How Well Do Facts Travel?
The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge

Facts often acquire a life of their own; the stories in this book explain why.

Peter Howlett (Edited by), Mary S. Morgan (Edited by)

9780521159586, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 15 November 2010

486 pages, 51 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'Philosophers of science have long talked about fruitfulness as a criteria of scientific merit. This collection asks how ideas - or facts - actually get to be recognized and used; it is a major contribution that greatly deepens this important problem.' Stephen P. Turner, University of South Florida

This book discusses how facts travel, and when and why they sometimes travel well enough to acquire a life of their own. Whether or not facts travel in this manner depends not only on their character and ability to play useful roles elsewhere, but also on the labels, packaging, vehicles and company that take them across difficult terrains and over disciplinary boundaries. These diverse stories of travelling facts, ranging from architecture to nanotechnology and from romance fiction to climate science, change the way we see the nature of facts. Facts are far from the bland and rather boring but useful objects that scientists and humanists produce and fit together to make narratives, arguments and evidence. Rather, their extraordinary abilities to travel well shows when, how and why facts can be used to build further knowledge beyond and away from their sites of original production and intended use.

1. Travelling facts Mary S. Morgan
Part I. Matters of Fact: 2. Facts and building artefacts: what travels in material objects? Simona Valeriani
3. A journey through times and cultures? Ancient Greek forms in American nineteenth-century architecture: an archaeological view Lambert Schneider
4. Manning's N: putting roughness to work Sarah J. Whatmore and Catharina Landström
5. My facts are better than your facts: spreading good news about global warming Naomi Oreskes
6. Real problems with fictional cases Jon Adams
Part II. Integrity and Fruitfulness: 7. Ethology's travelling facts Richard Burkhardt
8. Travelling facts about crowded rats: rodent experimentation and the human sciences Ed Ramsden
9. Using cases to establish novel diagnoses: creating generic facts by making particular facts travel together Rachel Ankeny
10. Technology transfer and travelling facts: a perspective from Indian agriculture Peter Howlett and Aashish Velkar
11. Archaeological facts in transit: the eminent mounds of central North America Alison Wylie
Part III. Companionship and Character: 12. Packaging small facts for re-use: databases in model organism biology Sabina Leonelli
13. Designed for travel: communicating facts through images Martina Merz
14. Using models to keep us healthy: the productive journeys of facts across public health research networks Erika Mansnerus
15. The facts of life and death: a case of exceptional longevity David Haycock
16. Love life of a fact Heather Schell.

Subject Areas: Mathematics & science [P], Society & social sciences [J], Humanities [H]