Sabine Maasen – författare

2017 PROSE Award Honorable MentionThe PROSE Awards draw attention to pioneering works of research and for contributions to the conception, production, and design of landmark works in their fields.Featuring peer-reviewed contributions from noted experts in their fields of research, Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects presents state-of-the-art approaches to reproducibility, the gold standard of sound science, from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Including comprehensive coverage for implementing and reflecting the norm of reproducibility in various pertinent fields of research, the book focuses on how the reproducibility of results is applied, how it may be limited, and how such limitations can be understood or even controlled in the natural sciences, computational sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and studies of science and technology.The book presents many chapters devoted to a variety of methods and techniques, as well as their epistemic and ontological underpinnings, which have been developed to safeguard reproducible research and curtail deficits and failures. The book also investigates the political, historical, and social practices that underlie reproducible research in contemporary science studies, including the difficulties of good scientific practice and the ethos of reproducibility in modern innovation societies.Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects is a guide for researchers who are interested in the general and overarching questions behind the concept of reproducibility; for active scientists who are confronted with practical reproducibility problems in their everyday work; and for economic stakeholders and political decision makers who need to better understand the challenges of reproducibility. In addition, the book is a useful in-depth primer for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in scientific methodology and basic issues in the philosophy and sociology of science from a modern perspective.“A comprehensive, insightful treatment of the reproducibility challenges facing science today and of ways in which the scientific community can address them.” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania“How can we make sure that reproducible research remains a key imperative of scientific communication under increasing commercialization, media attention, and publication pressure? This handbook offers the first interdisciplinary and fundamental treatment of this important question.”Torsten Hothorn, Professor of Biostatistics, University of Zurich

Harald Atmanspacher, PhD, is Associate Fellow and staff member at Collegium Helveticum, ETH and University Zurich and is also President of the Society for Mind-Matter Research.  He has pioneered advances in complex dynamical systems research and in a number of topics concerned with the relation between the mental and physical.

Sabine Maasen, PhD, is Professor for Sociology of Science and Director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (TU Munich) and Associate Fellow at Collegium Helveticum (ETH and University Zurich).  Her research focuses on the interface of science, technology, and society, notably with respect to neuroscience and its applications. 

2017 PROSE Award Honorable MentionThe PROSE Awards draw attention to pioneering works of research and for contributions to the conception, production, and design of landmark works in their fields.Featuring peer-reviewed contributions from noted experts in their fields of research, Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects presents state-of-the-art approaches to reproducibility, the gold standard of sound science, from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Including comprehensive coverage for implementing and reflecting the norm of reproducibility in various pertinent fields of research, the book focuses on how the reproducibility of results is applied, how it may be limited, and how such limitations can be understood or even controlled in the natural sciences, computational sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and studies of science and technology.The book presents many chapters devoted to a variety of methods and techniques, as well as their epistemic and ontological underpinnings, which have been developed to safeguard reproducible research and curtail deficits and failures. The book also investigates the political, historical, and social practices that underlie reproducible research in contemporary science studies, including the difficulties of good scientific practice and the ethos of reproducibility in modern innovation societies.Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects is a guide for researchers who are interested in the general and overarching questions behind the concept of reproducibility; for active scientists who are confronted with practical reproducibility problems in their everyday work; and for economic stakeholders and political decision makers who need to better understand the challenges of reproducibility. In addition, the book is a useful in-depth primer for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in scientific methodology and basic issues in the philosophy and sociology of science from a modern perspective.“A comprehensive, insightful treatment of the reproducibility challenges facing science today and of ways in which the scientific community can address them.” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania“How can we make sure that reproducible research remains a key imperative of scientific communication under increasing commercialization, media attention, and publication pressure? This handbook offers the first interdisciplinary and fundamental treatment of this important question.”Torsten Hothorn, Professor of Biostatistics, University of Zurich

Harald Atmanspacher, PhD, is Associate Fellow and staff member at Collegium Helveticum, ETH and University Zurich and is also President of the Society for Mind-Matter Research.  He has pioneered advances in complex dynamical systems research and in a number of topics concerned with the relation between the mental and physical.

Sabine Maasen, PhD, is Professor for Sociology of Science and Director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (TU Munich) and Associate Fellow at Collegium Helveticum (ETH and University Zurich).  Her research focuses on the interface of science, technology, and society, notably with respect to neuroscience and its applications. 

‘Scientific advice to politics’, the ‘nature of expertise’, and the ‘relation between experts, policy makers, and the public’ are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’ has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science – politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?", "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?", "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?"

