Støbejernets lange historie og generalforsamling

Videnskabshistorisk Selskab
http://www.math.ku.dk/videnskabshistorie

Indbydelse til foredrag ved:

dr.phil. Donald B. Wagner,

Nordisk Institut for Asienstudier

Støbejern i Kina og Europa

tirsdag den 15. maj 2012, kl. 17.15

Auditorium 10, H. C. Ørsted Instituttet,

Universitetsparken 5, 2100 København Ø

Foredraget tager forskellige tekniske og historiske spørgsmål op om støbejernets lange historie, fra opfindelsen i Kina ca. 3.-4. årh. f.v.t. over opfindelsen i Europa ca. 1400 e.v.t. og storhedstiden i det 19. årh. til nicheanvendelser i dag.

Kl. 16.30 inviterer Selskabet på kaffe, te og frugt i Institut for Matematiske Fags frokoststue, rum 04.4.19 på 4. sal. Efter foredraget vil der blive lejlighed til at spise middag med foredragsholderen for egen regning.

Jesper Lützen, Sekretær
Videnskabshistorisk Selskab

Indkaldelse til ordinær generalforsamling 2012

Mødet tirsdag den 15. maj 2012 indledes med den årlige, ordinære generalforsamling kl. 17.00 med følgende dagsorden:

1. Valg af dirigent.
2. Formanden aflægger beretning.
3. Fremlæggelse af det reviderede regnskab.
4. Fastlæggelse af kontingent.
5. Valg til bestyrelsen
6. Indkomne forslag.
7. Eventuelt

Hvis man har et forslag, som ønskes behandlet, bedes det sendt skriftligt til formanden eller sekretæren senest den 8. maj.

Med venlig hilsen
bestyrelsen

Formand Anja Skaar Jacobsen
Næstformand Karin Tybjerg
Kasserer Bente Winstrøm-Olsen
Sekretær Jesper Lützen
Institut for Matematiske Fag, Københavns Universitet.
Telephone: (45)35320741

Epistokratiet truer

Åbning af 

Center for Videnskab, Ekspertise og Samfund, CEVES

Åbningsforelæsning ved Cathrine Holst:

”Fra demokrati til epistokrati?” 

Mandag den 30. april 2012 kl. 13,30-15,30, i lokale 18.1.08 

Center for Videnskab, Ekspertise og Samfund, Sociologisk Institut, Øster Farimagsgade 5, København.

Faglighed og ekspertise spiller en stadigt mere betydningsfuld rolle i politik. Er det et problem? Cathrine Holst vil præsentere forskellige dimensioner ved epistokrati (vidensstyre) og kritisk diskutere argumenter for at give mere magt til de, der bemestrer viden.

Cathrine Holst er en fremtrædende, ung forsker ansat ved Institutt for Sosiologi og Samfunnsgeografi ved Universitetet i Oslo og fra 2012 leder af forskningsprojektet Why not epistocracy? Political legitimacy and "the fact of expertise" (EPISTO) under Norges Forskningsråd. Hendes faglige interesser spænder vidt indenfor social ulighed og velfærdsstat med særlig fokus på teori. Hun har siden 2010 været ansvarlig redaktør for Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift.

Der vil være reception efter åbningsforelæsningen. Alle er velkomne til at deltage – tilmelding (for at estimere kvantum hvidvin) sendes til ceves@soc.ku.dk .

CEVES skal være ramme om et levende videnskabssociologisk forskningsmiljø. Udover at skabe viden og publikationer inden for videnskabssociologien vil centret byde på en række arrangementer, forskningsseminarer, undervisningsudbud og studiekredse. Samtidig ønsker vi med centrets aktiviteter at vise diversiteten og innovationerne i teorier, metoder og empiriske problemstillinger, som udmærker det videnskabssociologiske forskningsområde i dag.

Centrets forskning og øvrige aktiviteter vil være rettet mod at forstå den centrale betydning, som videnskab og ekspertise har i aktuelle samfundsproblematikker – som eksempelvis forandringer i professioners viden og praksis, grænsedragninger og status. Centret består af adjunkt Anders Blok (centerleder), professor Margareta Bertilsson, professor Heine Andersen, adjunkt Kristoffer Kropp, ph.d.-stipendiat Maria Duclos Lindstrøm, lektor Charlotte Baarts og lektor Inge Kryger Pedersen. Centrets forskere beskæftiger sig med den sociale indlejring af videnskab og ekspertise inden for sundhed, økonomi, miljø og klima, samfundsforskning og jura.

Se også CEVES hjemmeside.

