uncontrollable way, and so on), it is unclear to me whether these differences of agency can be directly attributed to the nature of the experimental material itself. Nevertheless, this question should be taken into consideration in sociological inquiries.
59. See Laurent Thévenot, 'Essai sur les Objets Usuels: Propriétés, Fonctions, Usages', in Bernard Conein, Nicolas Dodier and Thévenot (eds), Raisons Pratique No. 4, Les Objets dans l'Action (Paris: Edition de l'École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1993), 85-111. For part of the trials analyzed by Thévenot, a 'standard baby' was deduced from a set of usual anthropométric data (average weight and measure of the babies), comparable (under that point of view) to physical properties. Some simplified standards may be used in the design of the trials, to reduce costs: a cheap cylinder of wood will do for an expensive certified mannequin representing the standard baby in the test of stability and equilibrium of the baby carriage. But some other usual metrological questions resist any kind of representational setting based on the reduction to physical properties or to objects. Thévenot cites several configurations, such as behavioural assumptions (is the baby shrewd, dextrous and strong enough to unscrew the screws of the baby carriage?), or assumptions about resistance to corrosion and abrasion (one has to simulate showers and repeatedly to project sand over the baby carriage in order to evaluate that resistance).
60. But not only babies: the story of the 'personal equation' told by Simon Schaffer shows how delicate it can be to standardize the visual performance of astronomical observers; see Schaffer, op. cit. note 7.
61. See Hunt, op. cit. note 13, 55.
62. See O'Connell, op. cit. note 20, and Schaffer, op. cit. note 13.
63. See O'Connell, op. cit. note 20, and Schaffer, op. cit. note 13.
64. This is not the only reference mobilized by innovators. For instance, CREAT researchers also tried to obtain letters of recommendation from well-known university professors, stating that SOMA was a reliable device.
65. The notion of the 'place of knowledge', as used by Ophir and Shapin, encompasses cultural as well as physical specificities for the locus of experiment: see Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context, Vol. 4 (1991), 3-21. The particularity of the laboratory as a place of knowledge has been highlighted by several authors: see, for example, Dominique Vinck, La Coordination du Travail Scientifique: le Laboratoire et les Réseaux (unpublished PhD dissertation, École des Mines de Paris, 1991); Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); and Knorr Cetina, op. cit. note 16. These (and other) authors have insisted on its particular role as a separate locus for the conduct of science, where phenomena and objects can be created, transformed and investigated through the mobilization of specific procedures and powerful instruments. Such a conception drastically simplifies the philosophical problem of the adequacy of the relation between scientific representations and natural phenomena, since the latter are in some sense simultaneously produced and described 'in-vitro': see Ian Hacking, 'The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences', in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. note 15, 29-64. However, this approach raises the problem of the translation of scientific facts and artefacts outside the lab. In this regard, the case of DOAS technology is interesting because each field campaign features a new and specific laboratory: the practical problem repeatedly encountered by DOAS practitioners is, then, the question of the equivalence between these different laboratories.
66. The notion of the 'place of knowledge', as used by Ophir and Shapin, encompasses cultural as well as physical specificities for the locus of experiment: see Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context, Vol. 4 (1991), 3-21. The particularity of the laboratory as a place of knowledge has been highlighted by several authors: see, for example, Dominique Vinck, La Coordination du Travail Scientifique: le Laboratoire et les Réseaux (unpublished PhD dissertation, École des Mines de Paris, 1991); Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); and Knorr Cetina, op. cit. note 16. These (and other) authors have insisted on its particular role as a separate locus for the conduct of science, where phenomena and objects can be created, transformed and investigated through the mobilization of specific procedures and powerful instruments. Such a conception drastically simplifies the philosophical problem of the adequacy of the relation between scientific representations and natural phenomena, since the latter are in some sense simultaneously produced and described 'in-vitro': see Ian Hacking, 'The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences', in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. note 15, 29-64. However, this approach raises the problem of the translation of scientific facts and artefacts outside the lab. In this regard, the case of DOAS technology is interesting because each field campaign features a new and specific laboratory: the practical problem repeatedly encountered by DOAS practitioners is, then, the question of the equivalence between these different laboratories.
67. The notion of the 'place of knowledge', as used by Ophir and Shapin, encompasses cultural as well as physical specificities for the locus of experiment: see Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context, Vol. 4 (1991), 3-21. The particularity of the laboratory as a place of knowledge has been highlighted by several authors: see, for example, Dominique Vinck, La Coordination du Travail Scientifique: le Laboratoire et les Réseaux (unpublished PhD dissertation, École des Mines de Paris, 1991); Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); and Knorr Cetina, op. cit. note 16. These (and other) authors have insisted on its particular role as a separate locus for the conduct of science, where phenomena and objects can be created, transformed and investigated through the mobilization of specific procedures and powerful instruments. Such a conception drastically simplifies the philosophical problem of the adequacy of the relation between scientific representations and natural phenomena, since the latter are in some sense simultaneously produced and described 'in-vitro': see Ian Hacking, 'The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences', in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. note 15, 29-64. However, this approach raises the problem of the translation of scientific facts and artefacts outside the lab. In this regard, the case of DOAS technology is interesting because each field campaign features a new and specific laboratory: the practical problem repeatedly encountered by DOAS practitioners is, then, the question of the equivalence between these different laboratories.
