What is a Laboratory?

     Last week's readings and Knorr-Cetina's, "What Is a Laboratory?" drew my attention to how we see laboratories as places of power. My mental image of a laboratory is greatly influenced by the stereotypical images presented in Hollywood movies and childhood cartoons. I had never considered how laboratories have developed into the environments they are today. I am assuming that the history of laboratories is not necessarily common knowledge. As Knorr-Cetina and our readings from last week have noted, their mysterious intrigue and separation from society is partly how laboratories have earned respect and become places of power. This purposeful distance places laboratories and scientists in a world to which the rest of us have not gained access. Knorr-Cetina's description of how doctors in the past would discuss a patient's case in Latin before reaching a final judgment is similar to how scientists behave today, using technical jargon to discuss their research and findings.

    Science has remained a great mystery to me ever since the disaster of high school Chemistry. When my pre-med friends would discuss the material they were learning in Biology, Orgo, or Neuro-something-or-other my brain would instinctually filter out their conversation, only tuning back in when I could understand what they were saying. I did not learn to fix this habit until one of my friends felt sorry for me one time and explained the conservation to me using examples. It took time, but by the end of conversation I was hooked.

     I was wondering whether such separation is necessary - why not present scientific work so that everybody can understand it? By doing so, would that not eliminate the misinterpretation of their findings and subsequent creation of false claims that can be quickly spread by the media? Personally, I would not think any less of scientists if their reports were written in an understandable form of English. Laboratories would still maintain their powerful persona as the testing ground where scientists "improve upon natural orders." Let the laboratories remain separated, but help us understand the work produced there.