Sheila Jasanoff om kosmopolitisk viden og global skepsis

Lecture by by Pforzheimer Professor Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University
IOA Public Lecture Series, 'Organizing Uncertainty'

Sheila Jasanoff
Cosmopolitan Knowledge
for an Uncertain World

Why is it easier to persuade people that a particular Danish restaurant deserves the accolade “best in the world” than that the IPCC’s consensus on climate change is the best that environmental science can offer? In this talk, I turn for explanations to the complex relations among scientific knowledge, evidence, and persuasion in the public sphere. Drawing on decades of comparative research, I identify the challenges faced by institutions that seek to bridge uncertainty across disparate political cultures. I argue that we need to retheorize the constitutional position of science in the contemporary global order in order to build the kind of cosmopolitan knowledge that can resist global skepticism and distrust.

Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in her field, she has authored more than 100 articles and chapters and is author or editor of a dozen books, including Controlling Chemicals, The Fifth Branch, Science at the Bar, and Designs on Nature. Her work explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies, with particular attention to the nature of public reason.


The Department of Organization (IOA) will host a Public Lecture series at CBS on the theme of 'Organizing Uncertainty' during the academic year 2010-2012. The aim of the series is to bring to the School internationally renowned scholars whose work has had a distinctive impact on the social and human sciences in general, and the study of various aspects of contemporary organizational life in particular.

The lecture will be followed by a reception
For registration: mli.ioa@cbs.dk before 8th of May
Arranged by Department of Organization and CBS Public-Private Platform

Time: May 15, 2012, at 14.00 to 16.00

Place: Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3,
2000 Frederiksberg

Room: SPs12

Artefakter og metabolisme i historisk lys

Medicinsk Museion
MUSE seminars

Wednesday 25th April, 2012, 15-16.30
Auditorium, Medical Museion
Bredgade 62, Copenhagen

David Pantalony
University of Ottawa and Canada Science and Technology Museum Technology Collections

Examine first, ask what it is later:
The multiple interpretations of 20th century scientific artifacts

The questions of how to deal with artifacts from 1950 to the present is one of the more pressing challenges facing science museums today. Artifacts from this period do not easily escape from their official scientific and historical context. One issue is that curators, scholars, students and the public do not look beyond the name and official function of the objects. As we more carefully examine and interrogate the instruments on their own terms, however, multiple narratives emerge with surprising lessons about science and culture. Open-ended study of the materials, components, esthetics, provenance and construction lead to unexpected paths of inquiry, creating fresh opportunities for display, as well as linkages to other collections and disciplines.

In this talk I present a selection of case studies from the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Due to the relatively young history of science, medicine and technology in Canada combined with several diverse curatorial areas, the collections (and collecting activities) at our museum offer a wide spectrum of artifacts from this period. One way we are exploring this resource is to host an annual artifact workshop that brings together graduate students and faculty from across the country and disciplines to test new methods in our collections. The sessions take place in the storage facility, there are no lectures, and the artifacts take centre stage. These activities are modeled after an experimental collection-based seminar I run at the University of Ottawa. The biggest lesson about these exercises is that there is not one magical method for examining artifacts – it is about the diverse groups that work together on one artifact thus drawing out its abundant possibilities.

-----

Friday 1st June, 2012, 15-16.30
Auditorium, Medical Museion
Bredgade 62, Copenhagen

Hannah Landecker
UCLA

From the Body as Factory to Eating Information:
A Short History of Metabolism

Metabolism, understood as the chemical conversions of food into bodily matter and energy, has since its formulation as a scientific concept in the nineteenth century been a fundamental aspect of biochemistry, philosophies of life, and to a certain extent, social and political theories of the social body. The elaboration of metabolism and then intermediary metabolism framed the body as a factory or a chemical laboratory for the interconversion of matter and energy by which the outside world and its constituent plants and animals were incorporated and transubstantiated into the metabolizing organism’s body. Claude Bernard observed pithily that “The dog does not get fat on mutton fat. It makes dog fat”; metabolism was central to the practical and physical understanding of the maintenance of the individual body of the eating organism even in the face of the necessity of constantly ingesting the outside world eating others.

In philosophy, metabolism came to occupy a role as part of the defining line between the living and the not living; to metabolize was to live. In social theory, Marx found in scientific accounts of metabolism a fecund source of inspiration for the understanding of exchange, and since that time the idea of social or industrial metabolism societies having metabolisms has played a role in the imagination of systems of individuals as social bodies.

