Placing or Replacing the Laboratory in the History of Science

Bibliographic Data

ID3566479
AuthorsGraeme Gooday (0000-0002-4300-471X, University of Leeds, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume99
Issue4
Pages783-795
Publication date2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/595772
OpenAlexW2085002864
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited21

This essay presents an alternative to interpretations of laboratories as institutions for controlled investigation of nature that are either placeless or "set apart." It historicizes the claim by showing how the meaning of "laboratory" has both changed and diversified over the last two centuries. Originally a laboratory could be a site of organic growth or material manufacture, but it can now be a specialized domain for technological development, educational training, or quality testing. The essay then introduces some contingencies of geography and gender by showing how boundaries between laboratories and other spaces—especially domestic kitchens—could be permeable or nonexistent; importantly, some spaces served as experimental laboratories without ever being designated as such. A key corollary, however, is that there were limits to this permeability: not all social spaces could be turned consensually into laboratories, and laboratory users could be intolerant of certain imported technical cultures

Corollary · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Meaning (existential · Quality (philosophy · Sociology · Engineering · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History · Mathematics · Philosophy

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