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From the bestselling author of Imperfection, a theory of uncertainty as the very core of the scientific method—and the essence of its wonder.How many times have we looked for something and found something else? A partner, a job, an object? The same thing often happens to scientists: they design an experiment and discover the unexpected, which usually turns out to be very important. This fascinating phenomenon is called serendipity, which takes its name from the mythical Serendip, a place from which, according to a Persian fable, three princes set off to explore the world, making chance discoveries along the way. In Serendipity, the award-winning author of Imperfection Telmo Pievani returns to weave a compelling story about the unexpected in science and its fascinating role in our understanding of the world. Going far beyond the usual examples of penicillin, X-rays, the microwave oven, and Christopher Columbus, Pievani shows that the most surprising stories of serendipity in the history of science reveal profound aspects of the logic of scientific discovery. In this book, he presents for the first time: an archaeology of the idea; a taxonomy of serendipitous discoveries; an “ecology of serendipity” (the surrounding conditions and factors that can promote it); and lastly, a theory of serendipity (why it occurs so frequently in so many sciences). From Zadig to Sherlock Holmes, Pievani shows that such great discoveries are not just the product of luck. Instead, serendipity comes from a mix of cunning, curiosity, sagacity, imagination, and accidents caught on the fly. Serendipity illuminates how much we don't know and how much we don't even know we don't know. Above all, Pievani reminds us that the human brain is of a piece with the world it is investigating—a world so much bigger than our knowledge—and it has also evolved within that world, adapting as it has to.

This anthology is a unique compilation of scientific contributions on the topic of measurement and understanding, showing how terms such as number, measurement, understanding, model, pattern are used in a wide variety of disciplines. Based on the results and experiences from their own projects, 23 researchers comment on the potentials and limitations of individual methodological approaches and success factors of interdisciplinary collaboration. In doing so, they sound out the different significance of quantification and empirical evidence for their own disciplines and examine the influence of methodological approaches on existing models and images. The common goal is to want to understand the world; the methods, however, are highly diverse.

This open access book provides a broad context for the understanding of current problems of science and of the different movements aiming to improve the societal impact of science and research. The author offers insights with regard to ideas, old and new, about science, and their historical origins in philosophy and sociology of science, which is of interest to a broad readership. The book shows that scientifically grounded knowledge is required and helpful in understanding intellectual and political positions in various discussions on the grand challenges of our time and how science makes impact on society. The book reveals why interventions that look good or even obvious, are often met with resistance and are hard to realize in practice. Based on a thorough analysis, as well as personal experiences in aids research, university administration and as a science observer, the author provides - while being totally open regarding science's limitations- a realistic narrative about how research is conducted, and how reliable ‘objective'knowledge is produced. His idea of science, which draws heavily on American pragmatism, fits in with the global Open Science movement. It is argued that Open Science is a truly and historically unique movement in that it translates the analysis of the problems of science into major institutional actions of system change in order to improve academic culture and the impact of science, engaging all actors in the field of science and academia.

This book addresses controversies concerning the epistemological foundations of data science: Is it a genuine science? Or is data science merely some inferior practice that can at best contribute to the scientific enterprise, but cannot stand on its own? The author proposes a coherent conceptual framework with which these questions can be rigorously addressed. Readers will discover a defense of inductivism and consideration of the arguments against it: an epistemology of data science more or less by definition has to be inductivist, given that data science starts with the data. As an alternative to enumerative approaches, the author endorses Federica Russo's recent call for a variational rationale in inductive methodology. Chapters then address some of the key concepts of an inductivist methodology including causation, probability and analogy, before outlining an inductivist framework. The inductivist framework is shown to be adequate and useful for an analysis of the epistemological foundations of data science. The author points out that many aspects of the variational rationale are present in algorithms commonly used in data science. Introductions to algorithms and brief case studies of successful data science such as machine translation are included. Data science is located with reference to several crucial distinctions regarding different kinds of scientific practices, including between exploratory and theory-driven experimentation, and between phenomenological and theoretical science. Computer scientists, philosophers and data scientists of various disciplines will find this philosophical perspective and conceptual framework of great interest, especially as a starting point for further in-depth analysis of algorithms used in data science.

