Apropos the earlier discussion of MRI scanners on this blog – here’s the manuscript for a short talk I gave to the Danish Radiological Society’s annual meeting in Copenhagen, Wednesday 24 January 2007.The full title of the talk was “MRI scanners and Madeleine cakes: Contemporary radiological heritage and professional identity”.
The fourth Swiss STS meeting (“ScienceFutures”, 6-9 February 2008) will focus on future scenarios of sci-med-tech in society. Here’s the brief (which is also a good summary of some of the main issues in the field):
ScienceFutures is a provocative reaction to the notion that with the millennium, utopian thinking has come to an end. While in early modern thought utopia was the site of happiness removed in space, it increasingly became a good place in the future in nineteenth-century progressionism. Subjected to différance in space and time, utopias acquired a technical and scientific makeup. Trust in the calculability of the future was also a necessary condition for the rise of the modern welfare state, leading to a heyday of social planning. However, in high modernism the future lost its character of being a ‘storehouse of possibilities’. Rather, confronted with risks and uncertainties, the futurology of the 1960s tried to ‘colonize’ the time ahead and reduce its openness, now conceived not as a chance but as a potential danger. The result was a ‘defuturizing’ of the present, and a technocratic stance towards social change. In the aftermath of the traumatic outgrowths of totalitarianism, the utility of prospective thinking remained fundamentally questionable, and the dynamics of scientific and technological innovation made it difficult to anticipate future developments with plausible certainty.
Where do we stand today? Read More
The research group “Creating Science: Crafting Stem Cells in a Moral Landskape” are inviting to a seminar + reception to launch their new book (in Danish) Håbets teknologi. Samfundsvidenskabelige perspektiver på stamcelleforskning (Technology of Hope: Social Science Perspectives on Stem Cell Research). Join them Monday 12 March, 3-5pm at Center for Sundhed og Samfund, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Building 5, room 5.1.28.
(For our Danish readers): I en pressemeddelelse i dag fremlægger Forskningsrådet for Teknologi og Produktion (FTP) en ny og spændende videnskabsteori:
Amerikanske og engelske forskere har for nylig vist, at det rent faktisk kan lade sig gøre at designe en “usynlighedsfrakke” .. Indtil videre er usynlighedsfrakken ganske vist kun teoretisk bevist. Men videnskabshistorien viser os, at mange teorier før eller senere bliver til virkelighed gennem eksperimenter, konstaterer FTP’s formand (min kursiv).
Jeg synes nok jeg har hørt argumentet før — men da til fordel for jordstråler, pyramideffekter og chakraer. Men det er første gang som jeg har hørt en forskningsrådsformand hævde, at noget der kun er teoretisk bevist også rent faktisk kan lade sig gøre. Og desuden med støtte i videnskabshistorisk erfaring. Et nyt og spændende tilskud til videnskabsteoriens mangefacetterede verden? Eller måske bare vrøvl?
If you understand Danish this seminar on the ethical status of aborted foetuses organised by BioCampus at the University of Copenhagen might be of interest (Tuesday 20 March, 10am-4pm, University of Copenhagen, Humanities Campus, Njalsgade 80, room 24.2.07):
Hvornår kan et foster med rimelighed siges at være en person? Seminaret tager centrale elementer i debatten op til overvejelse, herunder striden om de sene aborter, hyppigt anvendte liberale argumenter for statens neutrale rolle og fostrets juridiske status i et historisk perspektiv.
Presentations by:
Write to eva.agnete.krzeminski@sociology.ku.dk before 10 March.
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