1. science

The Scientific Gaze
Developing a theory for the analysis of natural
scientific perception
Written by Adam Brenthel
Supervisor Tommy Lindholm
Kulturvetenskap med samtidsinriktning 41-60
Konst, Kultur, Kommunikation
2
Table of contents
1. Introduction
3
Questions
4
Empirical method
5
Theoretical background
7
Disposition
9
2. The Practice of Visual Representation in Science
10
The theoretical framework – Part one
11
Theoretical framework - Part two
The Gaze and different episteme
13
15
3. The experiment
18
The work process
Preparations of the specimen for SEM
20
20
Analysing the image
23
4. The scientific gaze
25
The Image
25
The Observer
The role of education
27
28
The space of the gaze
29
References
30
Appendix 1
32
Appendix 2
33
Appendix 3
34
Appendix 4
35
Appendix 5
36
3
1. Introduction
The objective of this paper is to develop a theory for analysing the
practice of representing the world with visualizations in the form of
different images and the scientific gaze that renders these images
meaningful. These images are often combined with text, since the
natural sciences are lexivisual practices. For natural scientists
these
visual
unproblematic.
and
lexivisual
Scientific
representations
representations
can
appear
be
many
totally
kinds
of
pictures, graphs, tables or diagrams and are seen as vehicles of
knowledge; in their concrete and tangible form we call them images
but they can also be displayed, screened and projected. I will not
directly deal with mental images or conceptions of the world, only as
one way to understand what renders the tangible images meaningful.
But of course, the conflict between a culturalistic and a natural
scientific conception of the world runs through this paper, as the
empirical
material
is
natural
scientific
and
the
analysis
is
culturalistic.
Scientists use, produce and distribute the scientific images in their
daily work. Still the images are not questioned at all within the
scientific community, they are not reflected upon. I see mainly two
general
problems
with
the
practice
of
scientific
visual
representation:
First, these visualizations are accessible and intelligible in
their fullness only for scientists. This constitutes a relational
problem of power between those who are scientifically educated and
those who are not. The problem is not unique for natural science;
every discipline of knowledge tends to exclude those who are not
scientifically
disciplined.
The
problem
has
been
described
as
1
scientific visual illiteracy .
Second, natural scientists lack in some aspects a reflexive
approach to their visualization practices. Maybe it’s home-blindness,
or natural scientists acquire an aspect-seeing/blindness resulting
from social or educational disciplining. These two problems should be
critical
for
contemporary
natural
science;
the
apparatus
for
scientific image production is developing fast and are becoming more
efficient and ubiquitous. We live in the “spectacle” age according to
Guy Debord, Foucault claims that it is the “surveillance” society and
Martin Jay suggest that we should study it as a “scopic regime”,
1
Trumbo. Visual Cultures of Science. Pp. 266-285
4
whereas W.J.T Mitchell has it that philosophy has taken a “pictorial
turn”
after
the
engagement
with
text.
The
point
is
that
contemporary/post modern philosophy is totally engaged with the
question of the image. Still natural scientists regard the image as
unproblematic.
My working hypothesis; there is a natural scientific gaze that
renders scientific images meaningful and useful. By developing a
theory for analysing and describing this gaze from a Cultural Studies
perspective, the practice of visual representation in natural science
will be opened up for criticism. The empirical departure point of
this paper is a field study in a zoological laboratory. I follow a
doctoral student working with a SEM – Scanning Electron Microscope.
SEM is used for high magnification of non-living specimens. This
paper brings into play the outcome of this laboratory work – the
scientific images, the context of image production and the production
of meaning for its analysis, which will be performed from a social,
cultural, discursive and power perspective i.e. a Cultural Studies
perspective. Since Cultural Studies by tradition is mostly engaged
with
the
study
of
popular
culture;
film,
television,
pop-art,
literature from a reader perspective, it is necessary to point out
that I am not focusing on the popular perspective of science. That
would be popularized science discourse but instead intra-relational
science discourse and educational discourse, still from a “reader”
vantage point, the trained or in-training scientist perspective.
Questions
1.How does the scientific gaze render the images meaningful in this
particular experiment?
2. How is the scientific gaze of this researcher constituted?
3.Where does this scientific gaze take its beholder?
5
Empirical method
Walking
through
the
laboratory,
observing,
asking
questions,
sometimes socializing with the research colleagues. This was neither
an interview situation, nor observation; instead it was a go-along,
as Kusenbach presents it2. The go-along overcomes the ambiguity when
choosing generally from the two methods in ethnography – interview or
participatory observation. In the interview situation the object of
inquiry
is
spatially.
detached
The
from
context
the
and
“normal”
practices
context,
that
socially
and
meaning
are
produces
absent. The material obtained will be limited to the questions the
ethnographer raises and to what the informant recalls and retells.
The
other
option,
participatory
observation,
will
produce
less
empirical material to work with since not much is said in the
laboratory; lengthy periods of silence characterize the material
obtained
in
conducting
a
the
digital
proper
sound
recorder.
participatory
The
observation
time
was
needed
not
at
for
hand.
Laboratory shoptalk is incoherent and the work is hard to follow for
an outsider in the laboratory3, either the outsider gets in the way
or gets lost. Performing the go-along, the ethnographic observer
follows the object in the daily life, in this case in the laboratory,
taking notes, photos, asking question and acting in a normal way, in
the meaning of blending into the surroundings. Kusenbach sees the
following
advantages
with
the
go-along
method
as
compared
with
interview or observation.
First, go-alongs unveil the complex layering and filtering of
perception: they can help ethnographers reconstruct how personal
sets of relevancies guide their informants’ experiences of the
social and physical environment in everyday life. Second, goalongs offer insights into the texture of spatial practices by
revealing the subjects’ various degrees and types of engagement in
and with the environment. Third, go-alongs provide unique access
to personal biographies. They highlight the many links between
places and life histories, thus uncovering some of the ways in
which
individuals
lend
depth
and
meaning
to
their
mundane
routines. Fourth, go-alongs can illuminate the social architecture
of natural settings such as neighborhoods. They make visible the
complex web of connections between people, that is, their various
relationships, groupings and hierarchies; and they reveal how
2
Kusenbach. Street Phenomenology: The go-along as ethtnographic
research tool.
3
Latour. Science in Action.
6
informants
situate
themselves
in
the
local
social
landscape.
Fifth, go-alongs facilitate explorations of social realms, that
is, the distinct spheres of reality that are shaped by varying
patterns of interaction.
