Abstract
Ethics is an integral part of scientific and technological thinking, whether the practitioners recognize it or not. The kind of expertise the scientist gains about ethics and the ethicist about science can be labeled interactional. An interactional expert learns the language of a community with sufficient depth to communicate on matters like research strategy. The concept of trading zone is employed to understand how people from different perspectives and agencies can work together to define a common goal in a way that would be acceptable to their core communities. These concepts will be honed by applying them to case-studies of social scientists and humanists who integrated themselves into science and engineering laboratories. This paper will particularly focus on the value of complementing interactional expertise with the acquisition of somatic tacit knowledge.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. #0849101.
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Notes
- 1.
The National Academy of Sciences book on the Responsible Conduct of Science is an extremely useful resource on these topics (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4917)
- 2.
See http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2011/nsb1141.pdf for the latest recommendations by the National Science Board.
- 3.
A system like radar involved work on the boundaries of several disciplines; therefore, different expertises represented the emerging system and sub-systems in unique ways characteristic of what Leigh Starr called a boundary object (Bowker and Star 2000).
Boundary objects and systems can facilitate coordination in trading zones, especially ones that involve creating systems, where working prototypes and detailed plans can serve a role similar to an emerging creole.
- 4.
Galison has a PhD in physics as well as in history of science, which facilitates his study of trading zones—but even in his case, he does not have expertise across all the elements of the trading zones.
- 5.
Collins and Evans have developed a program of research using the imitation game, a kind of Turing test for interactional expertise, but that important work is beyond the scope of this paper (Collins and Evans 2007).
- 6.
Societal dimensions of nanotechnology (SES 0210452).
- 7.
For more details on this project and its outcomes, see Gorman et al. (2004).
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Gorman, M.E., Calleja-López, A., Conley, S.N., Mahootian, F. (2013). Integrating Ethicists and Social Scientists into Cutting Edge Research and Technological Development. In: Doorn, N., Schuurbiers, D., van de Poel, I., Gorman, M. (eds) Early engagement and new technologies: Opening up the laboratory. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7844-3_8
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