Approaches in Post-Experimental Science. The Case of Precision Medicine**

In the introduction to his Spalt und Fuge, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger points to the possibility that we are currently experiencing a new turning point regarding forms of experimentation, which is characterized by the growing importance of high-throughput methods and big data analytics. This essay will explore the thesis that data-intensive research indeed constitutes a form of post-experimental research by interrogating research practices in precision medicine. Section 1 will introduce this thesis and highlight salient features of precision medicine as an example of post-experimental research. Section 2 suggests approach as a category that is broader than experimental system, as discussed by Rheinberger, and can serve to analyze and compare diverse forms of research, including experimental and post-experimental practices. The essay concludes with a reflection on how categories developed for the historiography of recent science might require an update when the science or its context changes (section 3).     

Precision Medicine: Historiography of Life Sciences and the Geneticization of the Clinics**

In 2013, Hans Jörg Rheinberger proposed that Mendelian genetics and molecular biology were “scientific ideologies,” that is, for him they are systems of thought whose objects are hyperbolic; they are not, or not yet, in the realm of and not, or not yet, under the control of that system. This article proposes that precision medicine today is a scientific ideology and analyses the implications of this statement for historians of biology, genetics, and medicine.     

当代中国史研究中的文献史料问题

当代中国史研究需要搜集、整理、考证和利用文献史料。搜集史料要求“全”,整理史料要求“实”,考证史料要求“真”,利用史料要求“准”,这些直接关系到所出研究成果的科学水平和学术质量。当代中国史文献史料类型多种,既包括有关的文件和档案、文集和文稿、报纸和新闻稿、定期刊物、纪实和回忆、资料汇编,又涉及地方史志、史学史料、国外资料、批判研究资料。就此文献史料进行马克思主义的历史考察和具体分析,可加深对其真实性、政治性和现实性的认识。建国后,学术界十分重视当代中国史文献史料工作:搜集相当广泛,整理比较系统,考证多有创新,利用成效显著。倘能对此丰富实践继续给予理论上的总结,无论对于当代中国史文献史料学的学科建设,乃至当代中国史研究的深入和发展,都具有一定的理论意义和实践价值。     

The Imperial Visual Archive: Images,Evidence, and Knowledge in the Early Modern Hispanic World

This article examines the role of images as evidence and sources of knowledge in the early modern Hispanic world, arguing for the continued importance of visual epistemology as a technique for producing and circulating knowledge from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Visual materials played a central role in the production of knowledge, scientific and imperial, and served as key instruments for addressing the considerable challenges of distance and place posed by the geographical expanse of the empire. Historiographically, the article highlights the active generation of scientific knowledge in the Hispanic world and connects it to imperial and administrative practices; it highlights trans-regional channels of circulation, demonstrating the connected histories of the viceroyalties and peninsula and the multidirectional trajectories in which information and knowledge moved; and it points out deep connections between earlier and later colonial periods. Methodologically, the essay explores the potential of images as historical sources, suggesting that the high status of images in the early modern Hispanic world led to the creation of an enormous pictorial archive that deserves the same level of scholarly attention and rigor that has been lavished on the textual archive.     

Science for Competition among Powers: Geographical Knowledge,Colonial-Diplomatic Networks,and the Scramble for Africa**

Historical studies on the relationship between science and diplomacy tend to focus on events since World War II and on initiatives for the maintenance of peace or to achieve cooperation over contentious matters. This article presents the case of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a Portuguese zoologist who had formal diplomatic responsibilities in a context of competition for the colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century. He used his knowledge in African geography to implement colonial and diplomatic strategies that aimed at outcompeting rival powers. The development of a network of actors with scientific, colonial, and diplomatic expertise was crucial for the negotiations that involved the partition of the Congo basin, which resulted in victories for Portugal that surpassed the country's marginal political relevance at the international level and had long-lasting consequences.     

Engineering Education in Cold War Diplomacy: India,Germany, and the Establishment of IIT Madras**

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT) was set up with assistance of the Federal Republic of Germany between 1956 and 1974. It became the largest, and finally, a successful techno-scientific education project undertaken by the Federal Republic outside of Germany. In this paper, I argue that the engagement of the Federal Republic at IIT Madras has to be understood primarily as a project of Cold-War science and technology diplomacy, which on the German side was aimed at preventing an Indian recognition of the German Democratic Republic as a sovereign nation. In aiding the establishment of IIT Madras, the Federal Republic came into direct competition with the Soviet Union, which supported IIT Bombay but also with the United States of America, which supported IIT Kanpur. The assistance to establish IIT Madras and its governance followed mainly political guidelines, to which educational and scientific aspects were rendered subordinate. When the project was in a crisis after the first State Treaty to establish IIT Madras expired in 1963, the political flagship project of the Federal Republic was not allowed to fail. Instead, the cooperation was reorganized and support increased.     

