> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Bruno Latour > Reference:: Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (2013) Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton University Press. > Date:: 2013 > Tags:: #warp/book > WeftLinks:: [[Scientific value of craft]] > Claim: [[Claim - There is craft in laboratory and other scientific work]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > Latour and Woolgar argue that the production of scientific knowledge is largely a craft process. This is elided in the process of publication, where the agency of the skills and tools is marginalised. The more laboratory craft knowledge required in its production, the greater the unique value of the finding. >"Inscription devices thus appear to be valued on the basis of the extent to which they facilitate a swift transition from craft work to ideas. The material setting both makes possible the phenomena and is required to be easily forgotten... Thus far, our observer has begun to make sense of the laboratory in terms of a tribe of readers and writers who spend two-thirds of their time working with large inscription devices. They appear to have developed considerable skills in setting up devices which can pin down elusive figures, traces, or inscriptions in their craftwork, and in the art of persuasion. Bruno Latour _Laboratory Life_ New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986 (orig. 1979), p. 69"