Digitizing Lizards: The Topology of 'Vision' in Ecological Fieldwork

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 29, Issue 5, 1999, Pages 719-763

  Roth, Wolff Michael ^a   Bowen, G Michael ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0033412496     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631299029005003     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. There are different lizard species. To protect the identity of our informants as much as possible, we refer to the animals as 'lizards', rather than the specific species.
2. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Milton Keynes, Bucks.: Open University Press, 1987).
3. Eileen Crist provides an interesting analysis of the discourse used by naturalists in describing animal life. She argues that naturalists' (thick) descriptions of animal activity are in stark contrast to scientific writing about generic individuals and typical cases, which makes animal behaviour appear automated: see E. Crist, 'Naturalists' Portrayals of Animal Life: Engaging the Verstehen Approach', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 26, No. 4 (November 1996), 799-838. In Michael Lynch's descriptions of laboratory rats, the transition from naturalistic rats to analytic animals was accomplished by means of the 'sacrifice': see M. Lynch, 'Sacrifice and the Transformation of the Animal Body into a Scientific Object: Laboratory Culture and Ritual Practice in the Neurosciences', ibid., Vol. 18, No. 2 (May 1988), 265-89.
4. Eileen Crist provides an interesting analysis of the discourse used by naturalists in describing animal life. She argues that naturalists' (thick) descriptions of animal activity are in stark contrast to scientific writing about generic individuals and typical cases, which makes animal behaviour appear automated: see E. Crist, 'Naturalists' Portrayals of Animal Life: Engaging the Verstehen Approach', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 26, No. 4 (November 1996), 799-838. In Michael Lynch's descriptions of laboratory rats, the transition from naturalistic rats to analytic animals was accomplished by means of the 'sacrifice': see M. Lynch, 'Sacrifice and the Transformation of the Animal Body into a Scientific Object: Laboratory Culture and Ritual Practice in the Neurosciences', ibid., Vol. 18, No. 2 (May 1988), 265-89.
5. John Law and Michael Lynch provide a thorough analysis of the descriptive organization of 'literal' seeing by means of field guides: see J. Law and M. Lynch, 'Lists, Field Guides, and the Descriptive Organization of Seeing: Birdwatching as an Exemplary Observational Activity', in Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds), Representation in Scientific Practice (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 267-99.
6. The remark, 'Now we are doing real science', made by a postdoctoral ecologist while pushing the buttons of a digital GPS (global positioning system), was only partially tongue-in-cheek.
7. Admittedly, ecologists do sometimes show photographs, especially during their presentations at conferences, seminars and colloquia; but these photographs constitute anecdotal evidence and are used by ecologists, who are also excellent folk psychologists, to 'spice up' and make more interesting their own oral presentations.
8. On this interplay between existing discursive practices and domain of interest, see Charles Goodwin, 'Professional Vision', American Anthropologist, Vol. 96, No. 3 (September 1994), 606-33; Goodwin, 'Seeing in Depth', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1995), 237-74; and Jeff Coulter and E.D. Parsons, 'The Praxiology of Perception: Visual Orientations and Practical Actions', Inquiry, Vol. 33 (1991), 251-72. For the interplay between discursive practices, material contingencies, and human agency, see Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
9. On this interplay between existing discursive practices and domain of interest, see Charles Goodwin, 'Professional Vision', American Anthropologist, Vol. 96, No. 3 (September 1994), 606-33; Goodwin, 'Seeing in Depth', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1995), 237-74; and Jeff Coulter and E.D. Parsons, 'The Praxiology of Perception: Visual Orientations and Practical Actions', Inquiry, Vol. 33 (1991), 251-72. For the interplay between discursive practices, material contingencies, and human agency, see Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
10. On this interplay between existing discursive practices and domain of interest, see Charles Goodwin, 'Professional Vision', American Anthropologist, Vol. 96, No. 3 (September 1994), 606-33; Goodwin, 'Seeing in Depth', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1995), 237-74; and Jeff Coulter and E.D. Parsons, 'The Praxiology of Perception: Visual Orientations and Practical Actions', Inquiry, Vol. 33 (1991), 251-72. For the interplay between discursive practices, material contingencies, and human agency, see Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
11. On this interplay between existing discursive practices and domain of interest, see Charles Goodwin, 'Professional Vision', American Anthropologist, Vol. 96, No. 3 (September 1994), 606-33; Goodwin, 'Seeing in Depth', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1995), 237-74; and Jeff Coulter and E.D. Parsons, 'The Praxiology of Perception: Visual Orientations and Practical Actions', Inquiry, Vol. 33 (1991), 251-72. For the interplay between discursive practices, material contingencies, and human agency, see Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
12. In our experience, the animals' reactions to capture and frequent handling was defecation. However, it is only in this sense that herpetology is an odoriferous practice.
