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Andrew Pickering

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Andrew Pickering is a sociologist and historian of science at Exeter University. He was a professor of sociology and a director of science and technology studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until 2007. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of London, and a doctorate in Science Studies from the University of Edinburgh. His book Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics is a classic in the field of the sociology of science.

In elucidating some of the sociological factors prevailing in particle physics, Pickering also wrote a number of papers for journals and conferences. According to Pickering, theory and experiment come in packages, and traditions of experiment generate just the kind of data which will fuel further theorising, while traditions of theory generate new problems for further development.

Pickering thus described two theorical frameworks in particle physics: 'old physics' - which at the time of its' death, was "still alive" - dominated high energy physics through the 1960's and into the early 1970's, and concerned itself with 'common phenomena'. 'New physics' refers to the theory and experiment 'package' concerned with rare phenomena, such as the search for quarks. While each theoretical framework had little to say about the other, and "was useless in the phenomenal world of its rival", each was satisfactory in its own terms. Despite this, Pickering also outlined a process of "magical transmutation", where new theories are produced from old, by what he called "analogical recycling". Pickering noted that all this is symptomatic of Kuhnian type revolutions.


He authored The mangle of practice: Time, agency and science (University of Chicago Press, 1995), where he develops a performative conception of scientific practice, focusing on non human agency and strongly contributing to the posthumanist trend of Science and Technology Studies. His most recent book, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future traces the history of British Cybernetics after the II World War. Pickering considers Cybernetics as a type of nomad science that, instead of seeking to dominate reality as its modern counterpart (thus leading to processes of enframing, following Heidegger) rather develops an ontological coreography between humans and non humans. In this book, Pickering explores projects that intertwine, for instance, technology, psychiatry, spirituality, education and, of course, brain sciences.

Selected publications

  • The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
  • The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society and Becoming (Editor with Keith Guzik), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008
  • The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  • Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984.
  • "Elementary Particles: Discovered or Constructed?" in: W. P. Trower and G. Bellini (eds) Physics in Collision: High-Energy ee/ep/pp Interactions, pp. 439-48. New York and London: Plenum, 1982.
  • "Interests and Analogies," in: S. B. Barnes and D. O. Edge (eds.) Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science, pp. 125-46. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1982.
  • "The Hunting of the Quark," Isis, Vol. 72 (1981), 216-36.
  • "Exemplars and Analogies: A Comment on Crane's Study of Kuhnian Paradigms in High-Energy Physics" and "Reply to Crane," Social Studies of Science, Vol. 10 (1980), 497-502, 507-8.

References

  1. Pickering, Andy (1981), "Elementary Particles: Discovered or Constructed?", Pre-publication copy of article to appear in Proc. of Int. Conf. on Physics in Collision: High Energy ee/ep/pp Interactions, Blacksburg, Virginia, May 28-31, 1981, p. 11 http://www-spires.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?irn=822760 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. Pickering, Andy (1983), "Producing A World: Transformations Of Experimental Practice In The History Of High-Energy Physics", Paper presented at History of Science Society Mtg., Norwalk, Conn., Oct 27-30, 1983, Maui, Hawaii, p. 12 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?r=PRINT-83-1051 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. Pickering, A.R. (1984), "Against putting the phenomena first: The discovery of the weak neutral current", Study of History and Philosophy of Science, 15 (2): 85–117
  4. Pickering, Andrew R.; Trower, W. Peter (1985), "Some sociological problems of high-energy physics", Nature, 318: 243–245, doi:10.1038/318243a0 (Pay per view, but this journal is in any good library)
  5. ^ Pickering, Andy (1983), p.12
  6. Pickering, Andy (1981), p.11


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