This edited collection opens up new intellectual territories and articulates the ways in which academics are theorising and practicing new forms of research in ‘wild'contexts. Many researchers are choosing to leave the familiarity of their laboratory-based settings in order to pursue in-situ studies ‘in the wild'that can help them to better understand the implications of their work in real-world settings. This has naturally led to ethical, philosophical and practical reappraisals with regard to the taken for granted lab-based modus operandi of scientific, cultural and design-based ways of working. This evolving movement has led to a series of critical debates opening up around the nature of research in the wild, but up until now these debates have not been drawn together in a coherent way that could be useful in an academic context. The book brings together applied, methodological and theoretical perspectives relating to this subject area, and provides a platform and a source of reference material for researchers, students and academics to base their work on. Cutting across multiple disciplines relating to philosophy, sociology, ethnography, design, human–computer interaction, science, history and critical theory, this timely collection appeals to a broad range of academics in varying fields of research.

Spätestens seit den 1980er Jahren hat sich rund um die Frage, wie Wissen hergestellt, zirkuliert und vermittelt wird, eine vielfältige, interdisziplinäre und internationale Forschungslandschaft herausgebildet. Das 2005 eröffnete Zürcher Zentrum »Geschichte des Wissens« hat diese Diskussionen maßgeblich mitgeprägt. Fünfzehn Jahre später werfen wir (Rück-)Blicke auf das Wissensparadigma aus verschiedenen disziplinären Perspektiven. Dieser letzte Band des Zürcher Jahrbuchs für Wissensgeschichte diskutiert unterschiedliche Genealogien, die für die Karriere von »Wissen« herangezogen werden können, wie etwa den Aufstieg der »Wissensgesellschaft«, die Abgrenzung zur Wissenschaftsforschung, die Etablierung der Kulturwissenschaften. Was waren und sind die Großwetterlagen, Dringlichkeiten, Motivatoren? Aber auch: Was waren und sind die blind spots in der Begeisterung für »Wissen«? Und wo wird die Wissensgeschichte verabschiedet? Und jetzt? Feierabend? Die Beiträge in diesem Band evaluieren Wissensforschung nicht nur kritisch und rückblickend, sondern fragen mit Blick auf Gegenwarten und mögliche Zukünfte, wie sich unser Verständnis von »Wissen« verändert und welche Forschungsfragen und -zugriffe sich eröffnen oder (neuerlich) aufdrängen – in Zeiten von post-truth und fake news, der Allgegenwart des Digitalen sowie aktueller wissenschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen etwa durch Klimawandel oder Migration. Mit Beiträgen von Sandra Bärnreuther, Sabine Baier, Maria Böhmer, Cornelius Borck, Flurin Condrau, Monika Dommann, Anna Echterhölter, Kijan Espahangizi, Mareile Flitsch, Michael Hagner, Caspar Hirschi, Andreas Isler, Thomas Kaiser, Andreas B. Kilcher, Alexis Malefakis, Susanne Michl, Nicolas Pethes, Maike Powroznik, Philipp Sarasin, Max Stadler, Marianne Sommer, Rebekka Sutter, Jakob Tanner, Martina Wernsdörfer, Christa Wirth, Sophie Witt, Monika Wulz.

Wie reagiert die Wissenschaft auf Fehlverhalten innerhalb ihrer Gemeinschaft, an welchen Normen und Werten orientiert sie sich dabei und wie begründet sie diese? Felicitas Hesselmann untersucht die institutionellen Umgangsweisen mit wissenschaftlichem Fehlverhalten anhand von Interviews und Dokumentenanalysen. Theoretisch fundiert zeichnet sie das diese Verfahren prägende Spannungsfeld zwischen einer Ordnungsvorstellung wissenschaftlicher Selbstreinigung und einer Ordnungsvorstellung autoritativer Sanktion nach. Wissenschaft erscheint so als der seltene Fall einer sozialen Gemeinschaft ohne geteilte Normen, die an die Stelle des rechtsstaatlichen Versprechens auf Universalität und Stabilität ein Versprechen auf Unvorhersehbarkeit und Interpretationsoffenheit setzt.

