Museion conceptscience communication studies

Whither the material culture of science?

A quick quote from Isabelle Stengers interesting book Cosmopolitics I (published in the series Posthumanities), which I feel sums up some of what we try to do at the Museion when we integrate aesthetics, politics, science communication and material culture: “The sciences, as they are taught, that is, as they are presented once their results […]


A quick quote from Isabelle Stengers interesting book Cosmopolitics I (published in the series Posthumanities), which I feel sums up some of what we try to do at the Museion when we integrate aesthetics, politics, science communication and material culture:

“The sciences, as they are taught, that is, as they are presented once their results are unlinked from the practice of science “as it is practiced,” do not have a meaning that is appreciably different from a religious engine of war, poiting out the path to salvation, condemning sin and idolatry.”

This idea of science as ‘a religious engine of war’ is crucial in understanding some of the denialism and science-scepticism that exists all around us – people are getting weary and wary with the ever-changing landscape of scientific ‘facts’. Showing science as embodied and material practice – science in the making – is, I think, one way of re-linking science as it is taught to science as it is practiced, and thereby hopefully deepening the understanding of what science is/can be.