ABSTRACTS

**Leveling Science: Photography, Cryptozoology, and “Citizen Science”** **Pedro de la Torre** A concern with “leveling” -- diluting the boundaries of an expert domain -- has been a persistent concern in photography’s relation with the world of high art. The ready availability and ease of use of the technology, the “deskilling” involved in the practices of representation, and the perceived “realism” of photographic indexicality have been a source of boundary anxiety among both theorists and practitioners. Less work has been done, however, on photographic leveling in relation to science. In this presentation, I explore photography as a “boundary practice” between scientific experts and disciplines on one hand, and lay publics and heterodox disciplines on the other. The presentation compares the relationship between photography, participation, and scientific legitimation in two different cases: cryptozoological efforts to document and win scientific recognition for lake monsters like Nessie and Champ, and the participation of volunteers in the science projects of Zooniverse.org, a web-based collection of science projects. In the former, photography serves to bolster the credibility of eyewitness accounts, and arms “monster hunters” with the ability to create evidence of their encounters. Lack of control over the “profilmic” space, along with what could be irreconcilable differences between the worlds of “Nessidom” and mainstream science, however, has made photographic leveling a failed project in cryptozoology. In contrast, Zooniverse.org has allowed lay publics to participate in scientific knowledge production, but only by carefully limiting the boundaries of participation and expertise through informationalization and by controlling the process of technological mediation. I contend that....

**Metaphor and the Judicial Rulings of the Myriad Genetics Case** **Karin Patzke**

The Myriad Genetics case (//American Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent and Trademark Office)// has gained widespread attention, largely due to the widely criticized business practices of the biotech company’s gene testing for breast and ovarian cancer. Within legal scholarship, the case is often reviewed as apotheosis of the current tensions within the patent system, revealing inadequate review processes and contested subject matter. In two Federal District Court reviews, judicial emphasis was placed on the terminology of the patents and various interpretations of the laboratory practices of the technicians.

However, an evaluation of the judicial rulings, as well as established research on the development of genetics as a discipline, reveals that the language of genetics relies on conflicting metaphors of chemical processes and “de-coding” techniques.

But the language of genetics, in both legal decisions and in scientific research, relies on conflicting metaphors of chemical processes and “de-coding” techniques.

This essay outlines how the interpretation of these patents is confounded by these irreconcilable metaphors of the practice of DNA sequencing. Furthermore, I argue that the Federal Court’s reliance on expert testimony, as well as the inclusion of specific genetic disciplinary practices in the judiciary rulings, detracts from the larger question of “life patents.” As the case is currently appealed to the Supreme Court, I posit that the precedent established in March 2012 of //Prometheus v. Mayo//, in which established laboratory processes are not patentable, will be used to reconcile issues of patentable subject matter in genetic testing. However, as new technologies, such as “digital sequencing,” are implemented in genetics the metaphorical dilemma remains. I conclude by presenting a new series of questions the legal community might consider when evaluating healthcare technologies and patent reform.

“The only critique of our slogan that’s worth taking seriously”: The problematic of free movement and carrying capacity Ben Brucato Joel Olson performed many activities, both activist and intellectual, to advance the core meaning of the Repeal Coalition slogan: ‘Fight for Freedom to Live, Love, and Work anywhere you please!’ In policy, this demands the repeal of all state and federal immigration laws. The political significance of this slogan and campaign was broader, challenging the very notion of citizenship and its historic and contemporary links to racial privilege in the United States. Deconstructing the terms and meanings of citizenship performs both the critical task of undermining white supremacy, and the constructive work of building radically democratic – even anti-authoritarian – foundations for community organization. Although not prominent in his work, Olson recognized the increasing threat of resource-depletion and climate change. If we embrace these concerns, the degrowth of economies and the carrying capacity of ecosystems become a central demand for communities. What problematics are highlighted when we follow the maxim that each should be free to live, work, and love where they please, while simultaneously recognizing the increasingly pressing concerns of carrying capacity? In exploring the problematic, I refer to Olson’s ideas mined from personal communications, interviews, editorials and articles written on the subject of nativism, the Repeal Coalition, and the campaign against Arizona SB-1070. In response to this question, I cite ongoing conversations I had with Olson on this challenge during his last years, one he once referred to as “the only critique of our slogan that's worth taking seriously….” The goal is to point in a direction that allows for both free movement and democratically responding to the ecological challenges that press on our communities.

**The immutable mobiles of evolution, and** **the evolution of immutable mobiles** If, as Latour tells us, “Particle physics must be radically different in some way from folk botany,” then evolutionary biology must be still different. My countrymen line up to smile and uncomprehendingly accept the conclusions of particle physics, (e.g. Higgs boson), but divide into a tangled mass of testy bigots when it comes to evolutionary science. Whence the disconnect? Why is particle physics able to sway when evolution falls flat on at least 50% of America? Apparently alone among developed nations in this regard, traditional accounts of the discrepancy between America’s development and acceptance of evolution generally focus on the resistance posed by Right-wing religious entrenchment, then self-negate by adopting Gould’s gentlemanly “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA) stance and agreeing to disagree. Not only is this acceptance of the unbridgeable gap a kind of appeasement, the analysis ignores the beating poor evolution takes at the hands of the academic Left, which still dreads the spectre of Social Darwinism.

Here the successes or failure of evolutionary science to win converts (enroll allies) will be evaluated by drawing upon Latour’s concept of immutable mobiles. If we ask who will win an antagonistic encounter between two points of view, Latour says, “the one able to muster on the spot the largest number of well aligned and faithful allies." The natural instinct is to assume he means //people//, but (in)famously, he does not: actor-network theory is concerned with actants, be they human or nonhuman. Immutable mobiles are the non-human inscriptions, read-outs, printouts, write-ups, and other traces that //circulate unchanged// (immutable mobile) through scientific networks. But more importantly, they create a two-way connection between scientists and the phenomena they study, allowing for more precise articulation. Latour argues that gathering and assembling these textual allies into a central location (preferably a flat space of a few square meters) is one of if not //the// key activity in scientific knowledge production; he calls such an assemblage a //centre of calculation,// and suggests they are the source of scientific power.

Does the relative failure of evolutionary science in America reflect problems in its scientific network? Does evolution’s deep temporal character and massive scale prevent the kind of assemblage (of immutable mobiles) necessary to produce belief (manufacture knowledge) in an ordinary, scientific mind? What are the 2-way representational relationships one can have with a fossil? And what are the future of evolutionary immutable mobiles?