The conditions of contemporary life have been shaped in large part by science and technology extending human life, shrinking the globe, traveling into space. To effect human life and nature, for good or ill, enhancing safety or risk, science must be transformed by legal procedures from hypotheses and laboratory experiments into property and products. Both the legal processes and scientific practices derive legitimacy from being publicly observable and rational. Through their defining methods, both law and science attempt to constrain the use of unregulated force. Yet, despite their purportedly open and available processes, both science and legality are experienced as arcane, impenetrable, and often uninterpretable. Neither law nor science achieves the transparency to which it aspires. These two volumes collect exemplary law and society scholarship to look beneath the surface connections and antagonisms between these two powerful modern institutions. The first volume collects together articles on science as it enters legal domains, primarily as evidence and legitimation for political authority and the second explores how law acts within the domains of science, primarily as resources and regulations channeling both the practices of scientists and the consequences of scientific production.
Contents: Volume I Epistemological, Evidentiary, and Relational Engagements: Introduction; Part I Epistemological Engagements: Law and the natural sciences in 19th-century American universities, Howard Schweber; Law and science – reflections, Hanina Ben-Menahem and Yemima Ben-Menahem; Scientific objects and legal objectivity, Bruno Latour. Part II Science in Court: Social frameworks: a new use of social science in law, Laurens Walker and John Monahan; The lawyer and the lightning rod, Jessica Riskin; The history of scientific expert testimony in the English courtroom, Tal Golan; Speaking for the dead: forensic pathologists and criminal justice in the United States, Julie Johnson-McGrath; The image of truth: photographic evidence and the power of analogy, Jennifer Mnookin; What counts for identity? The historical origins of the methodology of latent fingerprinting identification, Simon Cole; Seeing and believing: images of heredity in biological theories of crime, Nicole Rafter; Science, common sense and the common law: courtroom inquiries and the public understanding of science, Michael Lynch and Ruth McNally; The evidence does not speak for itself: expert witness and the organization of DNA-typing companies, Arthur Daemmrich; Objective brains, prejudicial images, Joseph Dumit; Judicial representations of scientific evidence, Gary Edmond. Part III Doctrinal Struggles with Scientifically Generated Social Relations: The boundaries of abortion law: systems theory from Parsons to Luhmann and Habermas, Mathieu Deflem; A rape in cyberspace: how an evil clown, a Haitian trickster spirit, 2 wizards and a cast of dozens turned a database into a society, Julian Dibbell; Index.
Volume II: Regulation of Property, Practices, and Products: Introduction; Part I State Institutionalization of Science: MIT and the federal' angel': academic R&D and the federal-private cooperation before World War II, Larry Owens; Layers of interest, layers of influence, business and the genesis of the National Science Foundation, Daniel Lee Kleinmann; Organizing integrity: American science and the creation of public interest organizations, 1955–1975, Kelly Moore; Stabilizing the boundary between US politics and science: the role of the Office of Technology Transfer as a boundary organization, David Guston. Part II Making Markets of/in Science: Publish or perish: legal contingencies and the publication of Kepler's Astronomia Nova, James R. Voelkel; Making dollars out of DNA: the first major patent in biotechnology and the commercialization of molecular biology, 1974–1980, Sally Smith Hughes; Between beneficence and chattel: the human biological in law and science, Hannah Landecker; Dockets, deals, and sagas: commensuration and the rationalization of experience in university licensing, Jason Owen-Smith. Part III Governing Science: Law in the Lab: 'You still takin' notes?' Fieldwork and problems of informed consent, Barrie Thorne; Institutional biosafety committees and the inadequacies of risk regulation, Philip L. Bereano; The architecture of authority: the place of law in the space of science, Susan S. Silbey and Patricia Ewick; A little dirt never hurt anyone: knowledge-making and contamination in materials science, Cyrus C.M. Mody; Safe science: material and social order in laboratory work, Benjamin Sims. Part IV Governing Scientists: Social Control and Scientific Misconduct: Deviance in science: towards the criminology of science, Nachman Ben-Yehuda; A social control perspective on scientific misconduct, Edward J. Hackett; The politics of research misconduct: congressional oversight, universities and science, Marcel C. LaFollette. Part V Governing the Products of Science: Contested boundaries in policy-relevant science, Sheila S. Jasanoff; Precautionary uncertainty: regulating GM crops in Europe, Les Levidow; How not to construct a radioactive waste incinerator, Hugh Gusterson; Index.