Can't any body count? Counting as an epistemic theme in the history of human chromosomes
Can't any body count? Counting as an epistemic theme in the history of human chromosomes
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DOI：
10.1177/0306312704046843
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发表时间：
2004-12-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Martin, A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Martin, A
本文探讨了人类染色体计数史上著名的“错误”。20世纪20年代初，T. S。在一些独立调查人员的支持下，佩因特将这一数字定为48人，这一事实将持续30多年。1956年，Tjio和莱万令人惊讶地将计数修改为46。案件的细节被用来打开计数的理论审查的做法。计数，通常被认为是理所当然的平凡和透明的，而是一种丰富的偶然活动，需要明确的判断和对象的个性化。我颠覆了世界上存在着等待被计数的实体的假设，提出特定的对象在被计数时被如此构成。正如染色体的故事所展示的那样，技术、理论、学科和事物本身通过计数的实践共同进化。在20世纪20年代到50年代之间，人类遗传学领域的每一个因素都在不断变化;染色体的数量发生变化也就不足为奇了。
This paper examines the well-known 'error' in the history of human chromosome counting. In the early 1920s, T.S. Painter, supported by a number of independent investigators, placed the count at 48, which was to hold as a fact for more than 30 years. In 1956, Tjio and Levan surprisingly revised the count to 46. The details of the case are used to open up the very practice of counting to theoretical scrutiny. Counting, often taken-for-granted as mundane and transparent, is instead a richly contingent activity entailing categorical judgments and individuation of objects. Inverting the assumption that entities are there in the world waiting to be counted, I propose that particular objects are constituted as such while they are counted. As the chromosome story demonstrates, the techniques, theories, disciplines, and the things themselves co-evolve through practices of counting. Between the 1920s and the 1950s every one of these factors was in flux in the field of human genetics; it should be no surprise that the number of chromosomes changed.