Books in the Science and Cultural Theory series

Asks what is meant by complexity and how it might be handled within knowledge practices without generating a chaos of further complexities.

Argues for a re-conceptualization of research practice as a "mangle," an open-ended, evolutionary, and performative interplay of human and non-human agency. This title aims to extend the mangle's reach by exploring its application across a range of fields including history, philosophy, sociology, geography, and environmental studies.

A comparison of the use of model systems and exemplary cases across fields in the natural and social sciences.

Explores the debate on the biological significance and cultural meaning of genes in the development of organisms - the molecular paradigm

Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

Drawing on fieldwork in a Dutch university hospital, this title looks at the day-to-day diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis. It focuses on medical anthropology, sociology, feminist theory, philosophy, and science and technology studies to reframe such issues as the disease-illness distinction, subject-object relations, and boundaries.

Explores the cultural legacy of cybernetics and neocybernetics that offers new insight on the role of the human in an era of the posthuman.

Offering an introduction to the mangle, this book presents empirical studies that demonstrate the mangle's applicability to topics as diverse as pig farming, Chinese medicine, economic theory and domestic-violence policing.

Explores the debate on the biological significance and cultural meaning of genes in the development of organisms - the molecular paradigm

Presenting a reconstruction of ideas from the history of philosophy, science, and mathematics, this work shows that embedded in Lakatos's work is a historical philosophy rooted in his Hungarian past. It reveals that he introduced transformations of Hegelian and Marxist ideas about historiography, skepticism, criticism, and rationality.

A compilation of essays by the author that reveals the value for science studies of examples arising within the history of economics

Elaborates on author's pioneering work on developmental systems by spelling out that work's implications for the fields of evolutionary theory, developmental and social psychology, feminism, and epistemology.

Surveys the economies of exchange in human blood, tissues, and organs. This book compares tissue economies in the United Kingdom and United States. It features a series of case studies based on particular forms of tissue exchange and also considers the impact of different models of biotechnology patents on tissue economies.

Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

A collection exploring the place of the observatory in nineteenth-century science, culture.

A collection exploring the place of the observatory in nineteenth-century science, culture.

A comparison of the use of model systems and exemplary cases across fields in the natural and social sciences.

Argues compellingly that nature and nurture are not alternative influences on human development but, rather, developmental products and the developmental processes that produce them. This title shows that what developmental information" does depends on what is already in place and what alternatives are available.

Discusses the history of 20th century economics, and how it has become dominated by mathematical approaches.

Tells "stories" about a British attempt to build a military aircraft - the TSR2. Offering numerous insights into the way we theorise the working of systems, this title explores the overlaps between singularity and multiplicity and reveals rich new meaning in such concepts as oscillation, interference, fractionality, and rhizomatic networks.

If Chinese medicine is "traditional," why has it not disappeared with the rest of traditional Chinese society? What is the secret to Chinese medicine's remarkable adaptability that has allowed it to prosper for more than 2000 years? This title deals with these questions.

Building on his earlier book We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour develops his argument about the Modern fetishization of facts, or the creation of factishes.