The Right Tools for the Job
At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences
Princeton University Press
Published on 13. September 1992
Book
Hardback
388 pages
978-0-691-08581-4 (ISBN)
Description
This volume examines scientific practice through studies of research tools in an array of 20th-century life sciences. The contributors draw upon and extend the multidisciplinary perspectives in current science studies to understand the processes through which scientific researchers constructed the right - and, in some cases, the wrong - tools for the job. The articles portray the crafting or accessing of specific materials, techniques, instruments, models, funds and work arrangements involved in doing scientific work. They demonstrate the historical and local contingencies of scientific problem construction and solving by highlighting the articulation between the tools and jobs. Indeed, the very "rightness" of the tools is contingently constructed, maintained, lost, and refashioned.
The cases examined include evolutionary biology laboratory systems, the plasmid prep procedure in molecular biology, models in the human ecology of African pastoralists, the micromanometer in metabolic studies, genetics research and the role played by Planaria and corn, quantitative data in field biology, taxidermy in natural history, technical standardization in bacteriology, and the discipline of immunology as the tool for stabilizing conceptual definitions in the field.
The cases examined include evolutionary biology laboratory systems, the plasmid prep procedure in molecular biology, models in the human ecology of African pastoralists, the micromanometer in metabolic studies, genetics research and the role played by Planaria and corn, quantitative data in field biology, taxidermy in natural history, technical standardization in bacteriology, and the discipline of immunology as the tool for stabilizing conceptual definitions in the field.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Weight
765 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-08581-4 (9780691085814)
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Additional editions

Adele E. Clarke | Joan H. Fujimura
The Right Tools for the Job
At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences
E-Book
07/2014
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€85.49
Available for download