4
Since the physical room, the laboratory, and other spaces too, both
material and virtual, are important in this paper, a method that
takes
into
account
both
environmental
perception
and
spatial
practices is well suited. The instructions I gave the researcher
concerning
my
presence,
was
to
treat
me
as
he
would
treat
a
colleague, to use whatever words, concepts and language he normally
would. My own background as biologist helped me to be treated more
like a fellow colleague, and less like an ethnographer. The go-along
allowed me to observe the shaping of perception as an insider, or as
Kusenbach write:
Go-alongs can sensitize ethnographers to the idiosyncratic sets of
relevancies
that
govern
their
informants’
environmental
experiences. Being able to witness in situ the filtering and
shaping of their subjects’ perceptions.
5
I followed the experimenter with digital sound recorder and digital
camera during three days of work, asking questions and observing,
trying to witness just that filtering and shaping of perception. An
obvious problem with my empirical method is that the go-alongs are
short compared with the time our experimenter spent and will spend in
the laboratory. Never the less, my own background as biologist,
minimize the time spent to grasp the fundamentals of laboratory life,
allowing
me
to
focus
on
the
experimenter
and
this
particular
experiment. The downside is that my background has shaped my own
perception, the very same perception I now seek to describe. Being
aware of that I still consider the chosen method well suited for this
field study. Still, the go-along is described by Kusenbach as a
phenomenological method6 but my framework is cultural theoretical,
treating science production as a sociocultural practice. The relation
between phenomenology and cultural studies could be problematized but
that is a task for another paper.
4
Kusenbach. Street Phenomenology: The go-along as ethtnographic
research tool. p. 466.
5
ibid. p. 469.
6
Ibid. p. 455.
7
I will bring the laboratory to the reader of this paper since most
readers
probably
never
have
been
in
a
laboratory.
The
digital
material obtained during those days is presented as a slideshow and a
pod cast. The pod cast is used as an introduction to laboratory work
and scientific image production, but it is also an empirical source
of this paper. Even though this paper has a fieldwork as a point of
departure, the focus will be the philosophical, historical, cultural
and
social
context
of
laboratory
work
and
scientific
image
production, not the actual work. The empirical material that I will
use in the paper is limited to what was obtained during those days in
the laboratory. Since the outcome of that work only is a small part
of
a
coming
article
I
cannot
follow
the
images
outside
the
institution, but the images will result in a zoological article
later. There is only one complicating factor as I see it, to use too
much of our researcher’s material would compromise the trust that
made the go-along possible, unpublished material is delicate to
handle because the yet not common known is very valuable.
Theoretical background
To begin this brief theoretical background; Ludwig Fleck was one of
the first to question the epistemology of natural science from a
cultural and social perspective. The book The Genesis and Development
of
a
Scientific
Fact,
translated
to
English
in
1935,
can
anachronistically be called an early social constructivist work. He
developed the concept of thought collectives, also known as thought
styles in the 1930s. In the book, Fleck argued that scientific facts
are dependent on the collective way scientists think and that this
thinking
changes
unattainable
unidirectional
and
or
over
time.
Therefore,
scientific
knowledge
cumulative.
He
did
scientific
production
this,
not
as
truth
is
cannot
be
a
trained
philosopher or historian, but as a practising medical microbiologist.
The same goes for Thomas S. Kuhn, also he a science practitioner, a
physicist and not philosopher or sociologist, though he taught a
course in history of science on Harvard in the late 40s to the mid
50s. Kuhn takes as his departure the thoughts of Fleck when he writes
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. Kuhn uses historical
examples to show how the way scientists think has dramatically
changed over time; the Copernican revolution, Lavoisier discovery of
oxygen and disproval of the phlogiston theory and explaining what
caused these changes. As the title reveals, the change in thinking
over time is revolutionary, overthrowing old knowledge and way of
8
thinking, replacing it with new ways. The way scientists think and
work is called a paradigm. In the beginning of a paradigm, new
textbooks are written, the history rewritten to conform to current
paradigm. New techniques and instruments are developed. Science in
this phase is flourishing and very productive, the phase is called
normal science, in time anomalies and contradictions will arise
within the paradigm, straining it but not giving away until a new
credible paradigm can replace the old in a revolution. The new and
the old paradigm are incommensurable, lacking a common ground for
understanding
revolutionary
each
and
other,
this
that
makes
is
linear
why
the
change
accumulation
of
must
be
knowledge
impossible. Much is similar to the Foucauldian criticism of science,
though Foucault focus on similarities within epistemes instead of the
process of change and his concept is much broader, including all
possible knowledge in a given time. After Kuhn groups of sociologists
started to investigate scientific institutions, ethical norms and
systems of rewards to give it sociological explanations. The most
well known group is the “strong programme” (David Bloor, Barry
Barnes, Steven Shapin), focusing on explaining scientific “beliefs”.
The “strong programme” did not deal with the technical aspects of
science but had an outsider perspective. The needs to understand
science
as
a
methodological
situated
studies
practice
(Karin
lead
many
Knorr-Cetina,
academics
Michael
to
Lynch,
do
H.M.
Collins, Steve Woolgar, John Law). One of the more known is Bruno
Latour, a French sociologist of science who also has been engaged in
the questioning of the scientific images. Latour claims that science
only can be understood if studied as a practice and has been one of
the
founders
of
the
Actant
Network
Theory
(ANT).
ANT
is
a
constructivist attempt to describe the interaction between human and
non-human in a material-semiotic network. The similarities to the
material of this paper are apparent. The major works of Latour that
deals with these questions are Laboratory Life: The construction of
Scientific Facts and Science in Action. ANT has inspired many others
within Social Studies of Science and Feminist Studies of Science.
Foucault’s
work
opened
up
for
the
study
of
visual
culture
of
medicine, for example Karin Johannisson and Lisa Cartwright. But
there are also Donna Haraway, writer of Manifesto for Cyborgs, Judith
Butler, Evelyn Fox Keller and Sandra Harding to mention a few of the
he feminist critics of scientific representation and language.
My theoretical framework for this paper consists of selected parts
from the art historian Jonathan Crary, cultural theorist Martin Jay,
feminist and film theorist Lisa Cartwright and Michel Foucault. I
9
draw mainly from these four to construct the theoretical framework
(presented
in
chapter
one)
that
will
allow
me
to
analyse
the
scientific gaze and the images. The first analytical assemblage is
the episteme analysis that helps me to talk about science as a
discursive practice and power. The second assemblage is the gaze as
an epistemological apparatus – how seeing is connected to knowing.
Disposition
The next chapter gives a theoretical framework for the following two
chapters. Here I present relevant work done by others on topics in
the vicinity of mine and necessary theory and philosophy. It starts
with a discussion on what characterizes the scientific images. Then
follows the theoretical framework made from “Foucauldian bricks” that
structures the analysis.