民俗资料学的建立与意义

民俗学是一门特别重视资料的学科,但民俗学者在传统上往往将民俗资料与文本类的民俗志和民俗文献互为等同。广义的民俗资料概念与此不同,意指一切能够为民俗学研究提供有效信息的文字与非文字资料,包括文本、图像、文物和影音资料等。民俗资料学借鉴史料学、文献学、文物与博物馆学、图书馆学、信息科学等的理论与方法,从民俗学的学科需求出发,着重研究民俗资料的搜集整理、分类属性、保存利用等问题。开拓这一学术研究方向的目的,在于坐实民俗学"资料之学"的名义,对内促进民俗学的学科发展,对外与历史学、文献学、人类学、计算机科学等形成对话,并为政府、社会团体与个人提供民俗资料方面的咨询服务。     

The Obvious in a Nutshell: Science,Medicine, Knowledge,and History

The scope and mission of the history of science have been constant objects of reflection and debate within the profession. Recently, Lorraine Daston has called for a shift of focus: from the history of science to the history of knowledge. Such a move is an attempt at broadening the field and ridding it of the contradictions deriving from its modernist myth of origin and principle of demarcation. Taking the move from a pluralistic concept of medicine, the present paper explores the actual and possible contributions that a history of knowledge can offer to the history of medicine in particular. As we will argue, the history of medicine has always been a history of knowledge, but for good reasons has always stuck to the concept of medicine as its object and problem throughout the ages, including the modern, scientific one. We argue that, in the history of medicine, the demarcation between scientific and non‐scientific represents an accident, but is not foundational as in the case of natural science. Furthermore, the history of medicine programmatically played a role in at least two academic domains (history proper and medical education), adjusting historical narratives of medical knowledge to its audience. Accordingly, we underscore that the history of both science and medicine, as traditionally defined, already provides room for almost the whole spectrum of approaches to history. Moreover, their different myths of origin can, and indeed must, be included in the reflexivity of the historical gaze. We argue that the position towards a history of science, medicine, or knowledge is not a question of narrative or theory, rather, it is a question of relevance and awareness of extant contexts.     

Interstellar Molecules,Galactochemistry and the Origin of Life

Abstract

The progress of galactochemistry over the past two decades has been rapid and controversial. Using the concepts and methodologies of several disciplines, galactochemistry is concerned with the genesis and probable reactions of molecules in space, in galaxies at different stages of development and, by extension, with the prebiotic stage of a just-cooled planet. The present article reviews the current state-of-the-art and indicates probable future developments.     

A Crisis of Opportunity: Market-Making,Big Data,and the Consolidation of Migration as Risk

Crisis narratives surrounding Europe’s 2015 migration influx fuelled demands for new ways of tracking, mapping and predicting human mobility. We explore how market opportunities for technology firms and data analytics start-ups created by the EU’s Global Approach to Migration led to solutionistic approaches to compiling and analysing migration statistics. We show that initiatives such as the rebranding of existing platforms and services as migration prediction systems are consolidating policy conceptualisations of migration as risk. Despite the promise of greater granularity, this “big data approach” cannot offer greater certainty about who is on the move and why. Instead such approaches are ill-suited to understanding the complex dynamics of migration and to offering protection to vulnerable people. The marketisation of migration statistics through big data offers a key case for advancing progressive approaches to both migration statistics and global data justice.     

从史源学角度判断佯僙诸史的史料价值

记载佯僙的历代史书中,只有明代三大《贵州通志》是可信的,其他史书都是抄撮而成,是失实的。应从明代三通志中疏理材料,使佯僙的研究能进一步深入。     

Death at St Bernard's: Anti-vivisection,Medicine and the Gothic

Displaying a Gothic fascination with the misapplication of science, Edward Berdoe's St Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student (1887) was one of a number of novels in the 1880s that repackaged the horrors of vivisection for public consumption. Although the novel can be dismissed as derivative, it departed from standard themes found in other anti-vivisection texts. Through the device of a hero struggling with the moral implications of science and the reckless treatment of patients, St Bernard's challenged the legitimacy of the teaching hospital. The present article moves debate about the Gothic, literature and science beyond well-known texts by Stevenson and Wells to examine how St Bernard's combined ‘the methods of science with the methods of romance’ and shifted the anti-vivisection narrative into the hospital. In locating the novel within anti-vivisectionist uses of fiction and late-Victorian anxieties about experimental medicine and the teaching hospital, the article explores the novel's relationship with other anti-vivisection texts and Gothic fiction, and examines what it says about scientific practices and mentalities. St Bernard's fashioned a very different hospital from existing representations to warn readers of how brutish students and cruel doctors tortured patients. In doing so, the novel recast the teaching hospital as an uncanny and dangerous place.     

Marine Data,Access, and Interoperability: Two Case Studies of English National Records

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the long-term management of marine historic environment archives, focusing on the comparison of English Heritage’s National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) with the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) as case studies.

Within marine (and terrestrial) contexts, archaeological archives are unique records of survey, excavation, and associated research of the historic environment. They are a resource which allows understanding of the human past to be developed, reviewed, and reinterpreted as new data is gathered. As such, they are significant for research, development-led studies, education, outreach, and public enjoyment. At a time when there is a significant focus on data from the marine environment, both within the UK and more widely across Europe, this paper puts forward some initial recommendations to enable further interoperability between these two key national datasets.

Analysis of these datasets highlighted some interesting points, including the quantification and qualification of the scale of discrepancies between data providers (NRHE and UKHO), and how these can be overcome to allow comprehensive, reliable, and accessible data on which to base long-term planning, decision-making, and resource management. This will ensure a consistent approach, enabling the successful long-term management of historic environment archives, and making historic environment data readily accessible to the wider public.