In the metabolic sciences today, there is a marked shift away from classic metabolism, in which a concern with manufacturing and production is being transformed by a concern with regulation and synchrony. Food is as much an informational signal as a chemical substrate, and the timing of its presence is as important as its quantity or content. Metabolism is regulatory mechanism for the organism in a changing environment; it is being re-theorized as a mode of inheritance of environmental conditions, for example in ideas of predictive-adaptive signaling, where the developing fetus uses cues from maternal metabolism to anticipate the nutritional state of the world it will be born into. Such contemporary ruptures throw into sharp relief the historical specificity of previous philosophical, social, and scientific uses of metabolism as a universal and timeless quality of organisms and their autonomy as enclosed and autonomous metabolizing systems.


Read more on MUSE seminars: http://www.museion.ku.dk/14190/
Contact: karin.tybjerg@sund.ku.dk

Bioenergi - en del af løsningen eller en del af problemet?

Debatdag om bioenergi,
fødevarer og etik
i en globaliseret verden.

Afholdes 10. maj 2012 i Fællessalen, Christiansborg af Det Etiske Råd og Den grønne tænketank Concito.

Se program, invitation og tilmelding på:

http://etiskraad.dk/EtiskRaad/Projekter/Bioenergi-foedevarer-etik/Debatdag.aspx

David Bohms evolution kortlægges

The Niels Bohr Archive:
History of Science Seminar

Wed. 18 April, 2012, 14.15
Aud. A, Niels Bohr Institute
Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen

Olival Freire Jr

Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

Continuity and Change:

Charting David Bohm’s Evolving

Ideas on Quantum Mechanics

David Bohm dedicated most of his research in physics to the foundations and interpretations of quantum physics. The recognition of his contributions however came late. He also became a cultural icon related to the counter culture movements. All this wide influence is claimed to be based on David Bohm’s work on the foundations of quantum mechanics. However, Bohm’s thoughts on this subject changed meaningfully over the course of the four decades he worked on this and it has been hard to identify which part or stage of his thinking is being considered when his ideas are invoked. In this talk I intend to chart the evolution of his ideas dealing with both the elements of continuity and change.

Skabelse af ny og særegen viden

Cross-disciplinary PhD Course on

Originality in science

- personal perspectives and

collaborative strategies.

This PhD course aims at providing a space for reflection about originality in scientific research. Originality is taken as one of the main norms of science (Merton 1973, Ziman 2000), the norm that scientific claims contribute something new, whether a new problem, a new approach, new data, a new theory or a new explanation. We will discuss this norm, share perspectives and techniques, and collaborate in grasping this theme. We will investigate this value/norm by projecting it onto several discussable dichotomies, those of individual-collective, competition-collaboration, freedom-structure, and originality as bottom-up vs top-down.

Considering the division between individual and collective in the pursuit of a PhD degree, one may ask: How much of your Ph.D. research is done by you as an individual (involved in a 'lonely' process) and how much is done collaboratively by (or through) asking others to help, to participate, to supervise, to discuss, to contribute to common papers? How does competition versus cooperation cross-cut the "solely my part" / "do together with others part" distinction? What conflicts and benefits may emerge and how to handle them? How do those conflicts resonate or disresonate with general values of science like the Mertonian ones?

Additionally to these questions, most PhD students have asked themselves about the process of making a PhD, "What am I doing?", "Why am I doing this?", “How am I doing it?”, “How to move on?”, “How to focus?”, “How do I know what I can contribute?”, at times with a great sense of isolation, but these questions can be asked in a group setting, with the possibility of creating better personal strategies integrating inspiration and collaboration from different sources.

Another important process concerns the types of scientific thinking. Scientific thinking is complex and it involves, at least, creative thinking and critical thinking – at the same time. Academics have a tendency to train the critical thinking more than creative thinking, so in this course we will both question and reflect upon originality in science as well as foster creative thinking by considering theories and cases and use the potential of a mixed international course and the potential differences (in approach, styles of reasoning, science as a vocation) that are seen and worked with as an asset, a potential.

Thus, we will discuss the theme of originality in science by relating it to other values of science, such as openness, critical review (from peers or supervisors) and the general scientific standards of the field, and frame that in the context of the working processes in academia, with examples from creativity in research, and from collaborations between art and science. Moreover, we will use philosophical techniques to reveal the issues related to such a desired value of originality in science.

At this course there is the awareness that we learn in different ways, and tend to create our own set of individual and collaborative practices. So, there will be a mixture of space for peer-to-peer learning and inspiration from experienced researchers.

It is the aim to make this a truly mixed course, with participants from different disciplines and different national and educational backgrounds, as we believe this will contribute to the creative processes during the course, and thereby enhance the learning outcomes for participants. Although the focus of the PhD course is on the natural and technical sciences and aimed at those students, students from the social sciences and the humanities are welcome, as they can also profit from the course, as well as contribute to a greater diversity of perspectives.

