On Peers,Those ‘Particular Friends’

As an outgrowth of the institutionalisation of science, peers have come to enjoy a prerogative making them key actors in the configuration of the exercise of science. Indeed, as referees, they have been endowed with an enormous political power in that their function no longer restricts them to merely certifying or attesting: they have to assess. Scholarly writing, as conceived of by Robert Boyle, coupled with its transformation into writing bearing an imprimatur, serves as the starting point of our discussion of this aspect which is also part and parcel of science education.