Making the Visual Visible in Philosophy of Science (original) (raw)
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Background: The use of visual representations (i.e., photographs, diagrams, models) has been part of science, and their use makes it possible for scientists to interact with and represent complex phenomena, not observable in other ways. Despite a wealth of research in science education on visual representations, the emphasis of such research has mainly been on the conceptual understanding when using visual representations and less on visual representations as epistemic objects. In this paper, we argue that by positioning visual representations as epistemic objects of scientific practices, science education can bring a renewed focus on how visualization contributes to knowledge formation in science from the learners’ perspective. Results: This is a theoretical paper, and in order to argue about the role of visualization, we first present a case study, that of the discovery of the structure of DNA that highlights the epistemic components of visual information in science. The second case study focuses on Faraday’s use of the lines of magnetic force. Faraday is known of his exploratory, creative, and yet systemic way of experimenting, and the visual reasoning leading to theoretical development was an inherent part of the experimentation. Third, we trace a contemporary account from science focusing on the experimental practices and how reproducibility of experimental procedures can be reinforced through video data. Conclusions: Our conclusions suggest that in teaching science, the emphasis in visualization should shift from cognitive understanding—using the products of science to understand the content—to engaging in the processes of visualization. Furthermore, we suggest that is it essential to design curriculum materials and learning environments that create a social and epistemic context and invite students to engage in the practice of visualization as evidence, reasoning, experimental procedure, or a means of communication and reflect on these practices. Implications for teacher education include the need for teacher professional development programs to problematize the use of visual representations as epistemic objects that are part of scientific practices. Keywords: Visual representations; Epistemic practices; Science learning
Leonardo, 2015
Here scale is taken to imply context, consideration of which is seen to have implications for the mobility of knowledge-as-visualisation. The suggestion is that technologies of visualisation are created within, create, and are negotiated within, contexts. Virtual spaces, such as that offered by the open-data paradigm, and the means for their exploration, here via visualisation, cannot be expected to furnish the means to ultimately settle controversies, a point made by an earlier generation of sociologists of science. This argument is demonstrated via an experiment in the replication of scientific visualisation. Accordingly, the science of visualisation, it is argued, is subject to contextual affect.
Visualization in the Age of Computerization (Routledge, 2014)
2014
Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for our understanding of scientific knowledge and of the scientific process, and challenges longstanding assumptions and traditional frameworks of thinking of scientific knowledge. Digital media and computational processes challenge our conception of the way in which perception and cognition work in science, of the objectivity of science, and the nature of scientific objects. They bring about new relationships between science, art and other visual media, and new ways of practicing science and organizing scientific work, especially as new visual media are being adopted by science studies scholars in their own practice. This volume reflects on how scientists use images in the computerization age, and how digital technologies are affecting the study of science.
Communicating science through visualization in an age of alternative facts
SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Courses, 2017
Communicating Science Through Visualization in an Age of Alternative Facts Welcome to our course addressing science education through computer graphics. Kalina Borkiewicz, AJ Christensen, and John Stone are from the University of Illinois. Kalina and AJ are members of the Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). John Stone is a member of the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (TCBG) at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. We're here to advocate for cinematic scientific visualization-which helps explains complex scientific concepts for the public-which in turn helps them defend themselves against misinformation in popular media.
Peeking Inside the Black Box: A New Kind of Scientific Visualization
Minds and Machines, 2019
Computational systems biologists create and manipulate computational models of biological systems, but they do not always have straightforward epistemic access to the content and behavioural profile of such models because of their length, coding idiosyncrasies, and formal complexity. This creates difficulties both for modellers in their research groups and for their bioscience collaborators who rely on these models. In this paper we introduce a new kind of visualization (observed in a qualitative study of a systems biology laboratory) that was developed to address just this sort of epistemic opacity. The visualization is unusual in that it depicts the dynamics and structure of a computer model instead of that model's target system, and because it is generated algorithmically. Using considerations from epistemology and aesthetics, we explore how this new kind of visualization increases scientific understanding of the content and function of computer models in systems biology to reduce epistemic opacity.
Visualization in the Age of Computerization
Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for our understanding of scientific knowledge and of the scientific process, and challenges longstanding assumptions and traditional frameworks of thinking of scientific knowledge. Digital media and computational processes challenge our conception of the way in which perception and cognition work in science, of the objectivity of science, and the nature of scientific objects. They bring about new relationships between science, art and other visual media, and new ways of practicing science and organizing scientific work. Not least, new visual media are being adopted by science studies scholars in their own practice. This volume gathers together thirteen contributions from science studies scholars from anthropology, visual studies and the sociology, history and philosophy of science, reflecting on the way that scientists use images in this age of computerization, and on the way digital technologies are affecting the study of science. Contributors were involved with the Oxford University conference in 2011, 'Visualisation in the Age of Computerisation', and include: Chiara Amrosio Anne Beaulieu Andreas Birkbak Annamaria Carusi Lisa Cartwright Matt Edgeworth Peter Galison Aud Sissel Hoel Torben Elgaard Jensen Michael Lynch Anders Koed Madsen Anders Kristian Munk David Ribes Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone Tom Schilling Alma Steingart Timothy Webmoor Steve Woolgar Albena Yaneva