Impressions from EASST/4S: panel discussions, round tables and festival atmosphere

Authors: Candida Sánchez Burmester, Max Rossmann, Stefan Gaillard, Wytske Hepkema

Shortly after our consortium meeting, ten NanoBubbles project members met again in the Netherlands, this time for the biggest international conference in the field of Science and Technology Studies (Science and Technology Studies is focusing on how social interactions shape scientific processes and technological developments and vice versa). The EASST/4S conference with around 4000 participants, hosted by the Athena Institute at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam from July 16-19, gave opportunity to present and discuss our work-in-progress and organize two panels that would bring together people working on similar topics (for more information on EASST see https://easst.net/ and on 4S see https://4sonline.org/). In this blog post, we would like to share our impressions on some of the panels that were focal to the participants and the work of NanoBubbles.

Stefan Gaillard and Max Rossmann presented their work on hype and over-promising in two vibrant panels, ‘Hype cycles of the promissory economy’ and ‘Towards mapping and defining critical hype studies’. Those panels received more interest than seats were available in the room. Stefan discussed the framework for his longitudinal study to track science and technology promises. He gave an overview of the search query he developed together with Sanda Hachana, which allows them to track when and by whom predictions/promises are made over time. Max presented his study on the Dutch universities’ early response to the ChatGPT hype. Also, last year’s special issue of TATuP on Technology hype, co-edited by NanoBubbles members Frédérique Bordignon and Max, was well received and cited in different presentations, including the panel organizers’ instruction on the topic. What made these EASST panels highlight for the NanoBubbles subgroup on hype, however, was discussing the topic from various angles with so many excellent and interested scholars from different parts of the world.

Another panel that was co-organized by Willem Halffman (one of NanoBubbles PIs) addressed questions on ‘Transformations in scholarly publishing’. The panel raised critical questions, such as what is the value of a book, as we move beyond traditional metrics (sales, prices, reviews) to digital engagement indicators (downloads, citations, altmetrics). One of the presentation discussed unfulfilled promises of open accesss, still disadvantaging global South authors with platform capitalism, open access fees, and a global North knowledge hierarchy. With major players like Elsevier becoming technology-driven knowledge providers for research evaluation, it is clear that current shifts demand a re-evaluation of what scholarly publishing should represent and whose interests it serves.

Two other NanoBubbles members, Mady Malheiros Barbeitas and Candida Sánchez Burmester, also organized a panel that invited all participants to address the project’s core question ‘How, when and why does science (fail to) correct itself?’. The panel was divided into four sessions covering different topics in the history of science and technology, sociology of science, philosophy of language, and scientometrics. To answer this overarching question, it is important to understand how (overstated and erroneous) claims evolve and why it can be difficult to correct them.

Different speakers illustrated how overstated claims can emerge and spread. It was shown how hyped discoveries or terms in nanomedicine can attract attention and investment from scientists and academic entrepreneurs. Some speakers showed how these hyped discoveries did not always lead to fruitful outcomes, as was the case with a prominent biotechnology enterprise working on the promising ‘EPR Effect’ but failed to develop successful applications (the enhanced permeability and retention effect is a mechanism in which molecules of a certain size tend to accumulate in the tumour vascularized area and are therefore used for targeted drug delivery). It was also shown that a new term, such as protein corona, might be useful to attract resources and communicate across different disciplines but might not necessarily introduce a new phenomenon.

Hyped claims often travel quickly. To examine how specific claims spread in a scientific community, some speakers analyzed citation contexts (the few sentences surrounding a citation). By quantitatively tracing which research group refers to whom and what, they traced the networks forming around these claims and keeping them alive, focusing for example on the claim that oxytocin evokes pro-social actions or the claim of a new (or renewed) nanoparticle. Yet, not only claims but also practices can spread quickly. In one presentation, the speakers discussed how two types of gel electrophoresis with different views on reproducibility developed between 1980 and 2000 and how digital image processing has evoked trust or distrust in these different approaches.

Once a claim or practice has spread widely, people who try to scrutinize them might face various difficulties. The type of people challenging claims differed across the talks. In one talk, the focus was on scientists, who have faced challenges in setting up a formalized replication project that is meant to critically examine experiments of influential papers in their field. In two other talks, the presenters discussed the strategies of watchdogs or sleuths in trying to correct errors or fraudulent publications, for example, through post-publication peer review platforms such as PubPeer.

One difficulty in challenging a claim can be the reputation of the author of the claim, of the institute where it originated, or of the journal where it was published. One speaker illustrated how a contested claim might have gained popularity because it was published in Nature. Another speaker discussed how an error in the analysis of the viscosity of air persisted over several years. It originated in a study by a renowned physicist who had won a Nobel Prize and was only challenged later by a young researcher who revisited the calculations.

Another crucial point that emerged from the presentations was language. One speaker surveyed what it means to correct science from the perspective of different theories of communication. He aimed to encourage researchers and activists in the field to reflect on these diverse backgrounds and clarify ambitions to ease collaboration.

Figure 1: Round table discussion between (from left to right) Nicolas Rasmussen, Nicole Nelson, Bart Penders, Maha Said, Maarten Derksen, Melina Antonakaki, and Sergio Sismondo. The discussion was moderated by Willem Halffman (left, standing) and recorded by Guillermo Vargas from Chakalaka Films (left, sitting).

The panel also included a round table. Willem moderated a discussion between Melina Antonakaki, Maarten Derksen, Nicole Nelson, Bart Penders, Nicolas Rasmussen, Maha Said, and Sergio Sismondo – all of them experts in different fields related to the question what obstacles exist for (self-)correction in academia and industry. Guillermo Vargas from Chakalaka Films will turn the discussion into a podcast, your will hear about it on our website.

Figure 2: DJ Dead Bob (aka Willem Halffman) during his silent disco set – video still by ‘Dreamaholic.nl’.

While most conferences have formal conference dinner, EASST/4S decided to set up a forest festival in the Amsterdamse Bos. Instead of sitting around a table and admiring music performances from your chair, it was possible to choose the food from different stands, sit along the river, and dance to the silent disco. Definitely, a highlight of the conference was the joyful set by DJ Dead Bob (aka Willem Halffman).

Figure 3: EASST/4S forest festival in the Amsterdamse Bos – video still by ‘Dreamaholic.nl’.