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cultural analysis of computer modeling in the life sciences
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Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:43:54 -0500
From: "J.Dumit"
[...]
Simulating Knowledge: Cultural Analysis of Computer Modeling in the Life Sciences
A Workshop at Cornell University 19-21 April 1996 700 Clark Hall
Sponsored by the Department of Science & Technology Studies Supported by a Training Grant from the National Science Foundation
Increasingly, computer modeling and simulation are among the dominant modes of inquiry in the biological disciplines. However, models and simulations are more than products of the increasing power of computational technologies; they are technologies or representation displaying epistemic and ontological commitments as well as novel standards of evidence and practical skills. Technical workers are no longer the sole users of simulations; the rhetoric and aesthetics of models have infiltrated public discourse and popular culture in domains as different as public policy and video games.
How are simulations developed and used by researchers, policy makers, and consumers? Have these new technologies altered the processes of scientific research, collaboration, authorship and authority? How do simulations acquire cultural authority and scientific legitimacy? What can students of science and technology studies learn from the examination of simulation and modeling practices in different intellectual domains.
This workshop will address these and related questions through an examination of particular instances of technical work. Drawing upon resources present at Cornell and elsewhere we will provide our audience with and awareness of how science studies might understand what some practitioners argue is a change as significant as the advent of print culture.
Friday 19 April 6PM Keynote Address Joan Fujimura
7:15PM-8:30PM Reception
Saturday 20 April 9AM-12PM Climate Models (Panel I) "The World in a Machine: Origins and Impacts of Early Computerized Global Systems Models" Paul Edwards
"Simulated Climates: Political Constructions of a Science and a Future" Myanna Lahsen
"Prediction, Detection, Intervention: Trusting Experts in an Apocalyptic Age" Clark Miller
Discussants
12PM Lunch
2PM-6PM Simulation and Modeling in the Biosciences (Panel II) "The Practices of Producing Meaning in Bioinformatics" Joan Fujimura
"Primitivity in the Nativity of Artificial Life: Elementary Forms of Life in the White Imagination" Stefan Helmreich
"Simulating Similitude: Producing Computerized Brain Images and their Persons" Joseph Dumit
"Representing the User in Software Design" Diana Forsythe
Discussants
Sunday 21 April 9:30AM-12:30PM Simulation in Public Discourse and Popular Culture (Panel III) TBA Robert Evans
"The Simulation Crisis" Julian Bleecker
"Long Live the New Flesh: Uploading, Confession, and the Silicon Moment" Rich Doyle
Discussants
For further information concerning abstracts of papers, please visit the Dept. of S&TS Homepage on the WWW at http://www.sts.cornell.edu/CU-STS.html
If you are interested in participating or registering for the conference, please contact Ms. Colleen Doeing at (607) 255-3810.
Stefan Helmreich Sci & Tech Studies, Cornell Univ., 622 Clark Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 607 255 6048 (office), 607 277 0287 (home) ```
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