The sciences of subjectivity

In historical and ethnographic studies of the making of scientific knowledge, there has been a long-standing fascination with deflating certain stories about objectivity. Among the resources used to achieve that deflation have been the notions of subjectivity, which has been treated more as a trouble for objectivity than as a knowledge-making mode open to systematic study. I describe notions of subjectivity implicated in that inattention; I trace potentially constructive links between contemporary science studies and resources in 18th-century philosophical aesthetics; I draw notice to available engagements with the mode of subjectivity known as taste, and, especially, gustation and olfaction; and I suggest ways in which we might study the achievement of intersubjectivity in these domains.     

When humans are the exception: cross-species databases at the interface of biological and clinical research

Cross-species comparison has long been regarded as a stepping-stone for medical research, enabling the discovery and testing of prospective treatments before they undergo clinical trial on humans. Post-genomic medicine has made cross-species comparison crucial in another respect: the 'community databases' developed to collect and disseminate data on model organisms are now often used as a template for the dissemination of data on humans and as a tool for comparing results of medical significance across the human-animal boundary. This paper identifies and discusses four key problems encountered by database curators when integrating human and non-human data within the same database: (1) picking criteria for what counts as reliable evidence, (2) selecting metadata, (3) standardising and describing research materials and (4) choosing nomenclature to classify data. An analysis of these hurdles reveals epistemic disagreement and controversies underlying cross-species comparisons, which in turn highlight important differences in the experimental cultures of biologists and clinicians trying to make sense of these data. By considering database development through the eyes of curators, this study casts new light on the complex conjunctions of biological and clinical practice, model organisms and human subjects, and material and virtual sources of evidence--thus emphasizing the fragmented, localized and inherently translational nature of biomedicine.     

From 'following the push of nature' to 'restoring one's proper sex'--cortisone and sex at Johns Hopkins's Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic

In 1955, a paradigm shift in the conception of sex is said to have taken place, when psychologist John Money at Johns Hopkins's Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic argued that 'hermaphroditic' children could be assigned a sex contradictory to their biological sex. Rather than being born male or female, he claimed, these children learned to be boys or girls. Money was subsequently credited the invention of the term gender role. However, Money only confirmed a practice that was established at the clinic several years before his intervention. The clinic's director Lawson Wilkins (1894-1963) had already recommended that certain children, virilized by congenital adrenal hyperplasia, should be raised in the male sex, even though they were by all medical standards of the time female. What mattered for him was assigning the sex that seemed 'better' for these children. What constituted the 'better sex' was contingent on the child's psyche and habitus, social expectations, and on the range of medical and surgical interventions available at the time.     

进化论对中国近现代历史哲学的巨大影响

十九世纪中期开始传入中国的进化论思想,直接导致中国思想界发生翻天覆地的变化。从严复“取便发挥”的译述到改良派的“变法维新”,从鲁迅对进化论的宣传到孙中山主张的“改革”、“猛进”,从“五四”初期新文化运动代表者们对中国前途的探索,到他们用社会主义代替资本主义的历史进化立场。进化论对中国近现代历史哲学产生了重大影响,成为从变易史观发展到历史唯物主义的重要环节。     

科学与搜寻罪犯

现代科学在许多方面应用于解决犯罪问题。其范围包括血迹的实验室检验, 指纹的分类与搜寻,以及犯罪调查系统的计算机坐阵指挥。作者为科学在这个有趣领域的应用提供了某些例证。     

微营养素和肉品质量的关系

日粮中微营养素硒(Se)能够引起肌肉组织的生理变化,从而改变畜禽肉品的品质.本文着重阐明硒和VE在细胞膜和细胞质的抗氧化中独特应用,进而对肉品的形成和贮存过程中保持肉品的完整性起明显作用.