A New Arsenal

I am taking away a new fully equipped arsenal of weapons to participate in the Science Wars. Made by many professional Science War mercenaries and made by some who didn't even know they were apart of it. Weapons such as multidimensional history (Latour), circulating reference (Latour), hybrid diagrams (Fausto-Sterling), interdisciplinary research (Fausto-Sterling), the adaptationist spotter (Pinker, Lewontin, Ogodam), the rhetorical gun kit which includes: habitus ammo, group solidarity, the marketplace, self objects etc., seeing devices (Latour, Kuhn), reader-response theory (Hall, Critchon), sociotechnical (Latour), semantic contagion (Hacking, Elliot) etc... Although some I feel would (and do) see me as Don Quixote, I think this war does exist. Everything we looked was apart of it. Crichton is most exemplar.

I entered this class with a shaky foundation of reality. Previously I couldn't get past that science was inherently subjective. Now my focus has shifted. I understand I was situated in a Cartesian predicament and what that actually means, where it came from, etc. How I act and see the world is as real and concrete as I have ever felt it to be. When I'm sitting in my statistics or calculus lectures I can understand and spot the seeing devices that they are operating under. I can see but not still completely understand how they are talking about real things in our world.

There are many ideas and words of people that will echo in my head from this class. They have been extremely influential actors in forming my conscious in science studies. From Kryz's peer review, money and economics dialogues, to Jeehye's, Becca's, and Julian's work in the laboratory with genetics and chemistry and how they related what we were learning to their research, to Emily's knowledge and refutations of GMO's, transexuals, and global warming, to Valerie's and Nick's more practical points of view that question why does this matter (questions similar to ones that echo in my head from my parents), and Jaques philisophical undeniable hipsterdom of "come on, does this really matter", resistance and questioning. I left a few people out who's words resonate with me but I think you get the gist.

Thanks a billion to everyone, Ben, Robin and especially the Liquidators [the best group I have ever worked with and learned from in college]. I will miss this class immensely seeing as this is the kickoff for me into a lifelong study of science studies. Cheers!