anna maerker_review why do they look like that three dimensonal models in science

8/4/2019 Anna Maerker_Review Why Do They Look Like That Three Dimensonal Models in Science

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/anna-maerkerreview-why-do-they-look-like-that-three-dimensonal-models-in-science 1/6

Review: Why Do They Look like That? Three-Dimensional Models in ScienceAuthor(s): Anna MaerkerSource: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 37, No. 6 (Dec., 2007), pp. 961-965Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474558 .

Accessed: 16/09/2011 21:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Sage Publications, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Studies of

Science.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sageltd

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474558?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474558?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sageltd



SISIS

REVIEW

Why Do They Look Like That} Three

dimensional Models in Science

Anna Maerker

de Chadarevian, Soraya & Nick Hopwood (eds) (2004) Models: TheThird Dimension ofScience (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 488

pp, $70.00 / 42.95 / 58.90 (hbk),$25.95 / 18.50 / 22.00 (pbk),ISBN 0804739714 (hbk),0804739722 (pbk)

For the past three decades, work in science studies has been fruitfully

engaged with scientific practice and with the material culture of science

more generally. Although no doubt unintended, the choice of topics that

characterize thiswork have served to reinforce one aspect of the traditional

image of science that the focus on practice and culture aims to supplant.

By focusing on those places and objects that are conventionally seen to be

more 'scientific', science studies has tended to ignore spaces and thingsthat seemed to be 'merely educational', popular, or commercial. As a

result, science studies researchers appear to prefer laboratories over muse

ums, research over teaching, texts over images, and instruments over mate

rials when choosing their research sites. In contrast, Models: The Third

Dimension ofScience forms part of a recent movement to challenge thesetendencies, and take Science studies into the neglected areas of scientific

practice and itsmaterial culture.1

In the edited volume, the contributors single out three-dimensional

models as objects which warrant the analyst's attention. Historians,

philosophers, sociologists of science, and museum practitioners present

case studies ranging from eighteenth-century archaeological models to

twentieth-century computer models of molecules. The common focus, as

highlighted in the editorial preface, is the three-dimensionality ofmodels.

This focus, de Chadarevian and Hopwood argue, affords a new perspectiveon science that tended to be neglected in thewake ofBruno Latour's claim

that the power of science stems from its ability to reduce phenomena to two

dimensions, and thus to facilitate their domination.

The contributions are also of interest for readers not primarily inter

ested in the three-dimensionality ofmodels, however. As the editors point

Social Studies ofScience 37/6 (December 2007) 961-965

? SSS and SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)ISSN 0306-3127 DOI: 10.1177/0306312707087013

www. sagepublications. com



962 Social Studies of Science 37/6

out, and as the individual contributions show, the initial focus on three

dimensionality leads scholars to address a number of crucial issues con

cerning practices of model production and model use. Who are the

practitioners making models, and how do they relate to the scientific com

munities models should belong to?What role does a model's materiality

play? How are these objects linked to other types ofmedia? What are the

forms of bodily engagement around these three-dimensional representations? Inwhat institutional and disciplinary contexts aremodels employed?

How is knowledge produced through models? How, when, and why are

models challenged? In following scientificmodels through different spaces

and communities, these trajectories highlighthow themodels'

precariousstatus as 'scientific objects' depends on where, how, and bywhom they are

made and used. As several of the case studies in the volume show, models

travel between different spaces, between workshops and factories, between

lecture halls and classrooms, and between laboratories and museums.

