Abstract
This paper analyzes how scientists working in a multidisciplinary team produce scientific evidence through building and manipulating scientific visualizations. The research is based on ethnographic observations of scientists’ weekly work meetings and the observation of videotapes of these meetings. The scientists observed work with advanced imaging technologies to produce a 4D computer model of heat transfer in human prostate tissues. The idea of ‘digital objects’ is proposed in order to conceptually locate their ‘materiality’, observed in the practices of producing evidence through the handling of three-dimensional renderings of data. The manipulation of digital objects seeks to establish meaningful differences between parameters of interest, both when building and when analyzing them. These digital objects are dealt with as part of the empirical evidence used in the course of practices of visualizing and modeling natural phenomena. This process, which can be contextualized historically in terms of the development of imaging technologies, becomes crucial in understanding what counts as empirical evidence in current scientific work.
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Notes
The term embodied used here seeks to offer a description of the way scientists engage with the digital objects in question that is more relational than a mere passive looking at images. In this sense, I use the term “object” in place of “image”, as a means to elicit this relationship, through which scientific evidence is produced and analyzed.
The paper will not engage in a discussion about the ontological status of ‘natural’ versus ‘digital’ objects, as this is not the focus of this research. Also, I believe that this question is not answerable through the data collected and analyzed herein. In terms of the premises used in the discussion that follows, it is worth mentioning, however, that I remain agnostic about the ontological materiality of either natural or digital objects analyzed. The paper will address these forms of existence as they pertain to the practices observed, and will not explore whether the digital objects are actually empirical or not. I believe this sort of symmetrical approach (Latour 1993; Latour and Woolgar 1986), geared to the scientists’ practice (Bourdieu 1997; Sterne 2003), is a more adequate stance, given the ethnographic nature of the methods used to gather my own data. This does not, however, invalidate such philosophical discussions by other authors.
The natural vs. digital object dichotomy used here relates to Latour’s (1990) discussion of immutable mobiles and how they construe a relationship between natural and representational realms; it also refers to the scientists’ perceptions as observed in fieldwork. Natural thus refers to what is present in nature, the phenomena they seek to model; and digital here means that which pertains to the processed images and digital objects constructed by the scientists, which reference the natural objects. To the scientists observed, the digital objects are the closest possible renderings of natural phenomena they can possibly achieve, given the technologies and methods used. Their value as knowledge and evidence is dependent on how close they are thought to resemble the natural. This dichotomy is basic to the practices observed throughout this research: the idea of a ‘match’ between natural and digital rendering is what is sought through the various modeling and visualization practices.
This ethnographic study was approved by the University of Texas at Austin’s Institutional Review Board, having met all requirements for the ethical study of human subjects (UT IRB Study No. 2006-11-0040). All names have been substituted for by pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the scientists.
A specialist in scientific visualization, during a workshop I participated in, offered by the advanced computing facility available on the campus where the team I observed was located.
Primarily members of the university’s research community, with some visitors from other institutions and from overseas. I was the only one from a humanities or social science background during this particular week.
Transcript conventions:
(.) a gap of approximately one tenth of a second;
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(?) unintelligible;
(word) dubious hearing
(()) transcriber’s descriptions rather than or in addition to transcriptions.
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank the Science, Technology and Society Program at the University of Texas at Austin for funding the research presented in this paper. I also wanted to thank Prof. Elizabeth Keating, for making the ethnography that provided the data analyzed here possible.
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Monteiro, M. Reconfiguring Evidence: Interacting with Digital Objects in Scientific Practice. Comput Supported Coop Work 19, 335–354 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-010-9115-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-010-9115-x