13. Michael Lynch, 'Method: Measurement - Ordinary and Scientific Measurement as Ethnomethodological Phenomena', in Graham Button (ed.), Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 77-108.
14. Michael Lynch, 'The Externalized Retina: Selection and Mathematization in the Visual Documentation of Objects in the Life Sciences', in Lynch & Woolgar (eds), op. cit. note 4, 153-86, quote at 169.
15. Ibid., 169 (emphasis in original).
16. Latour, op. cit. note 2, 244. Latour uses the noun 'adequation', derived from the Latin word, adequare, 'to make equal'. To be consistent with the Latourian framework, we use 'to adequate' as a verb ('to render equal'), and 'adequation' as a noun ('the state of having been rendered equal'), with their ancient meanings.
17. Lynch, op. cit. note 9, 79.
18. Bruno Latour, La Clef de Berlin et Autres Leçons d'un Amateur de Sciences (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 1993). See particularly the chapter on 'Le "pédofil" de Boa Vista - Montage Photo-Philosophique', which was subsequently published in English as B. Latour, 'The "Pédofil" of Boa Vista: A Photo-Philosophical Montage', Common Knowledge, Vol. 4 (1995), 144-87.
19. Bruno Latour, La Clef de Berlin et Autres Leçons d'un Amateur de Sciences (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 1993). See particularly the chapter on 'Le "pédofil" de Boa Vista - Montage Photo-Philosophique', which was subsequently published in English as B. Latour, 'The "Pédofil" of Boa Vista: A Photo-Philosophical Montage', Common Knowledge, Vol. 4 (1995), 144-87.
20. Wolff-Michael Roth, 'Where is the Context in Contextual Word Problems?: Mathematical Practices and Products in Grade 8 Students' Answers to Story Problems', Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 14 (1996), 487-527; Roth and Michelle K. McGinn, 'Graphing: A Cognitive Ability or Cultural Practice?', Science Education, Vol. 81 (1997), 91-106; Roth and G. Michael Bowen, 'Of Cannibals, Missionaries, and Converts: Graphing Competencies from Grade 8 to Professional Science Inside (Classrooms) and Outside (Field/Laboratory)', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 1999), 179-212.
21. Wolff-Michael Roth, 'Where is the Context in Contextual Word Problems?: Mathematical Practices and Products in Grade 8 Students' Answers to Story Problems', Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 14 (1996), 487-527; Roth and Michelle K. McGinn, 'Graphing: A Cognitive Ability or Cultural Practice?', Science Education, Vol. 81 (1997), 91-106; Roth and G. Michael Bowen, 'Of Cannibals, Missionaries, and Converts: Graphing Competencies from Grade 8 to Professional Science Inside (Classrooms) and Outside (Field/Laboratory)', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 1999), 179-212.
22. Wolff-Michael Roth, 'Where is the Context in Contextual Word Problems?: Mathematical Practices and Products in Grade 8 Students' Answers to Story Problems', Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 14 (1996), 487-527; Roth and Michelle K. McGinn, 'Graphing: A Cognitive Ability or Cultural Practice?', Science Education, Vol. 81 (1997), 91-106; Roth and G. Michael Bowen, 'Of Cannibals, Missionaries, and Converts: Graphing Competencies from Grade 8 to Professional Science Inside (Classrooms) and Outside (Field/Laboratory)', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 1999), 179-212.
