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1Experimentation in PhysicsIn Catherine Allamel-Raffin, Jean-Luc Gangloff & Yves Gingras (eds.), Experimentation in the Sciences: Comparative and Long-Term Historical Research on Experimental Practice, Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 9-19. 2024.This chapter presents the different purposes of observation and experiment in physics using examples that allow us to grasp the historical transformations linked to the development of instrumentation. We cover both the observational and experimental aspects of this discipline, which range from astronomy and astrophysics to nuclear and particle physics, including optics and solid-state physics.
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The Characteristics and Diversity of Experimentation in the SciencesIn Catherine Allamel-Raffin, Jean-Luc Gangloff & Yves Gingras (eds.), Experimentation in the Sciences: Comparative and Long-Term Historical Research on Experimental Practice, Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 1-8. 2024.This introduction aims at raising the central questions that will be discussed throughout the book in a variety of ways, adapted to each scientific discipline. What is experimentation, and what distinguishes it from observation in different disciplines? What epistemic status should experimentation have in relation to theory? In which institutional framework do experimental practices find their place? To answer these questions, we first detail the various functions of experimentation, abandoning …Read more
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5Experimentation in the Sciences: Comparative and Long-Term Historical Research on Experimental Practice (edited book)Springer Nature Switzerland. 2024.This book takes a novel approach by highlighting comparative and long-term historical perspectives on experimental practice. The juxtaposition of accounts of natural, social, and medical experimentation is very enlightening, especially because the authors put the emphasis on the different kinds of objects of experimentation (physical matter, chemical reagents, social groups, organizations, sick individuals, archeological remains) and demonstrate how much the kinds of objects matter for the pract…Read more
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15Out of the Ivory Tower: The Patenting Activity of Canadian University Professors Before the 1980sMinerva 60 (2): 281-300. 2022.This study analyses the patenting activities of university science and engineering professors in Canada between 1920 and 1975. Unlike most studies on commercial activities in academia, which typically focus on the post-1980 period and on university practices, we focus on the pre-1980 period and on the individual decisions of professors to patent their inventions. Based on quantitative patent data, we show that patenting, and thus professors’ interest in the possible commercial value of their sci…Read more
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113Philosophy in Science: Can philosophers of science permeate through science and produce scientific knowledge?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
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91The visibility of philosophy of science in the sciences, 1980–2018Synthese 199 (3-4): 1-31. 2021.In this paper, we provide a macro level analysis of the visibility of philosophy of science in the sciences over the last four decades. Our quantitative analysis of publications and citations of philosophy of science papers, published in 17 main journals representing the discipline, contributes to the longstanding debate on the influence of philosophy of science on the sciences. It reveals the global structure of relationships that philosophy of science maintains with science, technology, engine…Read more
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12The Globalization of European Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities : A Bibliometric StudyIn Johan Heilbron, Gustavo Sorá & Thibaud Boncourt (eds.), The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations, Springer Verlag. pp. 29-58. 2018.On the basis of bibliometric data, this chapter shows that international collaboration in the social sciences and humanities has increased strongly between 1980 and 2014, but that the pattern of exchange has known few structural changes. At the basic level of production capacity and article output, the global field of the SSH is best described as a Euro-American duopoly. At the higher level of co-authorships and citations, however, the field structure tends to be monopolistic: no language can co…Read more
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170The Uses of Analogies in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century SciencePerspectives on Science 19 (2): 154-191. 2011.The object of this paper is to look at the extent and nature of the uses of analogy during the ªrst century following the so-called scientiªc revolution. Using the research tool provided by JSTOR we systematically analyze the uses of “analog” and its cognates (analogies, analogous, etc.) in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the period 1665–1780. In addition to giving the possibility of evaluating quantitatively the proportion of papers explicitly using analogies, …Read more
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17La Carrière des Publications D’ettore Majorana une Étude BibliométriqueRevue de Synthèse 134 (1): 75-87. 2013.Cet article retrace la carrière des publications d’Ettore Majorana en analysant les citations dont elles ont fait l’objet depuis le début des années 1930. Cette approche met en évidence la redécouverte, au milieu des années 1960, de l’article de 1937 portant sur les particules de spin quelconque et permet d’identifier les personnes à l’origine du travail de promotion de l‘œuvre de Majorana, dont la visibilité s’est accrue depuis le milieu des années 1970. L’étude des co-citations fait voir le ré…Read more
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28Naming without NecessityRevue de Synthèse 131 (3): 439-454. 2010.The recent discussions on the label “historical epistemology” provide us with an interesting example of branding of concepts, ideas and methods. Given this recent interest in the meaning of the expression “historical epistemology”, a detailed analysis of its genealogy and context of emergence may provide some conceptual clarification in a discussion that is often confused and curiously silent on the long tradition of sociology of knowledge. This essay also sheds light on the difficulty with the …Read more
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19The Creative Power of Formal Analogies in Physics: The Case of Albert EinsteinScience & Education 24 (5-6): 529-541. 2015.