68. The notion of the 'place of knowledge', as used by Ophir and Shapin, encompasses cultural as well as physical specificities for the locus of experiment: see Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context, Vol. 4 (1991), 3-21. The particularity of the laboratory as a place of knowledge has been highlighted by several authors: see, for example, Dominique Vinck, La Coordination du Travail Scientifique: le Laboratoire et les Réseaux (unpublished PhD dissertation, École des Mines de Paris, 1991); Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); and Knorr Cetina, op. cit. note 16. These (and other) authors have insisted on its particular role as a separate locus for the conduct of science, where phenomena and objects can be created, transformed and investigated through the mobilization of specific procedures and powerful instruments. Such a conception drastically simplifies the philosophical problem of the adequacy of the relation between scientific representations and natural phenomena, since the latter are in some sense simultaneously produced and described 'in-vitro': see Ian Hacking, 'The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences', in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. note 15, 29-64. However, this approach raises the problem of the translation of scientific facts and artefacts outside the lab. In this regard, the case of DOAS technology is interesting because each field campaign features a new and specific laboratory: the practical problem repeatedly encountered by DOAS practitioners is, then, the question of the equivalence between these different laboratories.
69. The notion of the 'place of knowledge', as used by Ophir and Shapin, encompasses cultural as well as physical specificities for the locus of experiment: see Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, 'The Place of Knowledge: A Methodological Survey', Science in Context, Vol. 4 (1991), 3-21. The particularity of the laboratory as a place of knowledge has been highlighted by several authors: see, for example, Dominique Vinck, La Coordination du Travail Scientifique: le Laboratoire et les Réseaux (unpublished PhD dissertation, École des Mines de Paris, 1991); Bruno Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); and Knorr Cetina, op. cit. note 16. These (and other) authors have insisted on its particular role as a separate locus for the conduct of science, where phenomena and objects can be created, transformed and investigated through the mobilization of specific procedures and powerful instruments. Such a conception drastically simplifies the philosophical problem of the adequacy of the relation between scientific representations and natural phenomena, since the latter are in some sense simultaneously produced and described 'in-vitro': see Ian Hacking, 'The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences', in Pickering (ed.), op. cit. note 15, 29-64. However, this approach raises the problem of the translation of scientific facts and artefacts outside the lab. In this regard, the case of DOAS technology is interesting because each field campaign features a new and specific laboratory: the practical problem repeatedly encountered by DOAS practitioners is, then, the question of the equivalence between these different laboratories.
70. The language of 'convention' and 'intimacy' stems from research on the pragmatics of action: see Laurent Thévenot, 'L'Action qui Convient', in Patrick Pharo and Louis Quéré (eds), Raisons Pratiques No. 1, les Formes de l'Action (Paris: Edition de l'École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990), 39-70.
71. For instance, one will not investigate the reaction of the instrument to extraordinary variations of temperature (more than 70°C) if such variations are not likely to happen in normal use.
72. The linearity of spectral absorption, as expressed by the Beer-Lambert law, justifies the validity of this simulation.
73. O'Connell, op. cit. note 20.
74. Situated near Norwich, on the eastern coast of England.
75. In his review of the different models of the development of science, Michel Callon opposes cooperation to competition as different modalities of collective scientific activity: see M. Callon, 'Four Models for the Dynamics of Science', in Jasanoff, Markle, Petersen & Pinch (eds), op. cit. note 16, 29-63.
76. See Knorr-Cetina, op. cit. note 16; Michael Lynch, Eric Livingston and Harold Garfinkel, 'Temporal Order in Laboratory Work', in Knorr-Cetina & Mulkay (eds), op. cit. note 17, 205-38.
77. See Knorr-Cetina, op. cit. note 16; Michael Lynch, Eric Livingston and Harold Garfinkel, 'Temporal Order in Laboratory Work', in Knorr-Cetina & Mulkay (eds), op. cit. note 17, 205-38.
78. During the campaign, some of the scientists and their instruments were housed in such cabins, because of the lack of facilities in the observatory.
79. Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds), Representation in Scientific Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990): see especially Klaus Amann and Karin Knorr-Cetina, 'The Fixation of (Visual) Evidence', 85-122; and Woolgar, 'Time and Documents in Researcher Interaction: Some Ways of Making out What is Happening in Experimental Science', 123-52.
80. Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds), Representation in Scientific Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990): see especially Klaus Amann and Karin Knorr-Cetina, 'The Fixation of (Visual) Evidence', 85-122; and Woolgar, 'Time and Documents in Researcher Interaction: Some Ways of Making out What is Happening in Experimental Science', 123-52.
81. Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds), Representation in Scientific Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990): see especially Klaus Amann and Karin Knorr-Cetina, 'The Fixation of (Visual) Evidence', 85-122; and Woolgar, 'Time and Documents in Researcher Interaction: Some Ways of Making out What is Happening in Experimental Science', 123-52.
82. See Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); Lorraine Daston, 'Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 22, No. 4 (November 1992), 597-618.
83. See Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); Lorraine Daston, 'Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 22, No. 4 (November 1992), 597-618.
84. Recent studies provide interesting insights into these problems: see Simon Schaffer, 'Metropolitan Measures and their Margins of Error' (unpublished paper presented at the seminar of the CRHST, Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris, 7 January 1997); Michael Lynch and Kathleen Jordan, 'L'Affaire Williams: un Exercice de Sociologie de la Connaissance', Réseaux, No. 71 (May-June 1995), 31-55.
85. Recent studies provide interesting insights into these problems: see Simon Schaffer, 'Metropolitan Measures and their Margins of Error' (unpublished paper presented at the seminar of the CRHST, Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris, 7 January 1997); Michael Lynch and Kathleen Jordan, 'L'Affaire Williams: un Exercice de Sociologie de la Connaissance', Réseaux, No. 71 (May-June 1995), 31-55.