UC San Diego

This project focuses on the everyday practices of a neurobiology laboratory and how pedagogical communication is central to its epistemic accomplishments. I contextualize this research by beginning with the national efforts of biologists in the United States during the 1970s to educate the lay public on the significance of biomedical research. Through historical research on the Salk Institute’s initiatives on the relevance of biology to social issues, I show that an ethical imperative emerged after World War II within biology to educate the lay public on scientific advances. Drawing a contrast with the present moment in which there is a perception of less public confidence in biomedical research and less effective public communication, this project answers the question: to where have biology’s training and outreach efforts gone if not to largescale public outreach? To answer this question, I conducted a three-year participant-observer study of a lab which uses mice as models of the genetic underpinnings of the cognitive components of conditions such as Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. By studying how lab members train junior members, I show how their standards for knowledge production give epistemic significance to their interactions with each other and with their field. The three standards on which I focus are for: making adequate animal models, their material construction, and evaluating their objectivity. By examining moments of instruction, I show how these standards are remade and negotiated through ordinary discursive and material practices. I also argue that biologists’ belief that they had a moral imperative to communicate the significance of their work to the lay public did not disappear after the 1970s. Instead, I show that this commitment to education has transformed into contemporary biologists treating the training of novices as part of the epistemic work necessary for making knowledge claims. However, I contend that these cases illustrate how the technical demands of professional biology make it difficult for practitioners and the lay public to have shared understandings of science. This project concludes by discussing how collaborations between biologists and philosophically-informed social scientists can give rise to approaches that can promote greater public understandings of science.