Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited

Abstract

Representation in Scientific Practice, published by the MIT Press in 1990, helped coalesce a long-standing interest in scientific visualization among historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science and remains a touchstone for current investigations in science and technology studies. This volume revisits the topic, taking into account both the changing conceptual landscape of STS and the emergence of new imaging technologies in scientific practice. It offers cutting-edge research on a broad array of fields that study information as well as short reflections on the evolution of the field by leading scholars, including some of the contributors to the 1990 volume. The essays consider the ways in which viewing experiences are crafted in the digital era, the embodied nature of work with digital technologies, the constitutive role of materials and technologies -- from chalkboards to brain scans -- in the production of new scientific knowledge, the metaphors and images mobilized by communities of practice, and the status and significance of scientific imagery in professional and popular culture.