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56The Collective Construction of Scientific Memory: The Einstein-Poincaré Connection and its Discontents, 1905–2005History of Science 46 (1): 75-114. 2008.
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69“Please, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”: The Role of Argumentation in a Sociology of Academic MisunderstandingsSocial Epistemology 21 (4). 2007.Academic debates are so frequent and omnipresent in most disciplines, particularly the social sciences and humanities, it seems obvious that disagreements are bound to occur. The aim of this paper is to show that whereas the agent who perceives his/her contribution as being misunderstood locates the origin of the communication problem on the side of the receiver who "misinterprets" the text, the emitter is in fact also contributing to the possibility of this misunderstanding through the very man…Read more
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12Les sciences pour l'ingenieur: Histoire du rendez-vous des sciences et de la societe by Girolamo Ramunni (review)Isis 89 569-570. 1998.
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66The experimenters' regress: from skepticism to argumentationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 33 (1): 133-148. 2002.Harry Collins' central argument about experimental practice revolves around the thesis that facts can only be generated by good instruments but good instruments can only be recognized as such if they produce facts. This is what Collins calls the experimenters' regress. For Collins, scientific controversies cannot be closed by the ‘facts’ themselves because there are no formal criteria independent of the outcome of the experiment that scientists can apply to decide whether an experimental apparat…Read more
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32Response to Collins about 'one point' that is absent from my review of his bookStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (1): 112-. 2009.
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29Mapping the structure of the intellectual field using citation and co-citation analysis of correspondencesHistory of European Ideas 36 (3): 330-339. 2010.This article uses the methods of citation and network analysis to map the global structure of the intellectual field and its development over time. Through the case study of Mersenne's, Oldenburg's and Darwin's correspondences, we show how looking at letters as a corpus of data can provide a global representation of the evolving conversation going on in the Republic of Letters and in intellectual and scientific fields. Aggregating general correspondences in electronic format offers a global port…Read more
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33La dynamique de Leibniz : métaphysique et substantialisme: François Duchesneau, La dynamique de Leibniz, Paris, Vrin, coll. Mathesis, 1994Philosophiques 22 (2): 395-405. 1995.
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52Everything you did not necessarily want to know about gravitational waves. And whyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38 (1): 268-282. 2007.
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33Macroscopic Oil Droplets Mimicking Quantum Behaviour: How Far Can We Push an Analogy?International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (3): 271-294. 2015.We describe a series of experimental analogies between fluid mechanics and quantum mechanics recently discovered by a team of physicists. These analogies arise in droplet systems guided by a surface wave. We argue that these experimental facts put ancient theoretical work by Madelung on the analogy between fluid and quantum mechanics into new light. After re-deriving Madelung’s result starting from two basic fluid mechanical equations, we discuss the relation with the de Broglie–Bohm theory. Thi…Read more
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113The emergence and evolution of the expression “conflict of interests” in science : A historical overview, 1880–2006Science and Engineering Ethics 14 (3): 337-343. 2008.The tendency is strong to take the notion of “conflict of interests” for granted as if it had an invariant meaning and an ethical content independent of the historical context. It is doubtful however, from an historical and sociological point of view, that many of the cases now considered as instances of “conflicts of interests” would also have been conceived and perceived as such in, say, the 1930s. The idea of a “conflict of interests” presupposes that there are indeed interests in conflict. C…Read more
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31Pourquoi le" programme fort" est-il incompris?Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 109 235-255. 2000.
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31Les sciences pour l'ingenieur: Histoire du rendez-vous des sciences et de la societe. Girolamo RamunniIsis 89 (3): 569-570. 1998.