Chapter three is a description of the experiment that produced the
images in question. It is both a basic protocol of how the experiment
is carried out and a compilation of what was said about the produced
images by the experimenter. This chapter is complemented with a
slideshow and a pod cast.
In Chapter four I test my theory by applying it on the scientific
gaze. Here I present my conclusions and suggestions on follow-ups.
10
2. The Practice of Visual Representation in
Science
Scientific images are often seen as naturalistic representations of
the world, meaning derived from real life or nature but also being
naturalistic in the artistic meaning of the word – true to life,
realistic or mimetic representations. These images can in some way be
described as naturalistic in the first meaning but not in the latter
since scientific images are always rendered or transformed to become
useful. Lynch describes four modes of transforming images to make
them more useful or theoretical. These transformations are filtering,
uniforming, upgrading and defining. Filtering can be removing unused
visuality from the image material in order to direct the gaze toward
relevant information or simply to extract material to make a separate
diagram. When visual conventions are laid down over the image, for
example using colour fields or shading, Lynch call it uniforming.
Upgrading is when dim differences are made distinct or fragments
missing are restored and when parts of the same structure are made
more alike and at the same time different from other structure, the
transformation is called defining. All this is done to make the image
come closer to an eidetic image - a mental image of how it really
looks, according to Lynch. Lynch’s four modes shed light on the fact
that there are many different ways to make images more “scientific”
and he contributes to a vocabulary on these images. The point is that
scientific images are regarded as “naturalistic” – meaning showing
the real, when they are rather showing an idea of what is real. The
images
correspond
more
to
an
eidetic
conception
than
they
are
naturalistic images. An objection to this statement could be that the
eidetic idea is constructed from naturalistic images. I will return
to this question in chapter three concerning the role of education.7
If you read a natural science article, there will be many images
in it, whereas in an essay in the humanities is it likely that there
will be no images. Natural science is both lexivisual in the meaning
that image and text contribute to each other – images showing what
the text says. But also that text can invade the images, becoming
part of the visual. Apparently, there is no conflict between the text
and image, they can reside on the same surface, elsewhere is this
potential conflict taken as an explanation why studies on scientific
images are so difficult. As Michael Lynch points out concerning the
analysis of scientific visual documentation:
7
Lynch. Representation in Scientific Practice. p. 161.
11
“Verbal propositions, arguments, references, analogies, metaphors,
and ideas have received much greater attention as constituents of
scientific reasoning and rhetoric. The imbalance may be due to the
fact
that
methods
for
analysing
verbal
materials
are
more
developed than those for analysing pictures. The fact that writing
is the dominant medium of academic discourse is not incidental;
while pictorial subject matter is alien to written discourse, and
requires a reduction to make it amenable to analysis, written
subject
matter
can
be
iterated
textual surface that analyses it”
without
any
“gap”
within
the
8
Still, this does not seem to stop the study of art or visual
culture. The “gap” that always is produced when describing the visual
with text is maybe unbridgeable, but that is not wholly the answer to
why scientists and academics often seem to avoid questions of the
scientific images.
The theoretical framework – Part one
In the structuralist book The Order of Things9 Foucault outlines a
criticism of the history of knowledge. It is a comparative study of
grammar with philology, biology with natural history, and study of
wealth
with
political
economy.
Foucault
tries
to
find
the
epistemological rupture on an archaeological plane that explains the
transformation
political
of
economy
philology
and
into
natural
grammar,
study
of
wealth
history
into
biology.
into
These
transformations occur about the same time for these three areas of
knowledge. One discipline of knowledge cannot arise from the failure
or absence of another. Biology and natural history may have knowledge
of the same objects, but it is not the same knowledge. Natural
history knew the history of many plants and animals, but not in the
meaning of genealogy. Natural history knew the names and living
conditions of these plants and animals and placed them in a hortus
siccus , a dry garden. In these dry gardens the natural historian
could
arrange
plants
and
animals
according
to
relationships, every species at a god-given place.
their
presumed
Linnaeus combined
all histories of the living (and dead) he could find, giving every
species a Latin name. But it was not a science of life. Life was
first invented as biology arose on the historical scene, when Cuvier
toppled
8
9
the
glass
jars
in
the
zoological
museum
in
Paris.
Representation in Scientific Practice ed.Lynch and Woolgar p.153.
Foucault. The Order of Things.
The
12
dissection of the animals in the glass jars opened up for new
knowledge, the gaze now saw the invisible. Dissection and autopsy
opened up the body to reveal life. Paradoxically, death was the price
paid for knowledge of life. Foucault searched for the ruptures that
explain this moment of dramatic transformation and find that they
coincide for many areas of knowledge, pointing to an explanation on
another
level.
These
levels
are
called
strata,
borrowing
from
archaeology and geology. Foucault finds two fault lines in the
epistemological bedrock that supports the strata above; they run
under several areas of knowing 1650 and 1800 corresponding to the
rise of natural history and the invention of life with biology.
Foucault has a constructivist view on science; he is one of the
founders of social constructivist criticism of science. This is how
he articulates the aim of The Order of Things which describes his
position well:
I
should
like
to
know
whether
the
subjects
responsible
for
scientific discourse are not determined in their situation, their
function,
their
perceptive
capacity ,
and
their
practical
possibilities by conditions that dominate and even overwhelm them.
In short, I tried to explore scientific discourse not from the
point of view of the individual who are speaking, nor from the
point of view of the formal structures of what they are saying,
but from the point of view of the rules that come into play in the
very existence of such discourse: what conditions did Linnaeus (or
Petty, or Arnauld) have to fulfil, not to make his discourse
coherent and true in general, but to give it, at the time when it
was
written
and
accepted
–
or,
economic, or grammatical discourse?”
more
10
exactly,
as
naturalist,
(My italics)
Following The Order of Things came The Archaeology of Knowledge11; it
can be read as a methodology book and is the end of Foucault’s
archaeological period12. His method to identify the epistemes that
explain
what
can
be
known
during
a
certain
epoch
is
discourse
analytical. According to his method; to do a discursive/epistemic
analysis you must go to the archives and read everything that has
been written on a special subject, not discriminating between high
and low, famous, infamous and unknown. The episteme determine all
10
11
12
Foucault. The Order of Things. p.xiv
Foucault. The Archaeology of Knowledge.
Jay. Downcast Eyes. p.407.
13
that can be said in a meaningful way, not only scientifically. An
important point to make is that the episteme is not a repressive
structure that is determined by those in “power”. The episteme in
which power is exercised is productive, instead of only repressive.
