Invited Speakers
The IHPST Council is happy to announce that Dr. Pablo Kreimer will be responsible for the Springer lecture. Dr. Pablo Kreimer is a sociologist of science and a teacher at the University of Quilmes, Argentina. His specialty is the political sociology of knowledge, science and technology, and his research is aimed at understanding the role of knowledge in society, its uses, its social dimensions, international links and policies. and institutions that regulate it. (http://www.unq.edu.ar/comunidad/34-pablo-kreimer.php).
Techno-scientific promises and disciplinary fields in peripheral contexts: An approach from Latin America
While scientific development has always worked along with promises of future development, the ways in which such promises are formulated, modulated, the characteristics of the actors involved, and the conditions of the promises production and compliance, have changed over time. In particular, they have very different consequences across different contexts. Indeed, the formulation of scientific promises in peripheral scientific contexts have different structures and consequences, compared to hegemonic sites.
By “bringing the future to the present”, promises are intended to provide solutions to important public problems. Yet in doing so, a disciplinary space of knowledge production is positioned as “the most legitimate” to solve these problems, displacing competing visions, questioning diverse actors, and building the epistemic bases to think about these issues. However, in globalized dynamics, peripheral scientific elites hardly have the capacity to formulate solutions based on local knowledge, since they face structural barriers to the industrialization of knowledge. This result, is subordinate integration to large international consortia, which can address key scientific problems, or even industrialize knowledge, and can market the products of these endeavours globally.
The second keynote speaker is the Dr. Carol Cleland. She is a full professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the current Director of Boulder’s Center for the Study of Origins. Her research focuses on issues about scientific methodology (historical science vs. experimental science, the role of anomalies in scientific discovery), biology (microbiology, origins of life, the nature of life, and astrobiology), and the theory of computation. She is the inventor of the term ‘shadow biosphere,’ a subject on which she has written and lectured extensively (https://sites.google.com/site/clelandce/).
How Anomalies Drive Scientific Discovery
Abstract This talk discusses the pivotal role that recognition of anomalies plays in scientific discovery and its application to the search for extraterrestrial life. I begin by discussing the difference between an anomaly and a merely puzzling or ambiguous phenomenon. I then explore cases from the history of science illustrating how difficult it is for researchers to initially recognize that a phenomenon is truly anomalous. Subsequently, I analyze how scientists have responded historically to recognition that a phenomenon is anomalous, identifying the stages involved in moving from recognition that a phenomenon is anomalous to scientific discovery. Discovery may involve major theoretical changes but not always. It sometimes involves rejecting widely entrenched dogmas that are not well-grounded in theoretical considerations. One of the goals of this analysis is to show how to short-cut the process of recognizing that a phenomenon is anomalous, and hence worthy of focused scientific investigation, for the purpose of speeding up the process of scientific discovery. The second part of the talk explores several unresolved contemporary scientific anomalies in light of the considerations developed earlier.
Giving the initial address is Dr. Andreia Guerra. Dr. Guerra is the current president of the International History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching Group and full professor at the Graduate Program Science, Technology, and Education Federal Center for Technology Education of Rio de Janeiro (CEFET/RJ) Her research interest concerns the intersection between history of science and cultural perspectives in science education.
New trends in the History of Science: Perspectives to science education for social justice
Historical approaches in science teaching hold promise for humanizing science. Moreover, the news trends in the history of science challenge the meaning of humanizing science. Recently, many historians have abandoned attempts to establish a single narrative line for the history of science to analyze lived experiences of those who contributed directly and indirectly to science development. As a result, historians of science consider science to be performative and transformed through material and human actions. Therefore, circulation and scientific practices are categories that illuminate science’s past. From a Social Justice perspective on science education, new possibilities for humanizing science from new trends in the History of Science are discussed based on the episode of the 1919 Solar Total Eclipse, which was critical for the General Theory of Relativity.