Die Materialitäten der Wissenschaft – Räume, Objekte, Instrumente, Infrastrukturen – sind kein neues Thema. Hingegen sind bezüglich der materiellen Grundlagen von Forschungshandlungen noch viele Fragen offen. Zwar ist die Rede von Datenmaterial, Quellenmaterial, Beobachtungsmaterial etc. in den Wissenschaften weit verbreitet, es ist aber keineswegs einfach zur Hand. Auf welche Weise werden solche Materialien aktiv erzeugt, um als Basis von Forschungshandlungen nutzbar zu werden? Welche grundlegenden Erwägungen über den Forschungsgegenstand sowie über Eignung und Merkmale des herangezogenen Materials gehen mit der Erzeugung von Forschungsmaterial einher? Und wie wird das Material für Forschungsprozesse aus einem Kontext herausgelöst, in einen anderen migriert und dabei einer grundlegenden Transformation unterworfen? Die neue Ausgabe widmet sich der Frage, wie weit das angeeignete Material hergeben kann, was in ihm als Forschungsmaterial gesucht wird. Anhand von Fallbeispielen soll paradigmatisch verdeutlicht werden, wie die Materialgrundlage von Forschung von Tradierungen geprägt ist, wie aber auch die Erzeugung von Forschungsmaterial selbst Vorgaben etabliert, die sich später als Tradierungen geltend machen. Es interessieren die Präferenzen für bestimmte Forschungsmaterialien und forschungsökonomische Aspekte wie ein begrenztes Zeitbudget, die in solche Entscheidungen hineinspielen. Präsentiert werden Materialgeschichten aus den Natur-, Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften. Dazu Lektüren und ein freier Beitrag zur Geschichte des Konzepts »midlife crisis«.

Science and technology are playing increasingly important roles in our lives. New projects in development today will fundamentally shape the world around us, and manipulate our lived experience. But how and why are such important scientific and technological projects chosen, and what are the consequences of this process? In this book, Kate O'Riordan answers these crucial question. She discovers that many objects, such as genomes and genomic projects, smart grids, de-extinction projects and biosensors cannot be granted scientific legitimacy and developed without extraordinary amounts of media, public relations, celebrity endorsements and private investment. As a result of these filters, only certain projects take centre stage when it comes to funding and political attention. O'Riordan calls these'unreal objects'- scientific projects and technologies where utopian visions for the future are combined with investment and materialisation in the here and now. This attention to these unreal objects hides many current social issues, especially injustices and inequalities. At the same time they conjure utopian visions for how life might be improved.

A short, provocative book about why'useless'science often leads to humanity's greatest technological breakthroughsA forty-year tightening of funding for scientific research has meant that resources are increasingly directed toward applied or practical outcomes, with the intent of creating products of immediate value. In such a scenario, it makes sense to focus on the most identifiable and urgent problems, right? Actually, it doesn't. In his classic essay'The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge,'Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the man who helped bring Albert Einstein to the United States, describes a great paradox of scientific research. The search for answers to deep questions, motivated solely by curiosity and without concern for applications, often leads not only to the greatest scientific discoveries but also to the most revolutionary technological breakthroughs. In short, no quantum mechanics, no computer chips.This brief book includes Flexner's timeless 1939 essay alongside a new companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Institute's current director, in which he shows that Flexner's defense of the value of'the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge'may be even more relevant today than it was in the early twentieth century. Dijkgraaf describes how basic research has led to major transformations in the past century and explains why it is an essential precondition of innovation and the first step in social and cultural change. He makes the case that society can achieve deeper understanding and practical progress today and tomorrow only by truly valuing and substantially funding the curiosity-driven'pursuit of useless knowledge'in both the sciences and the humanities.

Der Sammelband zeigt, wie dem akademischen Nachwuchs eine kritische Reflexion auf die eigene Wissenschaft, auf deren Inhalte und Methoden vermittelt werden kann. Dabei bringt er verschiedene Themenfelder und Akteure zusammen und ermöglicht den Wissenstransfer u. a. aus Wissenschaftsphilosophie, Wissenschaftsethik und Wissenschaftssoziologie in den Bereich der Graduiertenförderung bzw. Qualifizierung von Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und -wissenschaftlern. Die Autorinnen und Autoren des Bandes stellen nicht nur die Notwendigkeit einer reflexiven wissenschaftlichen Bildung dar, sondern bieten inhaltliche und methodische Ansatzpunkte sowie Praxisbeispiele.

Officials and religious scholars in the Gulf states have repeatedly banned the teaching of the theory of evolution because of its association with atheism. But Jorg Matthias Determann argues here that, despite official prohibition, research on biological evolution has flourished, due in large part to the development of academic and professional networks. This book traces these networks through the history of various branches of biology, including botany, conservation research, ornithology and palaeontology. Typical of rentier societies, some of the scientific networks in this region consist of vertical patron-client relationships. For example, those in power who are interested in wildlife conservation have been known to offer patronage to biologists working on desert ecology. However, just as important are the horizontal links between scientists both within the Gulf region and beyond. Given the strengths and importance of these two forms of professional networks, Determann argues that we should look at the Arab world as an area interconnected with global science, and therefore fully integrated into the scientific and technological advances being pioneered worldwide.