Power is always productive according to Foucault and power cannot
belong to anyone but only be exercised in relations. It does not say
whether power is good or bad, only always present13
Foucault’s
analysis
of
episteme
is
used
in
this
paper
to
understand what unites the intra-science readers of scientific
images and how the gaze is employed, not to find a repressive or
conspiratorial superstructure. Power is exercised through the
images, there is nothing behind them – everything is there on
their flat surface. The episteme concept is used to talk about
contemporary biology, as a mental tool to grasp the conceptual
scaffold that makes possible science as a shared understanding.
Another possibility would have been to use the paradigm concept,
thought styles 15. But the paradigm
as Kuhn14 defines it or Flecks
concept focuses more on differences, why paradigms change over
time and less on what unites them16.
Theoretical framework - Part two
The second Foucauldian theoretical brick that composes the framework
of my analysis is the gaze as an epistemological apparatus. The Gaze
is a topic that Foucault designate primary in the books The Birth of
the Clinic and Surveillance
and
Punish but also in The Order of
Things and The Archaeology of Knowledge. In Surveillance and Punish
Foucault presents an analysis of how visuality is deployed as a
disciplining tool in contemporary society. He takes Jeremy Bentham’s
Panopticon as a model for how that power is deployed in society
(1975) , that analysis is probably what Foucault is most known for
today. Therefore is it necessary to stress that I am not doing an
analysis from Foucault’s panopticon concept even though I will use
parts of Surveillance and Punish. From a visuality vantage point is
the
“Society
of
surveillance”
a
consequence
of
the
gaze
as
an
epistemological apparatus. When Man becomes a subject with a gaze
that produces knowledge, it is knowledge of man himself that is
produced. Man becomes an “observed spectator”, observed by himself.
“Man functioned both as an alleged neutral metasubject of knowledge
13
14
15
16
Foucault. Power.
Thomas Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Ludwig Fleck. The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.
Thomas Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
14
and as its proper object, viewed from afar”17 I will use the part of
Foucault’s work that deals with seeing and knowing – how the gaze is
connected to knowledge and how this gaze is deployed, not primarily
to discipline others but to gain knowledge. Then, this potent gaze
may be a product of discipline in school, which inevitably is a part
of the panopticon.
Screening the Body – tracing visual culture in
In her book
medicine , Lisa Cartwright uses Foucault as a starting point when
analysing
the
“scientific”
uses
of
cinema
from
a
feminist
perspective.
Foucault has described the penetration of the medical gaze into
the interior of the body in the practice of pathological anatomy
as “the technique of the corpse”. He notes that the opening up of
the body in autopsy in hopes of exposing to sight the seat of
disease ultimately failed to render pathology fully visible but
lead the physician instead to traces of the disease mapped upon
organs
and
surfaces.
The
qualitative
and
empirical
gaze
of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anatomoclinical perception that
Foucault describes overlapped with and was ultimately challenged
by the relentless analytical and quantitative gaze demonstrated in
the
cases
considered
in
this
volume,
a
mode
of
perception
carefully incubated within the laboratories of physiologist and
medical scientists and finding its expressions in an unlikely
range
and
mix
of
institutions
and
practices,
including
the
hospital, the popular cinema film, the scientific experiment, and
modernist artwork.18
Cartwright shows how the film, which records and quantifies the
visual,
complements
the
gaze
and
sometimes
challenged
it.
Film
becomes a tool for the gaze in medicine. Much work has been done on
the medical uses of images; Foucault is the main contributor and
departure point of that discourse. Even though scientists of the
zoological laboratory use some of the same techniques that medicine
uses for producing knowledge, science and medicine are not identical
practices. It is an obvious statement, but humans and animals come
from the same origin, and from a biologist standpoint humans are
animals. But from a political standpoint humans are not animals;
animals do not have the same rights as humans for example. That could
be one reason why less critical work has been done concerning the
17
18
Foucault. The Order of Tings. p.318.
Cartwright. Sceening the Body – tracing medicines visual culture.
15
visualization in natural science than in medicine – medicine is in
part a political instrument. That can to some extent explain why the
usage of images in medicine is more studied than in natural science,
even though it is principally the same images. Foucault shows how
medicine became a science by using a language, both verbally and
visually that is analogue to natural science, but natural science
itself stay a somewhat blind spot.
The Gaze and different episteme
On the exterior, on the surface of the body, signs had to be read in
order to establish what the patient was suffering from in 18th century
medicine. If this reading is pursued correctly, seeing will say what
disease it is, but only if the patient died was it possible to know
more precisely which disease it was. In autopsy, in the interior of
the body, on surfaces of the tissues of the organs – there is the
disease totally visible and thereby knowable. Death is paradoxically
the key to knowledge of life. This is maybe the most fundamental
difference from a Foucauldian perspective between early medicine and
natural science, in biology it was and still is politically accepted
to kill for knowledge, not in medicine. Model animals are brought up
and carefully studied only to be experimented on and killed in a more
controlled way; for example the well known fruit fly Drosophila
melanogaster. The fish that is used in this experiment is one of the
first (or last) animals seen from an evolutionary perspective that
has animal rights since it belong to the group of the most primitive
vertebrates.
Swedish
law
draws
a
line
between
vertebrates
invertebrates; only animals with backbone have rights.
19
and
There are
much more politics in medicine than in biology, explaining the
pursuit to unveil medicine. I am not trying to show that science also
has a political foundation as Foucault showed that medicine has. Even
though I consider the foundation of science ideological, we can
choose to call that foundation an episteme, a paradigm or evidence
based practice, depending on where we come from academically.
The qualitative gaze was replaced with a quantitative gaze as the
surface of the inner organs and tissues did not reveal everything
about life. Cartwright traces this epistemic shift and it coincides
with the usage of film in medicine. In the natural sciences the shift
probably came earlier, maybe with the organic chemistry. But it is
not the aim of this paper to find that shift; I only conclude that
19
Supplement till Centrala Försöksdjursnämndens skriftserie Nr 45, p.
18. ISBN 91-974001-8-1. Stockholm, 2003.
16
natural science is a quantitative science. Modern biology episteme is
dominated
by
molecular
techniques
that
can
be
nothing
but
quantitative. But the gaze is still a qualitative tool eclipsed by
the natural sciences self-identification as quantitative. Still, the
theoretical point of departure used by Cartwright with her focus on
how the objects of study is disciplined can be used for the study of
visual culture of natural science. Jonathan Crary on the other hand
leaves the objects and the visual material behind and focuses on the
observer, asking how the modern observer has been constructed and
described, an approach that I will borrow from to get a hold on the
scientist as beholder of the gaze:
Though obviously one who sees, an observer is more importantly one
who sees within a prescribed set of possibilities, one who is
embedded
in
a
system
of
conventions
and
limitations.