Thus, accounts ofmodel production and use lead to the resurrection of

forgotten, or at least neglected, spaces of science.2

While the individual chapters are each interesting in their own right, it is

the two short final commentaries by James Griesemer and Ludmilla

Jordanova that highlight general issues of interest for the analyst of sciencewhen dealing with three-dimensional models and provide themost helpful

entry points into the collection. Griesemer stresses that engagement with

three-dimensional models enlarges the traditional philosophical perspectiveon science by drawing philosophers' attention to gestural and performativeelements of themaking of scientific knowledge. Importantly,Griesemer high

lights ambivalence as a central feature ofmodels: '3-D models can be both

models of... and models for" (p. 435); they aremade to stand in for objects of

scientific enquiry, and at thesame

time provide 'guidesof action'

(p. 435).When these two potential functions of a model are conflated, models can

become intenselypolitical by playing significant roles inpower struggles.Due

tomodels' potential slippage between description and prescription, model

makers may claim not only the authority to produce accurate representations

of nature, but also the power to determine how things ought to be.

Ludmilla Jordanova arrives at related issues from a different perspec

tive. She calls for increased attention to the aesthetic qualities ofmodels.

Since no three-dimensional model is identical with the object it represents,

it is useful to ask 'why do they look like that?' (p. 446). This question,

Jordanova argues, opens up at least two areas of enquiry: Firstly, what is

the place of amodel within the visual culture of itsday- what are the aes

thetic conventions of which a particular model partakes? Secondly, what

different kinds of viewings are possible? These questions draw attention

both to amodel's specific features, and to the object's uses and reception.

Jordanova highlights the fact thatmodels can be perceived in different,

unintended ways and that, as a result, it is often difficult formodel makers

andusers to

maintainamodel's

status as a scientificobject. Separating

wax

models from pornography, molecular models from tinker toys, 'proper sci

ence' frommere entertainment/education/commerce are all difficult and



Book Review 963

precarious acts of boundary work. This problem further points to the

importance of concomitant rhetorical strategies for establishing and stabi

lizingmodels as scientific objects. As Jordanova stresses, it is in the practices ofmodel making and model use that 'relations of power and authority,both political and intellectual, make themselves manifest' (p. 445).

It is no coincidence that such questions of power and authority are

among themost conspicuous aspects of the volume's contributions. As

Barry Barnes, David Bloor and John Henry (1996: 108-09) have noted,

modeling is a 'pragmatic accomplishment': it is an activity done for a particular purpose. As such, it raises a number of issues that bear on the role

of authority in the practice of scientific knowledge-making. The selectionof an object formodeling turns it into an object worthy of imitation, or of

scientific enquiry.Who, then, has the authority to determine what isbeing

modeled, and what the purpose of thismodeling is?Who has the authorityto produce such representations of nature? And, finally, who determines

what constitutes a successful model? While the essays contained in the vol

ume foreground diverse aspects of models, all thirteen attempt to givedetailed accounts ofmodels' production, uses, and/or reception and most,

explicitly or implicitly, address the question 'Why do models look like that?'

Both Lynn Nyhart in her study of natural history displays in Germanmuseums around 1900 ('Science, Art, and Authenticity inNatural History

Displays'), and James Secord in his essay on models of antediluvian animals

at theCrystal Palace innineteenth-century London ('Monsters at theCrystal

Palace') show how the construction of such representations was inextricablytied up with considerations of the proper relationship of art and science, the

image of the public and the educational message thatwas to be conveyed.Both essays highlight the importance of themodel producers' professional

authority for the scientific status of the three-dimensional representations.Similarly, Nick Hopwood's study of the production and dissemination of

embryological models inGermany in the second half of thenineteenth century

('Plastic Publishing inEmbryology') highlights the role of intra-disciplinarypolitics in ascribing authority tomodels and theirmakers. Hopwood showsthat publishing in embryology was closely linked to three-dimensional

modeling, and thus demonstrates that a focus on models (and, by implication, other neglected objects of scientific practice) can fruitfullyenrich our

understanding of even well-researched fields such as scientific publishing.

