Prof, I think -- although I'm not quite sure -- that Latour would say you're positing an underlying, discoverable, independent reality that he won't go with. Below is what I think is the key paragraph from the book (here he's at the Salk Institute, watching people work out the structure of a peptide hormone). My reaction to it follows. Keep in mind that Latour was writing 30 years ago, and I don't know how the debate's gone since:
"We have attempted to avoid using terms which would change the nature of the issues under discussion. Thus, in emphasising the process whereby substances are constructed, we have tried to avoid descriptions of the bioassays which take as unproblematic relationships between signs and things signified. Despite the fact that our scientists held the belief that the inscriptions could be representations or indicators of some entity with an independent existence 'out there,' we have argued that such entities were constituted solely through the use of these inscriptions. It is not simply that differences between curves indicate the presence of a substance; rather the substance is identical with perceived differences between curves."
I think that last point is astute and well-put. Yes, afaics, the concept of the substance -- which is in practice what will be used in the lab & related papers -- can only be a product of the terms set up in the inscriptional device. But it seems to me possible that the concept really does indicate or represent something real. Maybe something has genuinely been caught between those curves. Whether or not the model is very good, whether or not we understand what we're looking at, that's another story. But maybe the scientist tripped over something real under the carpet. If there is something real, then it seems to me one must admit the possibility that the concept is a good representation of a real thing, whether or not we understand what we're naming and modeling. And it sounds to me, in this part above, that Latour's saying no, it can't be. So I don't see how this is not essentialy reality-denying. Maybe I misunderstand, though.
It would've been interesting to see L&W in the synthetic lab. If the lab's not making Glu-His-Pro, then what's it making, and how does he know?
I've taken my question to a philosophy prof here who's big on Latour and will report the wisdom as I receive it.
How does any of this matter in practice? Well, I think it goes back to the ID thread from last summer. (Last spring?) If students & the general public are persuaded that 'facts' are merely elaborate, socially determined constructions with no firm underlying reality, there's no immediately apparent reason to take one more seriously than another. ID, evolution, well it's all just sociology, and if you want to push one harder than the other, you must have some untoward agenda.
I am guessing the meat of the argument lies in "no immediately apparent reason to take one more seriously than the other" -- I am guessing that there are very good reasons that are simply not well articulated in public, because they're covered over by arguments about what's real. In practice, there's no way to know whether or not an underlying reality exists. And yet there are still ways of differentiating good fact-construction from bad. Put that way it sounds uncomfortably like a branch of aesthetics.
Here is part of Salk's foreword to the book, btw:
"Even if we do not agree with the details of this book, or if we find it slightly uncomfortable and even painful in places, the present work seems to me to be a step in the right direction toward dissipating the mystery that is believed to surround our activity. I feel certain that in the future many institutes and laboratories may well include a kind of in-house philosopher or sociologist. For myself, it was interesting to have Bruno Latour in our institute, which allowed him to carry out the first investigation of this kind of which I am aware and, most interestingly, to have observed the way in which he, and his approach, was transformed by the experience. It would be very useful for this critique itself to be criticized. This would both help the authors (and other scholars with similar interests and background) to assist scientists to understand themselves through the mirror provided, and help a wider public understand the scientific pursuit from a new and rather refreshing point of view."
Thanks to all, by the way, for your willingness to read these posts. I'm aware they're long as hell & keep looking for ways to shorten them.