And
by
“conventions” I mean to suggest far more than representational
practices. If it can be said there is an observer specific to
nineteenth century, or to any period, it is only as an effect of
an
irreducibly
heterogeneous
system
of
discursive,
social,
technological, and institutional relations. There is no observing
subject prior to this continually shifting field.20
His intention is to write an alternative history of vision, using
different vision devices he searches for archaeological ruptures,
borrowing from Foucault, contesting accepted art history of vision:
Whether perception or vision changes is irrelevant, for they have
no autonomous history. What changes are the plural forces and
rules composing the field in which perception occurs. And what
determines vision at a given historical moment is not some deep
structure, economic base, or worldview, but rather the function of
a collective assemblage of disparate parts on a single social
surface. It may even be necessary to consider the observer as a
distribution of events located in many different places. There
never was or will be a self-present beholder to whom a world is
transparently evident.21
Crarys work is useful in my analysis of the interpreter of scientific
images. As soon as you claim that there is no “self-present beholder
to whom a world is transparently evident”, then you must examine the
20
21
Crary, Techniques of the obsever. p.6.
ibid.
17
beholder to know what this beholder sees, but the individual beholder
is only interesting as a member of a discursive episteme22. I will
examine
what
scientific
the
images,
scientist
not
in
the
SEM-laboratory
sees
in
the
to psychologize or historize him but to
conclude from that what the episteme makes possible to see. According
to Crary is it possible to grasp this observer by studying practices
distributed in many different places, but on a single social surface,
the laboratory in my case.
22
Foucault. The Archaeology of Knowledge.
18
3. The experiment
This experiment is carried out to reveal a story. The story of how
vision has evolved on earth. In the images produced during this
experiment, there are signs that can be interpreted to tell that
story, but these signs are maybe only legible to the scientist, to
others the images stay mute but beautiful. By retelling and analysing
the story of this experiment, I hope to reveal a story of the
scientific gaze.
The aim for our experimenter’s PhD project is to establish
relationships
in
critical
vertebrate
groups
by
studying
eye
morphology. He is doing this within a larger group of other doctoral
students, senior researcher and professors, constituting The Vision
Group in Lund.23 On their homepage, they describe their research:
Our specialty is the design and evolution of eyes, and especially
how eyes are adapted to the lifestyles and habitats of animals.
Four major research themes are pursued, with techniques ranging
from
optics,
electrophysiology
and
theoretical
modeling,
electron microscopy, molecular biology and visual behavior.
to
24
The four major research themes pursued in The Vision Group are: eye
designs, evolution and development of visual systems, vision in dim
light, and color and polarization vision. Our researcher is engaged
in eye design and the evolution and development of visual systems,
where he is focusing on the lamprey, bichir, lake sturgeon and shark.
By doing visual analysis (microscopy, schlieren photography and lens
laser scanning, in vivo photo refractor metrics) he is establishing
the relations of these fishes and thereby the genealogy and the
development of multifocal lenses; which are enabling colour vision in
eyes with short depth of focus, necessary for colour vision under
water. The work our researcher performs is done with the most modern
of instruments, high-tech and very expensive. He is working within
the modern molecular paradigm, but visual culturally he is still
connected to Linnaeus. Today, genetics is presented, at least in
popular writings of science, as the final solution to the question of
genealogy. But as our researcher points out, genetics are still “only
a
qualified
guess
based
on
mathematical
algorithms”.
True
evolutionary relations can always be discussed, and there will always
be lacunas in the family tree. Extinct species will be unknown unless
23
24
www.biol.lu.se/cellorgbiol/visiongroup
www.biol.lu.se/funkmorf/vision/index.html
19
they are found as fossils and it is hard to extract DNA from fossils
since it degrades. Many extinct species have lived on our planet but
today no physical trace of them can be found. Our researcher will do
genetic analysis in a specific genetic locus on all species he is
studying. The genetic constitution of an individual organism is
called
a
genotype;
the
expressed
and
visible
character
is
the
corresponding phenotype. These are the two levels of analysis that he
is working on. In the visible analysis, which is the level I am
studying, he is searching for morphological characteristics that can
be compared with the closly related fishes presented above. The
visible analysis he uses is in some way the same conceptual model as
Linnaeus used. As Linnaeus belonged to an earlier episteme, that of
natural
history
according
to
Foucault,
there
are
interesting
comparisons that can be made on the level of visual culture between a
qualitative and a quantitative epistemology. I will return to this in
the last chapter.
The aim of this particular experiment was to magnify the eye of a
Cuvier’s
bichir,
Polypterus
senag a l u s ,
to
establish
useful
characters. By comparing with fish he studied before, discussions
with his supervisor and consulting the literature, three loci in
these fish eyes seem to be particularly interesting. These loci are;
the
attachment
of
the
lens
to
the
eye
globe;
which
can
be
an
intraocular muscle plus one or more suspensor ligaments, one or
several membranes, a ciliary body with ligaments and an extra-ocular
muscle. The second locus of interest is the stiffness of the lens,
which is hard to measure but is felt during dissection. The third
locus is the surface of the lens cells, which constitutes the lens;
these are always elongated but can be flat, round, regular, irregular
or protrusion/spotted. Other locus in the structure of the eye may
prove useful later, hopefully they will be found in the work process.
Everything is documented as image files with names connecting them to
species and structure. This is done to create a gallery of images
where characters can be compared to study possible relationship. This
experiment, as most ones, is part research and part training –
training both for the researcher’s eyes and hands. Many images have
been and will be produced with the SEM without knowing exactly what
he is looking for, rather he does it for the sake of looking,
training his eyes, establishing an aspect seeing. The eye characters
that will be valuable for the production of articles will hopefully
appear before his eyes, maybe on images where they could not be seen
before in his dry garden, the digital gallery.
20
The work process
The work from preparation of necessary solutions of buffers and
fixation to the final image took four days in the laboratory, spread
out over two weeks. I followed the experiment during three days. When
the specimen is fixated and dry, it can be stored for quite a long
time, many months in a freezer. Good specimen will be stored, only
degrading when used in the SEM, due to the harsh electron treatment.
The
preparation
text
that
follows
will
be
complemented
with
a
slideshow and pod cast.