Dates: 18-19 + 21-22 June, 2012, 9am-4pm

Where: Department of Science Education, Øster Voldgade 3 (the old astronomical observatory), 1350 Copenhagen K.
Credits: 5 ECTS
Registration: latest by the 18th of May. See website.

Lecturers:

Claus Emmeche (philosophy of science), Department of Science Education, Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies, University of Copenhagen
Klemens Kappel (philosophy of knowledge), Department of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen
Sofie Kobayashi (science pedagogy), Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen
Finn Thorbjørn Hansen (philosophical counseling), Department of Curriculum Research, Århus University
Victor Vidal (creative problem solving, artist & retired professor), DTU
Rut Jesus (art and science, guest lecturer), Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen
Mette Høst (art and science), Artist in Residence, Copenhagen
Jon Nixon (higher education), University of Sheffield, UK
Lisa Olsson (social psychology), Gothenburg University, Sweden
Eva Brodin (PhD education), Centre for Educational Development, Lund University, Sweden

Seminar med om Léon Rosenfeld

IMFUFA seminar torsdag d. 19. april 2012

Anja Skaar Jacobsen (Ordup Gymnasium):

Léon Rosenfeld og hans syn på

Niels Bohr, fysik og politisk ideologi.

Med udgangspunkt i min bog, Léon Rosenfeld: Physics, Philosophy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century (World Scientific, 2012, se her), vil jeg fortælle om, hvordan den belgiske fysiker Léon Rosenfeld (1904-1974) kombinerede sin karriere i fysik med sin politiske ideologi (in casu: marxisme). Specielt vil jeg komme ind på hans tætte samarbejde og venskab med Niels Bohr, der startede i 1930 og kulminerede med deres fælles artikel i 1933 om måleligheden af elektromagnetiske felter i kvantefysikken. Rosenfeld er kendt for sit store engagement i udbredelsen af Bohrs tanker om hvordan man skal forstå kvantefysikken gennem begrebet komplementaritet.

Det engagement blev kraftigt forstærket af udviklingen på den yderste venstrefløj i slutningen af 1940rne, da den gryende kolde krig og den sovjetiske forsknings- og kulturpolitik kom til at sætte rammen for debatten om kvantemekanikkens fortolkning både i øst og vest. Omvendt førte Rosenfelds alliance med venstrefløjen til, at han i samme periode forholdt sig kritisk til Bohrs idé om den åbne verden, der indebar at al information om teknologi, videnskab og sociale betingelser skulle gøres tilgængelig nationer imellem. Disse begivenheder kom selvsagt til at påvirke Bohr og Rosenfeld’s venskab i starten af 1950erne.

Seminaret afholdes torsdag i bygn 27.1, lokale I og varer fra kl. 13.00 til kl. 15.00.

Arrangør: Tage Christensen

Så styr da lige det dér videnssamfund...

Debatseminar og reception

Den 27. april udkommer bogen Hvordan styres videnssamfundet? Demokrati, ledelse og organisering på Nyt fra samfundsvidenskaberne.

Det vil vi naturligvis gerne fejre, og derfor inviterer vi dig til debatseminar og bogreception på Institut for Medier, Erkendelse og Formidling på KUA.
Vi håber, at du har tid og lyst til at komme, og vi glæder os til at se dig.

De bedste hilsner fra redaktørerne,

Jan Faye og David Budtz Pedersen

Hvordan styres videnssamfundet?

D. 27. april 2012, kl. 14.00-17.00

Auditorium 22.0.11 på det nye KUA,

Njalsgade 120, 2300 København S

Arrangementet er gratis, men du bedes tilmelde dig på fp5@samfundslitteratur.dk

Om bogen og debatten
Debatten om ledelse og styring af landets universiteter kører på fuldt blus i disse dage. Der er et øget fokus på universitetsledelse, og hvad de mange reformer, evalueringer og nye krav til forskere og studerende betyder for universiteterne og deres evne til at skabe viden.
Men hvad er egentlig op og ned i debatten? Hvordan kan vi bruge metoder og analyser inden for økonomi, sociologi, filosofi og politologi til at begribe reformerne af de danske universiteter? Kort sagt, hvilke nye krav og styreformer trænger frem, når samfundet bliver et «videnssamfund»?
Det giver bogen Hvordan styres videnssamfundet? Demokrati, ledelse og organisering nogle fagligt funderede bud på, og et par af dem vil tre af bogens bidragydere fremlægge til seminaret d. 27. april.

