Labinger, Jay A(lan) 1947-

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LABINGER, Jay A(lan) 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born July 6, 1947, in Los Angeles, CA; married May 31, 1970; wife's name Andrea; children: Barbara. Education: Harvey Mudd College, B.S., 1968; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES:

Home—2204 Villa Maria Rd., Claremont, CA 91711. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Chemist and educator. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, research associate chemist, 1973-74, instructor, 1974-75; University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, assistant professor of chemistry, 1975-81; Occidental Research Corp, senior research chemist, 1981-83; Arco, research advisor, 1983-86; California Institute of Technology, administrator, Beckman Institute, 1986—.

MEMBER:

American Chemical Society, Society for Literature and Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Society for the Social Studies of Science.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and contributor, with Harry Collins) The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.

Associate editor, Chemical Reviews, 1979-81; editor, Journal of Molecular Catalysis, 1994-98. Contributor to Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jay A. Labinger, a noted chemist and educator, joins fellow editor Harry Collins in the 2001 book The One Culture?: A Conversation about Science. Including writings by both editors as well as essays by twelve physicists and sociologists of science such as Alan Sokal, Michael Lynch, Steven Weinberg, Kenneth G. Wilson, and others, The One Culture? addresses an argument that gained prominence in academic circles focusing on science studies during the 1990s: namely, the relevancy of hard science versus the schools of thought generated by sociologists, philosophers, and historians that used social construction and relativism as frameworks for making sense out of science's role in human development and history. The argument had its genesis in a 1962 study by historian Thomas Kuhn in which he concluded that scientific knowledge is colored by the social factors that led to its discovery. The One Culture?—in effect a written debate, which had its genesis in a 1997 academic conference held in Southampton, England—is divided into three sections, the first containing position papers on the so-called "Science wars," the second containing a discussion of the issues addressed in the papers, and the third comprising a response and rebuttal by each of the contributors to criticisms voiced in section two.

Several of the questions addressed by Labinger's contributors focus on the role of scientists within the decision-making process: What priority should a society place upon scientific knowledge and who is justified in transmitting such knowledge? How skeptically should so-called scientific "facts" be viewed? Is the academic field of science study "antiscience," as it was labeled following a widely reported pseudo-scientific article debunking quantum gravity that New York University physics professor Alan Sokal managed to publish in a respected cultural studies journal in 1996 that was later proven to be a total hoax? Calling the tone of The One Culture? "serious and respectful," American Scientist contributor Jan Golinski praised the volume for "clarifying what science studies …is trying to accomplish." In a Choice review P. D. Skiff noted that while the contributors "have been dueling for more than four years" their "more extreme overstatements …have been worn down to more sensible points," and went on to praise Labinger and Collins for drawing the focus of the arguments to central rather than peripheral issues. Praising The One Culture? in a review for the Times Literary Supplement, Peter D. Smith added that the book stands as a "important book, motivated by an exemplary spirit of academic tolerance and debate, [that] shows how bridges might be built in the future" between postmodern intellectuals and working scientists.