Preparations of the specimen for SEM
After
a
meeting
compensation
for
in
the
teaching
institution
concerning
undergraduate
classes,
the
economical
our
researcher
started the experiment looking for a colleague that had some spare
buffer. Preparations take most of the time and this was an attempt to
save some time. A buffer is a mixture of an acid and alkali (the
opposite of an acid), reacting with each other. The buffer solution
prevents the pH to drop or rise violently when other acids or alkali
is poured into it; this is to protect the specimen in it. The
specimen
must
stabilize
before
further
handling
like
cutting,
fixation and other necessary preparations. The search for leftover
buffer ended with doubts over what was in the beaker found. After a
long discussion with colleagues about where the first colleague was
and where she kept her notes and what really was in the beaker he
found, it seemed risky to use her unknown buffer. So an hour or two
was spent finding empty clean beakers, calculating and weighing
chemicals in the chemical room, dissolving it in pure water with a
special magnetic stirring device. The laboratory is located in an old
five-story building, beautiful but not practical, our researcher
moves between the stories three, four and five and the basement, this
takes time. When the chemicals for the buffer are dissolved, plastic
is put over the beaker and two smaller cups are labelled with date
and name. It is time to take the elevator to the aquarium in the
basement and select the fish for today’s preparation. All the fishes
in the aquarium is ocularly examined, sick fishes must be removed
quickly before infections are spread to other fishes. Today all
fishes look healthy. Our researcher chooses a medium size fish and
catch it with a bag net, then put it in a bucket with lid. The fish
in the bucket and the experimenter take the elevator back to fifth
floor. Scissors and pliers are prepared for the execution of the
fish, the neck spine is cut in two, but the Bichir continues to move
during the removal of the eyes, though it is dead. The eyes are
21
removed under a light microscope (10X) since it is a delicate job
extracting interesting parts, leaving tissue that obstructs the gaze.
The skill necessary comes from experience, our researcher is in the
beginning of his doctoral education and the work is part research and
part
education.
Another
fish
is
therefore
brought
up
from
the
aquarium to secure success in the experiment; it is hard to tell
whether the removal was successful before it is under the SEM due the
smallness.
Washing and fixation
The four eyes is labelled and put into the prepared buffer with
glutaraldehyde
for
washing
and
fixation
(glutarladehyde
is
a
colourless liquid used to sterilize medical and laboratory equipment
and embalming specimen). Samples can be dirty or clean depending on
what one is interested in. The interior of the eye is interesting in
this experiment and all exterior will be perceived dirt. The two
first eyes are cut open and dissected before fixation. The second
pair is first fixated and later dissected, an invention made today
during the work process. Four small plastic beakers with the eyes are
placed in a fridge for 12 hour to fixate.
Dehydration
The next day is the buffer/fixation solution poured out from the
plastic beakers and 99.6% ethanol alcohol is poured into them. Rests
of buffer and fixation in the eye will dissolve into the alcohol,
after 15 minutes the alcohol is poured out and replaced with new
alcohol. The buffer and fixation are water based and must be removed
from the specimen to dehydrate it. It is crucial to dehydrate the
specimens due to the vacuum in the SEM. If there is water or other
liquids
in
specimen
it
will
immediately
evaporate
from
inside
destroying it, which is why living specimen cannot be examined in
SEM. Alcohol has the ability to dissolve both water and lipids and
therefore it is a suitable agent for removal of water. This process
is carried out 10 times, i.e. this takes half a day, leaving 10
minutes windows for studying articles, writing and preparing other
setups. Laboratory life is time fragmented.
Drying
When the specimen is dehydrated it can be dried or stored in alcohol.
Alcohol is a preserving agent and a step on the way to a dry sample.
The
specimen
has
so
long
been
submerged
in
a
liquid,
first
a
buffer/fixation and now pure alcohol. Drying is a critical work
22
moment since we have to move from one phase to another, from liquid
to gas – that is drying. It is very violent for delicate specimen to
cross phase borders. Great forces can rip fragile structures apart
from inside. The solution for our researcher is to use a Critical
Point Dryer. This is a dryer where the alcohol, which the specimen is
in, is mixed in a small chamber at 10° C with carbon dioxide in high
pressure. High enough pressure will liquefy the carbon dioxide and it
will thereby be in the same phase as the alcohol. The alcohol is
dissolved since it is both water and lipid soluble as is carbon
dioxide when it is liquid. Then a valve is opened, pressure drops as
gas flows out bringing some alcohol with it. The valve is closed and
new carbon dioxide is let in the chamber and the pressure rises,
dissolving more alcohol. The process is repeated till all alcohol is
removed, the experimenter knows this when it doesn’t smell alcohol
from the valve. When all alcohol is removed the temperature and
pressure is raised above 31.1° C and 72.9 bar with the valve closed.
This is the critical point for carbon dioxide, meaning that if both
now temperature and pressure is dropped below this point simultaneous
the carbon dioxide will go from liquid to gas without crossing a
phase border i.e. the liquid has no surface as it turns into gas
simultaneous in the whole chamber. Now the chamber can be opened,
revealing a dry specimen, hopefully intact.
Mounting
The specimen is now mounted on a 12 mm aluminium cylinder with tape
or glue. It must be in contact with the cylinder to ground it
electrically; otherwise it will be damaged in the SEM. To increase
the conductivity of the specimen it is coated with a thin layer of
gold and platinum. Gold/Platinum is dissolved electrically in a
sputter coater machine that covers the specimen placed in it. The
thickness of the coating is 15-20 nm, 1 nm is a 1/1000 000 of 1 mm;
very thin but it is never the less the gold surface that will be
screened later. When the specimen comes out from the sputter it has
changed colour from whatever it was before to black metallic.
Scanning Electron Microscope
The SEM apparatus is located in a room with compressors and computers
in a vibration absorbing arrangement. Motions and vibrations in the
room
will
affect
the
outcome
of
the
SEM,
creating
striped
or
distorted images. The four cylinders with fish eyes are placed in a
holder with numbers on. This holder is placed in the sample chamber,
the
stage
of
the
microscope,
the
chamber
is
closed
and
the
23
compressors are turned on. High vacuum is created in the chamber to
avoid that gas molecules interfere with the electron beam. Electrons
are “shot” at the specimen to generate the image; since electrons
have a much shorter wavelength than visible light they can depict
smaller structure. The resolution of a SEM is about 1-20 nm, not
enough to see singular atoms but almost. The electron source is
heated up and the computer starts up. It takes a couple of seconds
before the overview screen image turns up. It is a low definition
image that permits the operator to turn and zoom in real time to
orient his gaze.
