Hanna Worliczek - Does epistemic object choice shape valuation of knowledge in cell biology?
Channel: Dominic Berry
Date: 12/07/2021

This video advertises a forthcoming seminar (8/11/2021) in the Biological Engineering Collaboratory seminar series for 2021. Details about this talk and the entire series can be found here: https://www.bioengcoll.org/bec-seminars-2021.html

Does epistemic object choice shape valuation of knowledge in cell biology?

"Modern cell biology has been historically shaped by the intentional integration of practical and theoretical knowledge from various disciplines, such as cytology, biophysics, biochemistry, and molecular biology. In the foundational period of this discipline in the 1950s, the historical actors involved in the becoming, shaping and institutionalization of cell biology understood and addressed this venture explicitly as interdisciplinary. Given the central importance of visual knowledge and visual evidence for accessing the cell morphologically and physiologically, the invention, refinement and validation of imaging-related technologies has been essential throughout the second half of the 20th century. 
These technologies range from new optical/microscopic instruments and their application, recording devices, image improvement, measurement, and manipulation to molecular and cellular technologies. The latter include the production of specific antibodies, the engineering of molecule-specific dyes and reporter molecules, cell culture and cell manipulation techniques, and much more. A person involved in aspects of the invention, assessment, and validation of such technologies can be located in a spectrum between various “extreme” positions. E.g., technology as the primary epistemic thing vs. technology as a purely technical thing; self- or third-party assessment as cell biologist vs. engineer/physicist etc.; working in basic research vs. applied industry or translational research; research at universities vs. other institutions; publication in methods journals vs. publication in cell biology journals. 

Newly emerging or refined technologies make new aspects of the cell and its environment accessible to scientific inquiry, including novel levels of visual or temporal resolution, newly discovered entities, novel ways to experimentally manipulate cell functions, or different types of cells or environments of cells previously not included in the repertoire(s) of cell biologists. Thus, new technologies require phases of (re-)describing and establishing cellular phenomena (structurally and functionally) before explanatory work becomes meaningful. The output of such work (and with it often the assessment of the produced knowledge as “cell biological” according to the contemporary standards of the discipline) has been judged differently regarding its status, value, person-associated reputation, or innovative capacity. Historical sources reveal indications that such judgements are not necessarily correlated with the respective usefulness of such knowledge, but also strongly influenced by the framing of the presented work.

In this seminar, I will probe different cases of such framings and contexts, to think about biological engineering in a perspective that considers tensions between and entanglements of knowledge producers and their intended or unintended audience. Since the 1970s, cell biology has increasingly become a discipline fragmented into highly specialized interdisciplinary research fields, each one with changing favorite epistemic objects and driving questions. Consequently, negotiating the disciplinary identity (including its implicit or explicit disciplinary culture) provokes sometimes strikingly contrary voices and opinions about what cell biology is and which ways of knowing are judged as fulfilling its disciplinary standards. Starting from the assumption that framing something as either an epistemic or a technical object, depending on the respective research field and/or intended audience, I aim to discuss factors that influence the judgement of knowledge and knowledge producer in a spectrum defined at one end by “engineering/methods mastery” and on the other end by breakthroughs in understanding how cells work.