2006/01/01 by Nancy J. Nersessian
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Neuroscience · #Biomedical Text Mining and Ontologies #Cognitive Science and Education Research #Design Education and Practice
paper · doi:10.1177/0170840606061842
openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
A central challenge for science studies researchers in developing accounts of knowledge construction in science and engineering is to integrate the cognitive, social, cultural, and material dimensions of practice. Within science studies there is a perceived divide between cognitive practices, on the one hand, and cultural practices, on the other. Any such divide, though at times analytically useful, is artificial. Producing scientific knowledge requires the kind of sophisticated cognition that only rich social, cultural, and material environments can enable. This paper aims to move in the direction of an integrative account of these dimensions of practice. It discusses model-based reasoning practices in biomedical engineering research laboratories construed as ‘evolving cognitive-cultural systems’.