Andrew Pickering - Böcker

This text offers an understanding of the nature of scientific, mathematical and engineering practice, and the production of scientific knowledge. The author presents an approach to the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account the number of factors - social, technological, conceptual and natural - that interact to affect the creation of scientific knowledge. In his view, machines, instruments, facts, theories, conceptual and mathematical structures, disciplined practices and human beings are in constantly shifting relationships with one another - "mangled" together in ways that are shaped by the contingencies of culture, time and place. Situating material as well as human agency in their larger cultural context, Pickering uses case studies to show how this picture of the open, changeable nature of science advances a greater understanding of scientific work both past and present. He examines the building of the bubble chamber in particle physics, the search for the quark, the construction of the quarternion system in mathematics and the introduction of computer-controlled machine tools in industry.He uses these examples to address the most basic elements of scientific practice - the development of experimental apparatus, the production of facts, the development of theory and the interrelation of machines and social organization.

Cybernetics is often thought of as a grim military or industrial science of control. But as Andrew Pickering reveals in this surprising book, a much more lively and experimental strain of cybernetics can be traced from the 1940s to the present. "The Cybernetic Brain" explores a largely forgotten group of British thinkers, including Grey Walter, Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson, R.D. Laing, Stafford Beer, and Gordon Pask, and their singular work in a dazzling array of fields. Psychiatry, engineering, management, politics, music, architecture, education, tantric yoga, the Beats, and the sixties counterculture all come into play as Pickering follows the history of cybernetics' impact on the world, from contemporary robotics and complexity theory to the Chilean economy under Salvador Allende. What underpins this fascinating history, Pickering argues, is a shared but unconventional vision of the world as ultimately unknowable, a place where genuine novelty is always emerging. And thus, Pickering suggests, the history of cybernetics provides us with an imaginative model of open-ended experimentation in stark opposition to the modern urge to achieve domination over nature and each other.

Recounts the history of the post-war conceptual development of elementary-particle physics. Inviting a reappraisal of the status of scientific knowledge, the text suggests that scientists are not mere passive observers and reporters of nature. Rather they are social beings as well as active constructors of natural phenomena who engage in both experimental and theoretical practice.

Science as Practice and Culture explores one of the newest and most controversial developments within the rapidly changing field of science studies: the move toward studying scientific practice--the work of doing science--and the associated move toward studying scientific culture, understood as the field of resources that practice operates in and on. Andrew Pickering has invited leading historians, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists of science to prepare original essays for this volume. The essays range over the physical and biological sciences and mathematics, and are divided into two parts. In part I, the contributors map out a coherent set of perspectives on scientific practice and culture, and relate their analyses to central topics in the philosophy of science such as realism, relativism, and incommensurability. The essays in part II seek to delineate the study of science as practice in arguments across its borders with the sociology of scientific knowledge, social epistemology, and reflexive ethnography.

An engaging range of period texts and theme books for AS and A Level history. The Wars of the Roses and the struggle for the throne between the Houses of York and Lancaster dominate the history of England in the latter half of the fifteenth century. But what were the causes of over forty years of sporadic civil war and how was political stability at last restored? Andrew Pickering aanalyses the historical debates surrounding the characters and events. Topics include fifteenth-century kingship and the reign of Henry VI, the end of the Yorkists, Henry VII and the establishment of the Tudor dynasty, and social and economic change in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

In The Mangle of Practice (1995), the renowned sociologist of science Andrew Pickering argued for a reconceptualization of research practice as a “mangle,” an open-ended, evolutionary, and performative interplay of human and non-human agency. While Pickering’s ideas originated in science and technology studies, this collection aims to extend the mangle’s reach by exploring its application across a wide range of fields including history, philosophy, sociology, geography, environmental studies, literary theory, biophysics, and software engineering.The Mangle in Practice opens with a fresh introduction to the mangle by Pickering. Several contributors then present empirical studies that demonstrate the mangle’s applicability to topics as diverse as pig farming, Chinese medicine, economic theory, and domestic-violence policing. Other contributors offer examples of the mangle in action: real-world practices that implement a self-consciously “mangle-ish” stance in environmental management and software development. Further essays discuss the mangle as philosophy and social theory. As Pickering argues in the preface, the mangle points to a shift in interpretive sensibilities that makes visible a world of de-centered becoming. This volume demonstrates the viability, coherence, and promise of such a shift, not only in science and technology studies, but in the social sciences and humanities more generally.Contributors: Lisa Asplen, Dawn Coppin, Adrian Franklin, Keith Guzik, Casper Bruun Jensen,Yiannis Koutalos, Brian Marick, Randi Markussen, Andrew Pickering, Volker Scheid, Esther-Mirjam Sent, Carol Steiner, Maxim Waldstein

Could all or part of our taken-as-established scientific conclusions, theories, experimental data, ontological commitments, and so forth have been significantly different? Science as It Could Have Been focuses on a crucial issue that contemporary science studies have often neglected: the issue of contingency within science. It considers a number of case studies, past and present, from a wide range of scientific disciplines—physics, biology, geology, mathematics, and psychology—to explore whether components of human science are inevitable, or if we could have developed an alternative successful science based on essentially different notions, conceptions, and results. Bringing together a group of distinguished contributors in philosophy, sociology, and history of science, this edited volume offers a comprehensive analysis of the contingency/inevitability problem and a lively and up-to-date portrait of current debates in science studies.