23. W-M. Roth & G.M. Bowen, 'Complexities of Graphical Representations during Lectures: A Phenomenological Approach', Learning and Instruction, Vol. 9 (1999), 235-55.
24. W.-M. Roth, M.K. McGinn and G.M. Bowen, 'How Prepared are Pre-service Teachers to Teach Scientific Inquiry? Levels of Performance in Scientific Representation Practices', Journal of Science Teacher Education, Vol. 9 (1998), 25-48.
25. Michael Lynch analyzed a map used by one field guide to instruct amateurs in field observation, particularly on how 'territories' can be established through 'mark and recapture' work: see Lynch, op. cit. note 10. Leigh Star and James Griesemer conducted a historical study of the establishment of a zoology museum which included the co-ordination of collection practices by means of forms: see S.L. Star and J.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. Both of these activities are topicalized in the present paper.
26. Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), at (e.g.) 29.
27. As a marine ecologist, Bowen was an insider both to biological research and to field methods, and because of his own specialization in marine mammals, an outsider to the particular species and species-specific methods in herpetology. His stay could therefore be characterized as an apprenticeship in herpetology. When anthropologists use apprenticeship as a field method, they in fact turn the object of their study back upon itself; because they use 'what they know to behave in a way that will enable the acquisition of more information and better understanding . . . their work moves from theory to method and back again': Michael W. Coy, Apprenticeship: From Theory to Method and Back Again (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), xii.
28. Lynch, op. cit. note 9, 86.
29. There were moments during the analysis when we inadvertently slipped into our field-related insider rôles, where the question of whether an area was calculated correctly according to mathematical conventions was challenged, by questioning a particular measurement, or by raising doubts about the suitability of some measurement to represent the ecological situation of lizards in the field. For example, Sam determined the surface area of a rock by approximating it to a n-gon and measuring the lengths of its sides, unaware that there are infinitely many n-gons (n > 3) with a particular set of side lengths. Working interactively allowed us rapidly to detect these moments, particularly because of our different backgrounds (ecology, physics). On the method of hermeneutic phenomenology, see Paul Ricœur, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, 1991), at (e.g.) 19.
30. For example, see Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979).
31. Robert C. Stebbins, A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 18. One of the maps in this field guide was the topic of an analysis by Michael Lynch on the adequation of nature and mathematics: Lynch, op. cit. note 10.
32. George C. Williams, 'Natural Selection, the Costs of Reproduction, and a Refinement of Lack's Principle', American Naturalist, Vol. 100 (1966), 687-90.
33. John Law and John Whittaker, 'On the Art of Representation: Notes on the Politics of Visualisation', in Gordon Fyfe and Law (eds), Picturing Power: Visual Depiction and Social Relations (London: Routledge, 1988), 160-83.
34. 'Home ranges' are scientists' constructions. We met a considerable number of ecologists who questioned the usefulness of this notion.
35. Charles Goodwin, 'Practices of Color Classification', Ninchi Kagaku [Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society], Vol. 3, No. 2 (April 1996), 62-82.
36. 'Same' is understood in the sense of 'idem', of an unchanging underlying core of which only properties change: see Paul Ricœur, Soi-Même Comme un Autre (Paris: Seuil, 1990), esp. 10-14.
37. Sam never cut the long toe, for she assumed that it had a function more important than the others. This assumption, however, ranked at the level of her 'anecdotal' knowledge, for which she had no 'scientific' justification.
38. Although not used by our field ecologists, there are ways to make up easy mnemonic schemes to identify a lizard easily. If an animal is turned on its back, then a code such as '100.1' preserves the position of the legs actually seen, when the outside and inside digits refer to front and back, respectively (F B B F).
