Monday 22 March
STS Seminar: ' Before the bomb: on writing the history of unclear physics'
Dr Jeff Hughes, University of Manchester

Start Time: 5 pm
Location: Medawar Watson Lecture Theatre, UCL

Abstract: The later Feyerabend defended a thoroughgoing epistemological pluralism. Reality is receptive to many different modes of inquiry and forms of knowledge, including, but certainly not limited to, those of the Western sciences. Feyerabend defended this pluralism in two ways. First, he provided a series of epistemological arguments, focusing on maximising criticism and the diversity of values informing human epistemic activities. I connect this with contemporary debates over scientific pluralism, and values in science.
Second, and more intriguingly, Feyerabend argued that the only way to safeguard epistemological pluralism was to assert the 'ineffability' of Reality. This 'doctrine of ineffability' precludes any one 'theory', 'worldview', or, more broadly, one set of epistemic activities, from 'Platonising' themselves, and asserting their 'hard realist' credentials. I then outline this 'doctrine of ineffability' and consider whether it can really safeguard epistemological pluralism in the way that Feyerabend suggests, using the recent work of Hasok Chang along the way.

Monday 08 March
STS Seminar: 'What (if anything) has Marxism to contribute to science studies?'
Prof Helena Sheehan - Dublin City University

Start Time: 5 pm
Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)

2010 February

Monday 01 February STS Seminar: 'They used to call it Medicine' Prof David Healy - Cardiff University **organised in association with STS Lunar Society** start time: 5pm location: Anatomy JZ Young Lecture Theatre
Monday 08 February STS Seminar: 'Writing the Biography of Hans Bethe' Prof Silvan S. Schweber - Brandeis University Start Time: 4:30 pm - please note earlier start time Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)
Tuesday 09 February 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916, silent) Film Night at the Grant Museum of Zoology (event info | series info) start time: 6:30 location: UCL, Darwin Lecture Theatre (map)
Wednesday 10 February lecture: 'Cultural indicators of science: history of an idea' Benoit Godin (Montreal) start time: 16:15 location: S318, St. Clements building, LSE (map) London PUS Seminar
Monday 22 February STS Seminar: 'Producing the post-Fordist public, or: What is Science Communication for in a post-industrial society' Dr Jane Gregory, UCL STS Start Time: 5 pm Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)
Wednesday 24 February lecture: 'The medicalisation of science' Peter Weingart (Bielefeld & Berlin) start time: location: London PUS Seminar
Thursday 25th February STS Work In Progress Seminar Jonathan Everett: Causation and Explanation in Evolution: Lessons from Thermodynamics start time: 1pm loction: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)
2010 January
Monday 25th January STS Seminar: 'When can we trust the experts? Defending the Evidence Based Medicine stance.' Dr Jeremy Howick, UCL STS Start Time: 5 pm Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)  †††††††
Wednesday 27 January lecture:Public representations of and reactions to emerging infectious diseases Adrian Bangerter (University of Neuchâtel) Eva Green (University of Lausanne) and the DPPEID Research Group start time: 16:15 location: S318, St. Clements building, LSE (map) London PUS Seminar  ††††††† Abstract: Many emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in recent years have been announced well in advance of the actual threat. Some have yet to materialize (H5N1 avian influenza), while other have since attained pandemic status (H1N1). This state of affairs creates a unique opportunity to document anticipatory reactions of the public. Drawing on social representations and evolutionary approaches, we have explored the social construction of disease threat and the symbolic nature of public reactions to threat, we have explored lay explanations and beliefs about risk, origins, prevention and transmission of avian influenza and the H1N1 virus. We are especially interested in the effect of disease threat on intergroup relations and on beliefs about the man-made origin of the disease. In this talk, we will give an overview of our research program before presenting data on links between disease threat and intergroup discrimination, as well as on how the media context affects these relationships. Preliminary analyses of data from the ongoing H1N1 pandemic will also be presented.

2009 December

Epidemiology studies the occurrence of illness in populations. Can it provide evidence that bears on proving in a court of law that an individual claimant's illness was caused in a particular way? To answer this question requires settling questions of both legal policy and scientific methodology. On the legal side, the courts appear to have moved towards a view of the relevant issues in a way which in principle allows the use of evidence about a population from which a claimant is drawn to infer causation in the claimant's particular case. However, some prominent epidemiologists have criticised the actual use made by courts of epidemiological evidence, on a somewhat bewildering number of grounds. Furthermore, some have claimed that courts should never rely on epidemiological evidence "alone" to prove causation. These critical discussions do not offer many specific positive guidelines for the use of epidemiological evidence, not least because they regard it as impossible to formulate a mechanical relationship between any epidemiological measure and the probability of causation in an individual claimant's case. Nevertheless, if the law is to use epidemiological evidence, it must have either clear and predictable rules for applying that evidence to the proof of causation, or, if experts are relied upon, clear directions as to what questions the experts are expected to settle for the court. In this paper I seek to lay out the conceptual issues on both the legal and the epidemiological side, with a view to deciding whether, and if so when and how, epidemiological evidence can be relied upon in proving causation in court.

Monday 16 November
STS Seminar: 'Sociology of Science & 19th Century Mathematics'
Dr Josipa Petrunic, UCL STS Research Fellow
Start Time: 5 pm
Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)

23 November 2009
lecture: From Imaginations to Imagery in 1980s Cell Biology: The Role of the Textbook: 'Molecular Biology of the Cell'.
Norberto Serpente (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine)
start time: 17:00
location: G3, 22 Gordon Square
series: STS Postgraduate Seminars
additional information (here)

Monday 30 November
STS Seminar: 'Structural Realism: a case study based on Lorenz theory of the electron'
Dr Angelo Cei, Leeds University & UCL STS Teaching Fellow

Start Time: 5 pm
Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)

Monday 26 October
STS Seminar: 'Piecing together biological kinds: an historico-ecological concept of species'
Dr Katie Kendig, UCL STS Teaching Fellow

Start Time: 5 pm
Location: Room G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)

Tuesday 20 October
Fight at the Museum: Rescue my object!
Dr Joe Cain, and other UCL academics
location: Chadwick Lecture Theatre
start time: 6:30pm
link to additional information (here)

Friday 9 Oct 2009
lecture: The Starry Messenger and the Incredulity of St Thomas
Dr Thomas Dixon
start time: 6:30pm
location: Pearson Lecture Theatre (map)
Co-sponsored by STS.

Monday 5 Oct 2009
lecture: Levels of uncertainty: some thoughts on combining formal risk models, risk perception and the sociology of risk
Hauke Riesch (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge)
David Spiegelhalter (Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge)
start time: 17:00
location: G3, 22 Gordon Square (map)
Postgraduate Seminar Series

More information available on the website