Dagens program:

• 14.00: Introduktion ved Jan Faye
• 14.10: Velkomst ved institutleder på Institut for Medier, Erkendelse og Formidling, Maja Horst
• 14.15: Hanne Foss Hansen fortæller om universiteter i en brydningstid
• 14.40: Claus Emmeche diskuterer, om videnspolitik overhovedet er godt for videnskaben
• 15.05: David Budtz Pedersen taler om viden som hhv. et privat og et offentligt gode
• 15.30: Christian Nissen vil til sidst kommentere på bogens og dagens indlæg
• 16.00-17.00: Reception

Bogens 16 forfattere:

Heine Andersen (KU)
Christian Bjørnskov (AU)
David Budtz Pedersen (KU)
Finn Collin (KU)
Peter Dahler-Larsen (SDU)
Jens Degett (LMC)
Claus Emmeche (KU)
Jan Faye (KU)
Hanne Foss Hansen (KU)
Jørgen Grønnegaard Christensen (AU)
Maja Horst (KU)
Klemens Kappel (KU)
Mogens Ove Madsen (AAU)
Gitte Meyer (AAU)
Henrik Stampe Lund (DTU)
Susan Wright (AU)

En europæisk model for videnskaben i samfundet

Konference:

Science in Dialogue

– Towards a European Model for

Responsible Research and Innovation

Odense, Denmark 23-25 April 2012

The Danish EU Presidency conference ‘Science in Dialogue’ invites policymakers, research institutions, business representatives and civil society to discuss the relationship between science, innovation and society.

The conference will offer high-level speakers and draw upon the participants’ ideas, opinions and suggestions in an interactive conference format. ‘Science in Dialogue will be a unique platform for European stakeholders to meet and discuss the interaction between science, innovation and society.

The aim of the conference is to provide input on aspects of a European model for Responsible Research and Innovation and future instruments for research funding. Furthermore, the conference will contribute to the basis for the successful solution of the grand challenges of our society.

Go to conference site here:

scienceindialogue.dk

Det transdyriske exmenneskes fornuftsantropologi

The Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, is happy to announce that Ronald Stade will give a public lecture

April 20, 2012, from 10:00 until 12:00

at the Section for Health Services Research, Øster Farimagsgade 5, building 5, room 5.2.46. Everybody is welcome.
Ronald Stade’s lecture is titled

“Still human?

On the condition and limits

of anthropos today”

and takes departure in the question of what it means to be human today, in a world characterized by what Paul Rabinow called “various logoi currently being assembled into contingent forms.” Drawing on classical philosophy as well as more recent thoughts in trans- and post-humanism the lecture will engage specifically with the animate-inanimate continuum and the essence-existence distinction.

Ronald Stade is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology at Malmö University and has worked amongst other things on philosophical anthropology, images of the human, cosmopolitanism, and organized violence. His most recent publications include, “Cosmos and polis, past and present.” Theory, Culture and Society 24(7-8): 295-298, 2007; and “Citizens of everything: the aporetics of cosmopolitanism.” In Cosmopolitanism, existentialism and morality: anthropological perspectives, edited by Lisette Josephides and Alexandra Hall. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, forthcoming.

Nanoteknologi online debat

Join PERARES' Nanotechnology Dialogue, On-line

The PERARES consortium (Public Engagement with Research And Research Engagement with Society) representing universities, science shops and NGOs in Europe would like public and civil society organization views on applications of nanotechnology. The online discussion aims to provoke questions which could form the basis of further research. For information on five applications of nanotechnology, from renewable energy to medicine and food, please visit: http://www.livingknowledge.org/discussion/diskutiere/

For example, your loved one has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor recommends a new cutting-edge treatment, which involves transporting powerful cancer drugs entrapped in a nano liposome (a very tiny bubble like drug carrier) through the blood stream to the targeted cancer tumor. Once it reaches the tumor, the liposome will gradually release the entrapped drug in the vicinity of the tumor cells. What would you like to know about this treatment before you say yes? What questions would you ask the doctor before you accept this treatment? Contribute your questions or comments here: www.livingknowledge.org/discussion/diskutiere/2011/cancer-nanotechnology/

I am responsible for the cancer nano nanotechnology debate. I would be happy if you could visit and make comments on the cancer nanotechnology debate. But feel free to visit and comment on the other debates.

Please forward this e-mail to your networks of colleagues or contacts, and invite them to visit this dialogue platform.

For more information on PERARES, see http://www.livingknowledge.org/livingknowledge/perares

Kind regards,
Mercy Kamara