Two of this week’s readings discussed the different stages of learning that medical students and physics go through in their path to become experts. “How Medicine Constructs Its Objects” discussed medical school and how it reshapes not only medical student’s language and knowledge but also their method of seeing, understanding, and engagement with the world while “Pilgrim’s Progress: Male Tales Told During a Life in Physics” focused more on the hurdles that physics students have to overcome in their career path and what anxieties they might have at each hurdle. The third article, “Coming of Age In a Weapons Lab”, discussed how scientists who worked in a weapons lab were able to come to terms with their work and their personal views on the issue of nuclear weapon use.
I noticed that both the authors for “Coming of Age in a Weapons Lab” and for “How Medicine Constructs Its Objects” used the word ritual to describe certain things that the scientists or students did. I found the use of the word very interesting because I typically associate the word with folk or religious ceremonies rather than scientific processes. As a science major and also coming from a family where everyone either works in the medical field or a science field, I have always viewed science solely as a fact. Reading these articles made me more aware of the ways in which science is also a culture of its own. I found it especially interesting how the medical student described a visiting applicant during an anatomy as a violation in a funny way. It was as if medical school had created a secret community that outsiders should not intrude on.
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