It was not so long ago that the belief in witchcraft was shared by members of all levels of society. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, diseases were feared by all, the infant mortality rate was high, and around one in six harvests was likely to fail. In the small rural communities in which most people lived, affection and enmity could build over long periods. When misfortune befell a family, they looked to their neighbours for support - and for the cause. During the sixteenth century, Europe was subject to a fevered and pious wave of witch hunts and trials. As the bodies of accused women burnt right across the Continent, the flames of a nationwide witch hunt were kindled in England. In 1612 nine women were hanged in the Pendle witch trials, the prosecution of the Chelmsford witches in 1645 resulted in the biggest mass execution in England, and in the mid-1640s the Witch finder General instigated a reign of terror in the Puritan counties of East Anglia. Hundreds of women were accused and hanged. It wasn't until the latter half of the seventeenth century that witch-hunting went into decline.In this book, Andrew and David Pickering present a comprehensive catalogue of witch hunts, arranged chronologically within geographical regions. The tales of persecution within these pages are testimony to the horror of witch-hunting that occurred throughout England in the hundred years after the passing of the Elizabethan Witchcraft Act of 1563.

The unique and picturesque village of Cheddar has a long and ancient history, from world-famous landmarks to local myths and ghost stories. From as early as 1130 the beauty of Cheddar Gorge was recognised as one of the ‘Four Wonders of England’. It is through archive and contemporary photographs that the distinctive landscape and history of Cheddar is captured and successfully celebrated.Serving as both a practical guidebook and a nostalgic look back for residents of the village, this book will explore Cheddar from the depths of the caves to the top of the gorge. Throughout the last century, Cheddar has progressed and created its own niche on the map. From strawberries and cheese to distinctive tourist attractions, this book makes it clear that Cheddar should be on the map for any tourist of the UK. This is the fully up-to-date version of Cheddar Through Time.

The town of Frome, in the ancient royal forest of Selwood that straddles the borders of Wiltshire and Somerset, was once renowned for its prosperous woollen cloth industry and is now noted as an emerging provincial centre for the arts and crafts. The town and its environs has a fascinating and little-known history. Here we will discover stories of medieval kings and bishops, political intrigue and judicial murder, religious dissent and rebellion, battles and sieges, criminals and crime-fighters. Here too are stories of eminent philosophers and authors, entrepreneurs and artists. Stories of ghosts and witchcraft share space with histories of personal triumphs and disasters in the lives of the residents of Frome. The hidden histories of its archaeological remains, extant surface structures and those deep underground combine to further reveal the tale of the town and its Selwood hundred.Fully illustrated throughout, Secret Frome investigates many of the town’s secrets and invites readers to discover the lesser-known events and stories from its past.

In the Anthropocene our actions are coming home to roost. Global warming, species extinctions, and environmental disasters are the dark side of our mastery of nature. In Acting with the World, Andrew Pickering identifies a different pattern of being and doing that can evade this dark side, a pattern that he calls acting-with the world. In contrast to our usual practice of acting on the world, acting-with foregrounds nonhuman or more-than-human agency and aims to attune our practices to the propensities of nature. Pickering explores examples of acting-with from around the globe, including flood control on the Mississippi River, ecosystem restoration on the Colorado River, the Room for the River project and rewilding in the Netherlands, natural farming in Japan, Aboriginal fire techniques in Australia, and Amazonian shamanism. Pickering argues that acting-with intimately and gracefully plugs us into nature, undercuts the Anthropocene from below, and offers a constructive approach to addressing otherwise intractable wicked problems.

In the Anthropocene our actions are coming home to roost. Global warming, species extinctions, and environmental disasters are the dark side of our mastery of nature. In Acting with the World, Andrew Pickering identifies a different pattern of being and doing that can evade this dark side, a pattern that he calls acting-with the world. In contrast to our usual practice of acting on the world, acting-with foregrounds nonhuman or more-than-human agency and aims to attune our practices to the propensities of nature. Pickering explores examples of acting-with from around the globe, including flood control on the Mississippi River, ecosystem restoration on the Colorado River, the Room for the River project and rewilding in the Netherlands, natural farming in Japan, Aboriginal fire techniques in Australia, and Amazonian shamanism. Pickering argues that acting-with intimately and gracefully plugs us into nature, undercuts the Anthropocene from below, and offers a constructive approach to addressing otherwise intractable wicked problems.

During the sixteenth century, Europe was subject to a fevered and pious wave of witch-hunts and trials. English anti-witch paranoia led to the persecution and execution of a great many individuals, and brought about a large-scale shift in the legal and social culture of the time. However, surprisingly little has been written about this fascinating period of English history, beyond the individual cases of the Pendle witches of Lancashire and the activities of Matthew Hopkins (the 'Witchfinder General') in East Anglia. In this engaging new volume, brothers Andrew and David Pickering address the origins of witch-hunting in England, the methods by which it was conducted, its distribution, its causes and consequences, and its eventual decline. Many differing approaches to the subject are explored, including feminist perspectives, functional explanations and post-modern interpretations, with a strong emphasis on the primary source material, including trial records and contemporary literature such as demonological texts and Royal Society papers. The book is also lavishly illustrated with engravings, maps and location photographs.