Collaborative Scientific Knowledge

Scientific knowledge does not spring whole into being like Athena from the head of Zeus, full grown and armored.  Instead, it depends on networks and affiliations, bonded communities of experimenters, instrument makers, and theorists.  We will begin with attention to early modern structures—the 18^th century Republic of Letters and the alliance of 19^th century geologists, naturalists, natural theologians, and museum curators.  The course then turns to the growth of large-scale collaborations: World War II weapons work on radar and the atomic bomb;  the ever-expanding particle-physics groups at Fermilab and CERN; the complex alliance of science, industry, government, and engineering;  scientifically directed space missions.  How, we ask, does decision-making take shape in a collective world of hundreds—even thousands—of scientists?  How and when does democratic deliberation function in an epistemic context?  How does knowledge from collaborations differ across scientific domains?  Using primary sources, historical studies, social-scientific explorations, and philosophical inquiry—with the aid of group leaders invited to the course--we aim here to understand, and perhaps to intervene in the way collective reason does and ought function.