Science and the scopic regime

Question 1

Haraway Reading

• Fundamental flaw in objectivity

Answer 1

• Science background – cameras, microscopes → we can’t assume that those technologies produce an unmediated image; coming out of a particular cultural context
• Science is a product of culture = is there true objectivity?
• Situated knowledge – they all see different things, all equally valid and true even if they see different things
• Acknowledging that there is no one position of truth from which to see the world

Question 2

Scientific images are ____________

Answer 2

Scientific images are grounded in a cultural context.

Question 3

Positivism

Answer 3

the idea that the world is best understood through observation or experimentation
• Informs law, science, medicine, and social sciences which strive for objectivity

Question 4

Haraway suggests that vision exists in a cultural context

Answer 4

“The eyes have been used to signify a perverse capacity…”
• we’ve elevated the eyes above all other senses in Western culture
• there is something flawed with this
• we have to connect this with all these histories: militarism, capitalism, colonialism, male supremacy
• i.e. movie cameras (the roll works the same way as a military gun)
• there is an observer that is disconnected → not really, it is impossible to be completely disconnected

Question 5

• a central aim of science is to

Answer 5

a central aim of science is to see the unseen

• less invasive technologies = microscope, telescopes, x-ray
o really dominate the field of science
o an ultrasound – soundwaves used to measure the boundaries within the body (sound to image)

Question 6

practice of visualisation has escalated to encompass the acoustic and tactile world

Answer 6

• the paradox: visual images represent all kinds of sensory information

o the data is translated into something we can look at
o eyes elevated over other senses in the way we see the world
o we’re really obsessed with seeing (the tongue is capable of sensing a lot but we don’t use it nearly as much as eyes)
conceptualize our bodies on the molecular level

Question 7

Medicine and MRIs

Answer 7

• Looking and seeing confirms whether or not disease is present
• The eye has been elevated to arbiter in the medical diagnostic toolkit
• Imaging techs can see w/o opening the body
• Doctors can observe the opened body from a distance: to see the unseen

Question 8

MRIs are a part of the larger cultural turn toward visualization

Answer 8

• We represent life in pictures and they have become a powerful tool
• Magnetic resonance imaging
• Three translations: atom info → mathematical formula is applied → radiologist looks at that picture → physician sees it
o Second diagnosis bc there is some variation is how humans see the MRI

Question 9

Like photographs, computer-based images have a _____ ______ and the myth of photographic truth is very strong with MRIs

Answer 9

Like photographs, computer-based images have a “truth appeal” and the myth of photographic truth is very strong with MRIs
• A cultural product w/ a strong truth appeal
• First, an image produced by a machine, ppl believe the MRIS are more objective
• There is a belief that imaging technologies reveal the world in an unmediated manner and can therefore give a positivistic view of the body
• Not necessarily the best diagnostic tool in all cases
o Study done with shoulder injuries
o Physical examination (move this arm up) got a more accurate diagnosis than MRI
o The machine seems to be objective

Question 10

The myth of photographic truth means that MRIs are seen as a technology of truth

Answer 10

• Ppl believe what happened to Eric Garner bc we saw it from someone’s video
o This is part of the way the myth works