Scientific knowledge and the ‘experts’ that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new régime of governance.

This book introduces the term of TechnoScienceSociety to focus on the ongoing technological reconfigurations of science and society. It aspires to use the breadth of Science and Technology Studies to perform a critical diagnosis of our contemporary culture. Instead of constructing technology as society’s “other”, the book sets out to highlight the both complex and ambivalent entanglements of technologies, sciences and socialities. It provides some tentative steps towards a diagnosis of a society in which individuals and organizations address themselves, their pasts, presents, futures, hopes and problems in technoscientific modes. Technosciences redesign matter, life, self and society. However, they do not operate independently: Technoscientific practices are deeply socially and culturally constituted.

The diverse contributions highlight the ongoing technological reconfigurations of rationalities, infrastructures, modes of governance, and publics. The book aims to inspire scholars and students to think and analyze contemporary conditions in new ways drawing on, and expanding, the toolkits of Science and Technology Studies.

Kann Wissenschaft ein Gegenstand nicht nur für Erkenntniskritik und historische Analyse, sondern auch für die Soziologie sein? Lange hieß es: nein! Spätestens mit Robert K. Merton ändert sich dies: Seither beschäftigt sich eine Wissenschaftsso­ziologie mit der Frage, wie die Produktion, Verbreitung und Geltung gesicherten Wissens möglich sind.

Das erhebliche Inventar an Theorien und Methoden, das zur Beantwortung die­ser Frage zur Verfügung steht, verdankt sich der Soziologie als Heimatdisziplin der Wissenschaftssoziologie – angereichert hat sie es durch ihre Eingliederung in eine interdisziplinäre Wissenschaftsforschung sowie durch Kooperationen mit Nach­bardisziplinen. Ob Diskurse oder Systeme, ob Organisationen oder Institutionen der Wissenschaft, ob Interaktionen mit Politik oder Öffentlichkeiten, ob neue Me­dien oder neue Arbeitsweisen, ob Nichtwissens- oder Technowissenschaftskultu­ren – wie die Beiträge des Handbuchs schlaglichtartig zeigen, widmet sich die heutige Wissenschaftssoziologie diesen und weiteren Themen mit hoher Auflösungskraft und Differenzierung.

Die Wissen­schaftssoziologie untersucht sowohl die heterogenen Bedingungen und ambi­valenten Effekte der Produktion, Verbreitung und Geltung gesicherten Wissens als auch der zunehmenden Wissensbasierung der Gesellschaft insgesamt. Es spricht deshalb einiges dafür, dass sie heute als Bindestrichsoziologie mit gesellschaftsdia­gnostischem Potenzial betrachtet werden kann.

Orgasmusschwierigkeiten, Familienleben oder Personalführung - überall findet sich das Subjekt aufgefordert, unter Rückgriff auf ein hoch diversifiziertes Therapie- und Beratungsangebot an sich zu arbeiten, Kompetenzen zu entwickeln, Potenziale zu aktivieren. Doch wie erklärt sich der Aufstieg dieser Selbsttechnologien?Aus genealogischer Perspektive gehen die sozial- und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Beiträge dieses Bandes der These nach, dass der »Psychoboom« als eine der strukturellen Veränderungen »nach dem Boom« in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland anzusehen ist - als Institutionalisierung einer »Krisenbewältigungsanstrengung«.

Nanotechnology has been the subject of extensive ‘assessment hype,’ unlike any previous field of research and development. A multiplicity of stakeholders have started to analyze the implications of nanotechnology: Technology assessment institutions around the world, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, re-insurance companies, and academics from science and technology studies and applied ethics have turned their attention to this growing field’s implications. In the course of these assessment efforts, a social phenomenon has emerged – a phenomenon the editors define as assessment regime.

Despite the variety of organizations, methods, and actors involved in the evaluation and regulation of emerging nanotechnologies, the assessment activities comply with an overarching scientific and political imperative: Innovations are only welcome if they are assessed against the criteria of safety, sustainability, desirability, and acceptability. So far, such deliberations and reflections have played only a subordinate role. This book argues that with the rise of the nanotechnology assessment regime, however, things have changed dramatically: Situated at the crossroads of democratizing science and technology, good governance, and the quest for sustainable innovations, the assessment regime has become constitutive for technological development.

The contributions in this book explore and critically analyse nanotechnology’s assessment regime: To what extent is it constitutive for technology in general, for nanotechnology in particular? What social conditions render the regime a phenomenon sui generis? And what are its implications for science and society?