Who is the modern scientist? Lecture by Steven Shapin

There are now many historical studies of what’s been called scientists’ personæ–-the typifications, images, and expectations attached to people who do scientific work. There has been much less interest in the largely managerial and bureaucratic exercises of counting scientists-– finding out how many there are, of what sorts, working in what institutions. This talk first describes how and why scientists came to be counted from about the middle of the twentieth century and then relates those statistical exercises to changing senses of who the scientist was, what scientific inquiry was, and what it was good for.

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Date: Thursday 28 November 2013

Time: 5-7 pm

Place: Felix Meritis (Teekenzaal), Keizersgracht 324, Amsterdam