Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (Studies in Ethnomethodology) [Hardcover]

Michael Lynch (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 180 pages
• Publisher: Routledge Kegan & Paul (May 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0710097530
• ISBN-13: 978-0710097538
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,517,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of data, not so much conclusion, October 25, 2000

By 

Ian Vandewalker (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (Studies in Ethnomethodology) (Hardcover)

Lynch's study of neurobiology is unique among the "laboratory studies" books that I've read in that Lynch refuses to make broad conclusions about the epistemological status of science in general. Whether this comes from what he got out of his data or prior methodological commitments is a little unclear, although it seems like laboratory studies somehow always end up supporting the author's prior convictions. There is a lot of (almost) raw data in the book, especially in regards to recorded conversations from the lab. These transcripts are very interesting. So is Lynch's treatment of laboratory science as shop work. Don't look to this book for the answer to the question of whether or not science is socially constructed, though. Lynch seems to think that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. He gives science more credit than most of the other laboratory studies I've read, but this may, as I said, come from prior convictions. I think that interpretation is given support by Lynch's commitment from the beginning to the idea that the "anthropologist" in the lab must know at least something about the science being studied. Compare with Latour and Woolgar's Laboratory Life (they have a very different view both methodologically and interpretively) and Karin Knorr-Cetina's The Manufacture of Knowledge.