open labs

Donna Haraway (1997) traced present-day scientific laboratories back to Robert Boyle (1627-1691), the “father of chemistry, and even more importantly, father of the experimental way of life” (p. 24). According to Haraway, Boyle’s revolutionary “open laboratory” redefined the character and places of experimental science. Unlike his contemporaries who conducted private if not secret experiments in guarded locations, Boyle established an “open laboratory”:

Since Boyle’s time, only those who could disappear “modestly” could really witness with authority rather than gawk curiously. The laboratory was to be open, to be a theater of persuasion, and at the same time it was constructed to be one of the “culture of no culture’s” most highly regulated spaces. Managing the public/private distinction has been critical to the credibility of the experimental way of life. This novel way of life required a special, bounded community. (p. 25)

In order to legitimate experimental knowledge as authentic, Boyle and his contemporaries opened experimental venues to a limited verifying public. According to Steven Shapin (1999), social standing was the key to accessing open laboratories in mid– to late–seventeenth century England. The most significant laboratories during this period (including Boyle’s) were incorporated into gentlemen’s private residences. Decorum dictated that gentlemen’s residences—and by extension, their laboratories—be open to other gentlemen. Once admitted, these gentlemen participated in the experimentation by acting as “modest” witnesses.