“Going Monoclonal”: Art, Science, and Magic in the Day-to-Day Use of Hybridoma Technology

Recent work in the sociology of science has highlighted the local and tacit dimensions of scientific work. Against the widely held assumption that we are here dealing with a form of knowledge largely beyond the control and manipulation of scientists, we will argue that the unsaid is indeed a part of conscious scientific practice—and hence subject to negotiation, discussion, and construction. Based on a study of the transmission of hybridoma technology, this paper will show that questions of local knowledge, tacit knowledge, and “magic,” far from being ignored by scientific researchers, are explicitly a part of their daily practice. It will be seen that these questions give rise to a series of social and technical distinctions which are constitutive of scientific work.

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