An insider's perspective Marianne de Laet S cientists are not lone wolves. Rather than picturing them as individuals who break ground through personal genius and reclusive concentration, we realize that scientists collaborate in institutional contexts, with their work constrained by funding conditions and guided by shared norms and rules. Much of what goes on in my field, science and technology studies-or STS, represents variations on his tradition. Although scientists live by shared values, Merton understood science in a broader sense to be value-free, unique among human endeavors in its oblivion to cultural norms, its objectivity, rationality, and generalizability.
Subjectivists reject such a strict division between knowledge and reality.
Recognizing subjective elements in science and objective ones in the humanities, and acknowledging that these attitudes often bleed into each other, STS scholars study scientific knowledge and practice as cultural phenomena. Science influences culture, and the knowledge it generates bears that culture's marks. An example of this approach is the laboratory study , in which STS scholars assume an anthropological role. 2 Participating, while observing, in lab activities, they learn from and collaborate with scientists. They map the routines and exchanges in the lab.