Some case studies show very clearly the political consequences of con

flating amodel's status as a (descriptive) 'representation of structure' and a

(prescriptive) 'object of imitation' (Oxford English Dictionary). In 'Fish and

Ships: Models in theAge of Reason', a study ofmodels inBritain around

1800, Simon Schaffer shows how scientists used miniature ships in argumentsfor the superiority of their own theoretical knowledge over thepractical skillsof shipwrights. However, winning this argument required institutional and

legal transformations both at the dockyards and in the academies in order to

adapt the realities of ship production to their purported representations.Christoph Meinel's investigation of the emergence of three-dimensionalmolecular models in the nineteenth century ('Molecules and Croquet Balls')



964 Social Studies of Science 37/6

shows how these molecular construction kits demonstrated the vision of the

synthetic chemist as the 'builder of a new world out ofman-made materials'

(p. 269). At the same time, these stick-and-ball models, initiallyconceived ofas 'mere' teaching aids, increasingly came to be seen as representing the 'real'

structure of chemical molecules, e.g. the stiffness of chemical bonds.

Meinel's contribution thus highlights another crucial feature of three-dimen

sional models: models' materiality can have unintended consequences.Such examples demonstrate that the notion ofmodeling as purposive

activity has to be supplemented by the recognition of a potential mismatch

between a model's intended and actual use. A number of case studies in

the volumepoint beyond

a models' function as a means to an end. The

interplay between a three-dimensional representation's features and the

context of its reception may lead to important shifts in themodel's mean

ing and use over time. Secord's antediluvian animals, for instance, were

appropriated as monsters rather than as evidence of the power of modern

science and industry. The protein models discussed by Soraya de

Chadarevian ('Models and theMaking ofMolecular Biology') were ini

tially constructed as an integral part of protein crystallography, but theysoon became powerful tools for the communication ofmolecular biology to

non-specialist audiences on television and inmuseums.

While the volume's editors stress three-dimensionality as the feature

which distinguishes models from other objects of enquiry, the individual case

studies also provide evidence of important continuities between models and

other representations of nature-

maps and images, toys and specimens,

instruments and laboratories. Such similarities link the present case studies

onmodels to core issues in science studies: the construction of authority and

expertise, problems of representation and intelligibility,and themutual con

stitution of scientific objects and their social, political,and

culturalcontext.

All thismakes this collection of essays rich food for thought, and a valuable

source ofmaterial for comparison that goes well beyond the study of three

dimensional models and includes, for example, the history of science as

material culture, relationships between science and the public, and the rela

tionship between differentmedia in scientific practice.

Notes

1 For museums see the focusMuseums and theHistory of Science' in Isis 96(4) (2005):

559-608. For recent contributions on science teaching see Kohlstedt (2005), and

Rudolph (2006). For images see the focus 'Science and Visual Culture' in Isis 97(1)

(2006): 75-132. For materials see Klein (2005).

2 For exemplary 'biographies of scientific objects' see also the contributions in Daston

(2000 and 2004).

References

Barry Barnes, David Bloor & John Henry (1996) Scientific Knowledge: a Sociological Analysis

(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press).

Daston, Lorraine (ed.) (2000) Biographies ofScientific Objects (Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press).



Book Review 965

Daston, Lorraine (ed.) (2004) Things that Talk: Object Lessons fromArt and Science (New

York: Zone Books).

Klein, Ursula (2005) 'Shifting Ontologies, ChangingClassifications: Plant Materials from

1700 to 1830', Studies inHistory and Philosophy ofScience 36: 261-329.

Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory (2005) 'Nature, Not Books: Scientists and the Origins of the

Nature-Study Movement in the 1890s', Isis 96: 324-52.

Rudolph, John L. (2006) 'Turning Science toAccount: Chicago and theGeneral Science

Movement in Secondary Education, 1905-1920', Isis 96: 353-89.

Anna Maerker isa postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute

for the History of Science, Berlin. She isworking on an historical study of

anatomical modeling and the articulation of expertise, Model Experts: TheProduction and Uses of Anatomical Models in Florence and Vienna around1800.

Address: Max-Planck-lnstitut furWissenschaftsgeschichte, Abt. Personal /

NWG,WilhelmstraGe 44# 10117 Berlin; e-mail: [email protected]

anna maerker_review why do they look like that three dimensonal models in science

Documents