39. Thomas Crump, The Anthropology of Numbers (Cambridge: Cambridge University-Press, 1990), esp. Chapter 1.
40. Umberto Eco provides an example of a simple language based on a 4-place code: U. Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 174.
41. Law & Whittaker, op. cit. note 26.
42. Lucy A. Suchman, 'Technologies of Accountability: Of Lizards and Aeroplanes', in Graham Button (ed.), Technology in Working Order: Studies of Work, Interaction, and Technology (London: Routledge, 1993), 113-26.
43. The 'coding form' used by Goodwin's archaeology students does similar work: see Goodwin, op. cit. note 28.
44. This is similar to the perceptual organization of birdwatching by means of field guides by Law & Lynch, op. cit. note 4.
45. Marc Berg, 'Of Forms, Containers, and the Electronic Medical Record: Some Tools for a Sociology of the Formal', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn 1997), 403-33.
46. Leigh Star has suggested that the alignment is a necessary prerequisite for the preservation of structural integrity: see S.L. Star, 'The Politics of Formal Representations: Wizards, Gurus, and Organizational Complexity', in Star (ed.), Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 88-118.
47. In an interesting twist during a colloquium, Sam made the tongue-in-cheek remark that lizards would make for good pets because of their docility in captivity, and the associated increase in their sluggishness.
48. Lynch, op. cit. note 10; Stebbins, op. cit. note 24.
49. Goodwin (1995), op. cit. note 7. Goodwin shows that even though a sampling grid may be predetermined, and therefore prespecifying the sites of measurement, its origin and shape may itself be subject to multiple scientific, political and practical interests -such as maximizing the number of data points.
50. For example, Johann von Uexküll, Theoretische Biologie (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 1928/1973).
51. Stebbins, op. cit. note 24; Lynch, op. cit. note 10.
52. One can think of the correspondence also in terms of a rubber sheet on which a geographical map is inscribed. If the sheet is pulled differently in different areas, the new representation constitutes a non-linear and heterogeneous mapping with considerably different topology from the source.
53. See note 5.
54. Interviews with Sam conducted before the second field session in which we accompanied her, showed that leg measurements which appeared to be unproblematic at first are in practice highly variable, and the consistency not as high as she initially thought.
55. Bruno Latour describes in some detail how a group of scientists establish the boundary between forest and savannah by layering geological and biological inscriptions: see Latour (1993), op. cit. note 14, 171-225.
56. Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 165.
57. Frank Nutch, 'Gadgets, Gizmos, and Instruments: Science for the Tinkering', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring 1996), 214-28, at 217-18.
58. During the previous field season, Sam first compared the colour of lizards to the colour strips from a paint store. However, the lizards did not fall at all into any of the colour schemes she could find. She then shifted to taking colour photographs of each lizard, so as to conduct comparative analyses. One day, she read a published article about the throat colour changes in chameleons where the researchers had used the Munsell Chart to categorize the colours. She then partially appropriated the Munsell Colour Chart and associated activities into her range of do-able practices. At this writing, she still had not resolved how to deal with the colours' numbers, either in the spreadsheet or statistically.
59. Goodwin and Latour provide detailed descriptions of how newcomers and old-timers in the fields of anthropology and geology, respectively, (learn to) use Munsell Charts in the field: Goodwin, op. cit. note 28; Latour (1995), op. cit. note 14.
60. It is interesting here to note that Sam attempted to determine the colour of the lizard under controlled conditions that do not exist for the lizard in the wild. This was a practical choice in a disciplinary context to which she is accountable for her activities. In this context it is therefore not relevant that humans' colour perception is correlated with the colours of the surrounding. Thus whatever colour is determined in the lab may have little to do with the colours that are important in the field setting for the purposes of camouflage.
61. Sam is organizationally accountable to her thesis committee, audience at a conference, or readers of a scientific journal. Members of these groups specify (heterogeneous) constraints on what counts as evidence, what is appropriate replication (repetition), what are acceptable errors, and so on.