Analysing the image
First the experimenter has to “find” his samples; a round edge turns
up, then a big number three, covering the whole screen. We are still
only looking on the holder of the cylinders on which the samples are
mounted. After some fixing with the adjustment wheels a fish eye
turns up on the screen. The experimenter’s focus is now directed
towards the computer screen, the detector in the SEM is manoeuvred
with tuning wheels on a control panel, the result shows up on the
screen. Depending on level of magnification, the tuning wheels can be
more or less sensitive. The specimen in the electron chamber has
turned into an object-image on a screen.
- That is beautiful, is the first comment from our experimenter. He
has inspected the samples under light microscopy before they where
placed
in
the
SEM,
number
three
he
suspected
to
be
the
best
preparation, now he has a confirmation on that suspicion. An overview
screen
image
is
scanned
with
high-resolution;
earlier
only
low
resolution scanning has been used to enable real time movement on the
screen. The high-resolution screen image is printed out on paper,
“good to have so that you don’t lose your self on the screen”. Our
experimenter move around in the image, zooming in and out, for an
untrained eye it is hard to get oriented. I feel a little nauseous.
- What do we see on the screen?
- This is the lens, and that is ligaments, and a muscle.
- The muscle is interesting cause it can help me to see differences
between species. I think it is a helpful character. This is a really
good image….
- What is the difference to light microscopy?
- Similar pictures can be generated in light microscopy, but many
interesting
parts
microscopy.
But
are
the
transparent,
big
cannot
difference
is
be
the
seen
in
light
possibility
of
24
magnification. It is a very good image, it was what I was looking for
today, let’s save this image.
-Let’s put out the light in the room so we see more details. But
there are some detritus in the sample, from clothes, fibres maybe.
Artefacts, suspicious, debris from the preparation, and when drying
it shrinks.
- Can you tell if the preparation changed the specimen?
- I photographed it under light microscopy before drying, making it
possible to measure the grade of shrinkage, but probably a couple of
percents. Things change during preparation, and I write that in the
article, but everybody knows these things, the solution for me is to
look on many samples.
-Thin structures vibrate and may cause imperfect image, we can
magnify 10.000 with this SEM and still have good images. Does this
ligament belong to this structure, hard to tell? Where does it come
from?
-How can you differ a ligament from a muscle if they have the same
colour here?
-I know it from the light microscope, where they have different
colours. And it is possible to dye tissue to know what it is, if it
is hard to tell, but that is work to do later. Now I want as
information rich images as possible, this does not look the same as
other bonefishes. It is easy to lose the orientation of the fish eye
during preparation, another time I have to orient it under light
microscopy and then embed it in gelatine. The first time I look in a
new eye, it is most about my orientation. The literature on the topic
does not comply with reality, but we are the only group working with
these fishes vision, so there are very few articles published to
compare with.
25
4. The scientific gaze
To answer my questions, this analysis will be carried out from two
ends, from the image and from the observer. These two meets in a
site, in this case, it is the stage of the microscope, where the
scientific discourse intersects a material practice. It is a site
where the corporeal specimen loses its materiality as is turns up on
the screen, turning into an object-image, still corporeal but to
become totally immaterial. When it meets the gaze of the scientist,
it becomes scientifically useful and scientific “truths” can be
stated.
The residence of truth in the dark centre of things is linked,
paradoxically, to this sovereign power of the empirical gaze that
turns their darkness into light. All light has passed over into
the thin flame of the eye, which now flickers around solid objects
and, in so doing, establishing their place and form.25
The Image
What was described in chapter three is nothing but the disciplining
and removal of nature, since science is a cultural practice, nature
must be subtracted26. All those steps that took the fish swimming in
the aquarium to the object-image are disciplining processes. The
particular specimen is detached from corporeality and turned into a
general scientific and cultural artefact. Science is knowledge about
the
universal
or
general.
From
knowledge
of
the
general,
the
particular can be predicted, but general knowledge is produced from
the particular.
The particular fish eye cut out and still bloody, is to body-laden
to ascend to universality (appendix 1). Under the light microscope,
which was before washing, fixation, drying, mounting and coating it
could be turned into a photomicrograph, a little more knowable, but
only used to estimate shrinkage and to select the specimen to focus
on later (appendix 2). And even as is it turned into an image on the
screen it was only one example of one individual fish eye (appendix
3). When the researcher decides on specific loci of interest it
starts to ascend to universality (appendix 4 and 5). These loci are
described and what is found there is transcribed into words and named
if they yet have no name, this is a passage from visuality to text,
the gap is bridged as the object has been dissolved. Every character
25
26
Foucault. The Birth of the Clinic. p.xv.
Foucault. The Birth of the Clinic. p.7.
26
that our researcher finds interesting is scanned and saved as a highresolution image in a gallery. It is the same practice as the natural
historian’s undertake, “a meticulous examination of things themselves
for the first time, and then of transcribing what is has gathered in
smooth, neutralized, and faithful words”.
The corpus of the fish eye is eclipsed by a gold/platinum surface on
the stage of the SEM; it is only a reflection that is turned into an
image. This is symptomatically for this seeing practice since it is
as much to exclude, as it is to interpellate nature when deploying
the gaze. The SEM renders everything in a grey scale and this is more
of an advantage than detrimental, because “everything that presents
itself to our gaze is not utilizable: colours especially can scarcely
serve as a foundation for useful comparisons”27. Colours are more or
less subjective as they are a function of the agency of light,
depending on what kind of light that illuminates a surface it is
perceived different. In the SEM, electrons have that agency. However,
very colourful SEM images are often seen in popular writings of
science. These images are more the result of Photoshop then they are
to be used for scientific purposes; colour is added in a way that
reflects the producer eidetic conception of the invisible world. It
is an invisible world since visible light (400-700 nm) is too crude
to penetrate to the “truth in the dark centre of things”28
This tabulated juxtaposition of words and things in the dry garden,
which is our researchers digital image gallery is, but only when it
is dense enough, the foundation of his seeing and knowing. The
articles he will produce during his PhD project will be constructed
from this material, even though he yet do not know what articles he
will write.
Our researcher has chosen a method where only characters
on specific loci are relevant in a constructed system. “The system is
arbitrary in its basis, since it deliberately ignores all differences
and all identities not related to the selected structure. But there
is no law that says that it will not be possible to arrive one day,
through a use of this technique, at the discovery of a natural
system”29. The natural system as opposed to for example Linnaeus
artificial system for classifying is the ambition to reveal true
relationship of all species. It was obvious for Linnaeus that his
system was a construction. Today, genetics has been presented as the
way to establish a true natural system, but some vertebrate groups
27
28
29
Foucault. The Order of Things. p.133.
