Towards a sociology of measurement: The meaning of measurement error in the case of DNA profiling
Towards a sociology of measurement: The meaning of measurement error in the case of DNA profiling
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DOI：
10.1177/030631200030006001
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发表时间：
2000-12-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Derksen, L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Derksen, L
本文探讨了一个煽动性的主题-“DNA分型”（或“DNA指纹”，因为它是俗称）-显示如何通过系统的不确定性和随机变化的擦除产生可信的科学知识。这种删除发生在测量和组过程的水平。我用美国DNA分型的历史作为案例研究，发展了一个三方面的论点。首先，客观知识是通过互动和社会过程实现的，这些过程将表现主体的行为从对自然世界的表现中抹去。一下这套社会进程和相互作用包括规范性判断，但这些判断并不对客观性构成威胁：相反，它们是构成客观性的东西。客观性是通过个人判断和评价什么是足够好的，以构成一个客观的测量，或判断多大或小的偏差必须计数或反对一个特定的理论解释。第三，我认为，测量，自然世界的属性转化为数字的结果，总是有一个差距或误差之间的理论预测测量和经验获得的测量。在某种程度上，这个误差不能再减小了。最终的衡量标准是人与自然之间协商和互动的结果。我证明，这些判断，评估和谈判发生在实验室内，当法医工作人员构建估计的测量误差，并在谈判中参与计算随机匹配概率不同的社会群体。关于DNA图谱测量和测量标准的科学和法律的争议始于20世纪80年代末，并持续了十年的大部分时间。这场旷日持久的争论为考察测量的社会建构提供了特别丰富的材料。
This paper examines an inflammatory subject -'DNA typing' (or 'DNA fingerprinting' as it is popularly called)- to show how credible scientific knowledge is produced through the systematic erasure of uncertainty and random variation. This erasure occurs at the levels of measurement and of group processes. I use the history of DNA typing in the United States as a case study to develop a three-fold argument. First, that objective knowledge is achieved through interactions and social processes that erase the actions of the representing subject from the representations made of the natural world. Second. that this set of social processes and interactions includes normative judgements, but that these judgements do not pose a threat to objectivity: instead, they are what constitute objectivity. Objectivity is attained through personal judgements and evaluations of what is good enough to constitute an objective measurement, or judgements of how big or small a deviation must be to count for or against a particular theoretical interpretation. Third, I argue that measurements, the result of the translation of properties of the natural world into numbers, always have a gap or error between the theoretically predicted measurement and the empirically obtained measurement. At some point this error cannot be reduced any further. The final measurement is the outcome of negotiation and interaction between people and nature. I demonstrate that these judgements, evaluations and negotiations take place within a laboratory, when forensic workers construct estimates of measurement error, and also in negotiations among disparate social groups involved in calculating random match probabilities. Scientific and legal disputes about the construction of measurements and measurement standards for DNA profiling began in the late 1980s, and continued for the better part of a decade. In this paper, the protracted controversy provides especially rich materials for examining the social construction of measurement.