62. In our study, the participation framework was established by different referents than those in Goodwin's (1996) study, where the Munsell Chart was the common focus of two students, and therefore constituted a simultaneous space of attention. Further, Goodwin's participants arrive at a common negotiated solution, whereas Sam seeks to achieve a common but independently derived solution. See Goodwin, op. cit. note 28.
63. Lynch, op. cit. note 9.
64. This was not the case for the lizards' toe code, so that it does not lend itself to 'mathematization', as it is generally understood.
65. Edwin Hutchins, 'Understanding Micronesian Navigation', in Dedre Gentner and Albert L. Stevens (eds), Mental Models (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1983), 191-225.
66. This in itself does not constitute the object as 'mathematical'. Rather, it is the orderliness of the marks on the ruler which exploits the triple association of things with numbers as signs, ordinals and cardinals. It is the cardinal property of numbers that allow the association of lizard snout-vent length and mathematics qua arithmetic.
67. Each A is associated with a mathematical operation associated with its specific 'operator'.
68. But before it makes sense to speak of the mathematical structure, another adequation has to occur between world and language that allows humans to recognize something as 'lizard' or as 'tail length' in the first place. In this process, the lizard or lizard tail length becomes salient against the remainder of the setting, which is non-lizard. This process is not unlike the measurement process, but this time the sign system used is that of natural language. We can always think that a phenomenon 'lizard' arises from a process in which animals from this subspecies are made salient and identified - that is, that the operation /ψ > = /AL φ > has been performed so that it is salient against other aspects of the world.
69. In mathematical terms, these values are called 'eigenvalues' of the operator A.
70. 2/ψ >).
71. Hutchins, op. cit. note 58.
72. Douglas Benson and John Hughes, 'Method: Evidence and Inference - Evidence and Inference for Ethnomethodology', in Button (ed.), op. cit. note 9, 109-36.
73. Lynch, op. cit. note 9.
74. Lynch, op. cit. note 10.
75. Michael Lynch & Samuel Y. Edgerton, 'Aesthetics and Digital Image Processing: Representational Craft in Contemporary Astronomy', in Fyfe & Law (eds), op. cit. note 26, 184-220.
76. See, for example, Carl Emmeche, The Garden in the Machine: The Emerging Science of Artificial Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
77. Hutchins, op. cit. note 58.
78. Michel Foucault, 'Of other Spaces', Diacritics, Vol. 16 (1986), 22-27 (cited by Goodwin, op. cit. note 28, 69).
79. A facsimile of this drawing is reprinted in Klaus Amann and Karin D. Knorr-Cetina, 'The Fixation of (Visual) Evidence', in Lynch & Woolgar (eds), op. cit. note 4, 85-121, at 107.
80. Lucy Suchman has suggested that representations do work because they serve interests: see L. Suchman, 'Making Work Visible', Communications of the ACM, Vol. 38, No. 9 (September 1995), 56-64.
81. Our topography and topology of the observational machinery can therefore be understood as a contribution of what Charles Goodwin has called the alternative geography of cognition: see Goodwin, op. cit. note 28. For an interesting relevant analysis, see Michael E. Gorman, 'Mind in the World: Cognition and Practice in the Invention of the Telephone', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 27, No. 4 (August 1997), 583-624.
82. Our topography and topology of the observational machinery can therefore be understood as a contribution of what Charles Goodwin has called the alternative geography of cognition: see Goodwin, op. cit. note 28. For an interesting relevant analysis, see Michael E. Gorman, 'Mind in the World: Cognition and Practice in the Invention of the Telephone', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 27, No. 4 (August 1997), 583-624.
83. For example, the Oksapmin of Papua New Guinea use their body-based system to accomplish counting or enumerative functions in such activities as counting valuables. But they do not have any context in which they use their numerical system for arithmetical functions such as adding or subtracting valuables. See Geoff B. Saxe, Culture and Cognitive Development: Studies in Mathematical Understanding (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991).
84. Crump, op. cit. note 32.