Foucault. The Birth of the Clinic. p.xv.
Foucault. The Order of Things. p.140.
27
escape this ambition, our researcher call these groups critical. But
in
between
two
epistemic
different
practices,
one
quantitative
molecular genetic and one qualitative visually classifying, our
researcher believes that his method can give these critical groups
there proper place.
Two characters are easily turned into images, the attachment of
the lens and the structure of the lens fibres (appendix 4 and 5).
Whereas the third character, the stiffness of the lens is not visible
but tactile, and could not be turned into an image during this
experiment. But later our researcher will construct a technical
device, a heave where one end will be applied on to the lens, the
other end equipped with a thin laser beam that point at a scale. In
this way is tactility turned into visuality, allowing the gaze to be
deployed.
The Observer
It is apparently a privileged place our researcher has found, or
created, a place were very few have been before him. He feels
thrilled, “it’s a beautiful image”. There are no precise words that
describe this place, no final words or complete descriptions that
circumscribes his perception. It is as “The gaze will be fulfilled in
its own truth and will have access to the truth of things if it rests
on them in silence, if everything keeps silent around what is sees”
30
-Let’s put out the light in the room so we see more details, he
suggests. Theory is silent when gazing writes Foucault, but theory is
still bound up with its armature. “This gaze, then, which refrains
from all possible intervention, and from all experimental decision,
and which does not modify, shows that its reserve is bound up with
the strength of its armature.” Gazing at the screen in the dark room,
everything seems clear and the armature that holds up the gaze is
silent. To grasp the construction of the gaze, this armature must be
analysed as an “irreducibly heterogeneous system of discursive,
social,
technological,
and
institutional
relations”31 In this
analysis, the role of education and the space of the gaze.
30
31
31
Foucault. The Birth of the Clinic. p.132
Crary, Techniques of the obsever. p.6.
ibid.
28
The role of education
The journey from visible to invisible parallels in the experiment is
the reversal of the sequence of courses on the biology programme. The
first
course
our
researcher
began
with,
if
he
followed
the
recommended course plan was physical chemistry, followed by organic
chemistry, biology and chemistry of the cell, genetics, microbiology,
physiology of plants
or
humans , zoology
or
botany , faunistics,
floristics and probably last ecology. These are the compulsory course
for a degree in biology, with some variation depending on what kind
of degree you want. If you are more interested in animals than plants
you choose zoology instead of botany and you chose between physiology
of humans or plants but otherwise; these are the courses you must
have in your degree. The sequence of courses is regarded as a
necessity but not an obligation, the student need to know physical
chemistry to know organic chemistry and organic chemistry to know
biology and chemistry of the cell because the reactions in the cell
are of course organic chemical. When the student understands basic
cell and functions the focus moves towards cell-to-cell interactions.
Genetics follows cell
biology to explain how the cell and the
organism have evolved and how they reproduce. Then how cells form
tissues and then how these tissues form organs, which explains how
the individual organism is organised. After that, the student gets
acquainted
with
the
organisms
and
their
names,
floristics and
faunistics. When the student recognizes the plants and the animals,
the ecological course explains the laws of interactions between
different organisms. The student has now spent two years of study,
from the atom to the molecule to the organelle to the cell to the
tissue to the organ to the organism to the organism interaction with
other organisms - from the very small intangible to the visible and
corporeal.32
When this conception of the world has been established,
the student has a scientific gaze, now is he able to explain why
zebras are striped on a molecular level.
In the laboratory on the undergraduate level is the biological,
chemical and physical knowledge tested against “reality” in pedagogic
experiments. This is to confirm theoretical knowledge in practice but
also to discipline. Laboratory protocols must be followed strictly
and basic methods learned. Supervisors, often doctoral students,
evaluate the student-experimenters performance and check the results
against theory and test substances. The laboratory is hierarchically
organised and “the laboratory visual culture is, after all, a culture
32
www.biol.lu.se
29
of human corporeal supervision and discipline, even in the case where
the human body is not directly studied.”33 The laboratory is a part of
the panopticon on the level of education; only the disciplined
scientist is allowed to deploy the gaze.
When the compulsory courses are taken, the student makes the
choice of what direction he/she wants as advanced courses are chosen.
The advanced course are often connected to a institution, in our case
was it the zoological institution where he also did his examination
project on the methodology he now is applying in his PhD project.
Education has in some way fostered him into his PhD project, of
course by his own choice, but it was a necessary way to take to get
where he is now.
The space of the gaze
In the laboratory, in the position of PhD student, he is given access
to the instruments and a social and cultural context that allows him
to deploy his gaze as an epistemological apparatus. His supervisor
guides him toward the appropriate use when they design experiments
together. The first year is dedicated to learn the practice of visual
representation, to create an image gallery and, to orienting his gaze
towards the design of fish eyes in critical vertebrate groups.
He transforms particular specimen, with help of the instruments
in the laboratory, into images that corresponds to the natural
scientific conception of the physical world. This is an eidetic image
of the world that only exists as a platonic ideal of the modern
biological episteme. In this platonic place do mathematics, physical
law, chemical reaction and ecological theories, explain everything,
and this place is structured in layers corresponding to the sequel of
course
presented
explaining
above.
chemistry,
Mathematics
chemistry
explaining
explaining
physics,
ecology
and,
physics
ecology
explaining all interactions among the living. When approaching the
physical world out there, observations are interpellated on the right
level of knowledge and disciplined into general knowledge on the
level
of
physics,
chemistry
and
mathematics.
subtracted, the gaze sees and knows.
33
Cartwright. Screening the body. p.93.
When
nature
is
30
With this paper, I have drawn a conceptual diagram of how the
natural scientific gaze is deployed in comparative zoology. In some
way is this is also a (mental) visualization of the order of things,
and this diagram would be an image to add to other images, yet this
image
stands
to
challenge
the
previous
ones
in
a
quest
for
multiplicity. The in-depth analysis of visual culture and the gaze in
zoology and other natural sciences will be undertaken in a coming
paper
where
the
theoretical
assemblage
developed
here
will
be
Looking:
An
employed.
References
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32
Appendix 1
The eye of the Bichir during dissection.
33
Appendix 2
The eye after removal from fish before washing and preparation.
34
Appendix 3
The first image that was taken during this experiment in the SEM. It
was printed out on paper to be used as an overview image or a map
during operating the SEM.
35
Appendix 4
The suspension of the lens. This is one of the characters to be
closer examined and compared to other species.
36
Appendix 5
A lens cut in half, showing lens fibres, the second character search
for during this experiment but this is from another experiment. This
is from a lamprey.