cent of the variance, with the rest being explained by “elements ‘behind the
curtain’” (425).
- Harry Collins and Robert Evans argue that panelists produce a fair
evaluation by engaging in “cognitive translations” between different view-
points, that is, by displaying the “special ability to take on the style of the
‘other’ and to alternate between different social worlds and translate between
them” (Collins and Evans 2002, 262; also Callon 1994). My approach comple-
ments theirs. But whereas Collins and Evans argue that translation automati-
cally leads to fair evaluations, I am interested in the full range of customary
rules. Note, too, that other science studies authors have analyzed more spe-
cifically the cognitive dimension of evaluation, without significant attention
to the question of fairness—see, for example, Gilbert and Mulkay (1984);
Latour (1987); Latour and Woolgar (1979); and Travis and Collins (1991).
Their goal was to demonstrate how scientists present their results by abstract-
ing them from their context of production. Influenced by ethnomethodology,
they have focused on cultural schemas and on the negotiation of cognitive
content. For instance, Gilbert and Mulkay (1984, 56) shows that although
biochemists can use a “contingent repertoire” to describe how they produce
results in the privacy of their laboratory (stressing the importance of social
interests and serendipitous processes of research), in public, they strategi-
cally mobilize an “empiricist repertoire” to describe their work, a repertoire
according to which the theory “follow[s] unproblematically and inescapably
from the empirical characteristics of an impersonal natural world.” Else-
where, Latour (1988) explains that when presenting their research to their
peers in publications, biologists use a “reductionist” rhetoric that provides a
linear description of the research process. Scientists also mobilize various
epistemological styles to obtain the support of colleagues for a paper under
review—see Gilbert and Mulkay (1984); Latour and Woolgar (1979)—or a
grant proposal (see Travis and Collins [1991]). These authors are not con-
cerned, however, with how this strategic orientation relates to the issue of
fairness. For more details see Mallard, Lamont, and Guetzkow (2009); Gilbert
and Mulkay (1984). - Gladwell (2005); also Gigerenzer (2007).
- Michael Mulkay’s criticism of the Mertonian approach to the institu-
tion of science (1976) underscores how emotional commitment is pervasive
within this institution—certainly as much as the notion of emotional neutral-
ity. Mulkay argues that the norms of science identified by Merton are part of a
Notes to Page 19 / 265