Practicality, Positionality, and Emancipation: Reflections on Participatory Action Research with a Watershed Partnership

In the last few decades, there has been a trend towards increased stakeholder and public participation in natural resource management in North America. To a certain extent, the rationale for this trend is found in the complexity and uncertainty of environmental issues, which confront us with the coexistance of multiple legitimate values and perspectives in society. Recognizing this “epistemological plurality” has important implications for both policy and science. In this paper, I critically reflect on my experiences as a doctoral student engaged in participatory action research (PAR) with a watershed partnership in Ontario, Canada. In providing this biographical account, I seek to make a contribution to ongoing discussions regarding the nature, challenges and benefits of this methodological approach for academic research, as well as to emerging debates on PAR in the context of environmental governance and “post-normal” approaches to natural resource management.

The silence of the norms: The missing historiography of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

History has been disparaged since the late 19th century for not conforming to norms of scientific explanation. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact a work of history upends the regnant philosophical conception of science in the second part of the 20th century. Yet despite its impact, Kuhn’s Structure has failed to motivate philosophers to ponder why works of history should be capable of exerting rational influence on an understanding of philosophy of science. But all this constitutes a great irony and a mystery. The mystery consists of the persistence of a complete lack of interest in efforts to theorize historical explanation. Fundamental questions regarding why an historical account could have any rational influence remain not merely unanswered, but unasked. The irony arises from the fact that analytic philosophy of history went into an eclipse where it remains until this day just around the time that the influence of Kuhn’s great work began to make itself felt. This paper highlights puzzles long ignored regarding the challenges a work of history managed to pose to the epistemic authority of science, and what this might imply generally for the place of philosophy of history vis-à-vis the problems of philosophy.     

Scientists and their cultural heritage: Knowledge,politics and ambivalent relationships

For many years, scientific heritage has received attention from multiple actors from different spheres of activity—archives, museums, scientific institutions. Beyond the heterogeneity revealed when examining the place of scientific heritage in different places, an authentic patrimonial configuration emerges and takes the form of a nebula of claims and of accomplishments that result, in some cases, in institutional and political recognition at the national level, in various country all around the world. At the international level, the creation of the international committee dedicated to University Museums and Collections (UMAC) within the International Council of Museums (ICOM) certainly testified from this raising interest in academic heritage and the existence of a specific community concern with it.This article presents numerous initiatives for the preservation of scientific heritage in France, with the goal of analysing the relationship scientists have with their heritage. We argue that scientific communities have a special relationship with heritage, which is characterized by a number of ambiguities. We show that such ambivalences allow analysis of identity, discipline, professional, and social issues operative in defining heritage and being redefined by heritage. To explore these dimensions, we have chosen to present three different case studies. The first traces the institutional uses of heritage by a scientific institution, the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA), through the transformation of the first French atomic reactor (ZOE) into a museum. The second example describes the initiatives of French astronomers from the mid-1990s to construct a national programme for the protection of astronomy heritage. Lastly, we recount the case of universities, with the example of the Université de Strasbourg.     

澳大利亚的科技管理体系初探

自2007年澳大利亚联邦政府设置了“创新、工业和科研部(DIISR)”,较传统科技管理体系,现今澳大利亚的科技管理体系发生了重大变革.本文重点介绍了新时期澳大利亚的“单核心多元科技管理体系”——绝对核心,各决策咨询机构和政府科研机构.     

韩国科技管理体制发展与演变探析

自20世纪60年代以来,韩国的科技发展取得了巨大的成就,其科技管理体制发挥了重要的作用.针对韩国科技管理体制形成与发展演变过程中经历的科技管理体系初步形成,以科技部为宏观管理决策部门的集中协调型管理体制,以及李明博政府对科技管理体制的重大调整等三个重要阶段进行了系统的分析研究,并对韩国科技管理体制的特点进行了总结和讨论.     

What do numerical (climate) models really represent?

The translation of a mathematical model into a numerical one employs various modifications in order to make the model accessible for computation. Such modifications include discretizations, approximations, heuristic assumptions, and other methods. The paper investigates the divergent styles of mathematical and numerical models in the case of a specific piece of code in a current atmospheric model. Cognizance of these modifications means that the question of the role and function of scientific models has to be reworked. Neither are numerical models pure intermediaries between theory and data, nor are they autonomous tools of inquiry. Instead, theory and data are transformed into a new symbolic form of research due to the fact that computation has become an essential requirement for every scientific practice. Therefore the question is posed: What do numerical (climate) models really represent?     

I am knowledge. Get me out of here! On localism and the universality of science

It has become increasingly common in historiography of science to understand science and its products as inherently local. However, this orientation is faced with three problems. First, how can one explain the seeming universality of contemporary science? Second, if science is so reflective of its local conditions of production, how can it travel so effortlessly to other localities and even globally? And third, how can scientific knowledge attain validity outside its context of origin? I will argue that the notion of standardization and theories of delocalization manage to explain the ‘globality’ of science, but that localism denies ‘universality’ if it is understood non-spatially. Further, localism limits the validity of scientific knowledge unacceptably inside the laboratory walls or other boundaries of knowledge creation. This is not consistent with scientific practice. I will consider on what grounds extra-local knowledge inferences that transcend the boundaries of locality could be seen as justified.     

李大钊在图书馆学理论方面的贡献

李大钊的图书馆教育思想是中国现代图书馆思想的萌芽。介绍了李大钊对北京大学图书馆进行全面改革的几项措施,阐述了李大钊如何利用图书馆阵地传播马克思列宁主义。     

以科学就业观念促进硕士研究生就业

硕士研究生就业难的现状,是关系到民生的一个重要课题,如何缓解就业难的问题,不仅应该在政府宏观调控和高校改革及积极采取的促进就业措施等客观方面着眼,硕士研究生本身更应该调整出积极的心态面对就业难的现实,提早为就业做出相应的心理准备,充分利用所在学校和社会的资源,打造自己的综合素质,树立科学的就业观念,以顺利实现自己的人生价值。