The purpose of grant peer review is to identify the most excellent and pro- mising research projects. However, sociologists of science and STS scholars have shown that peer review tends to promote solid low-risk projects at the expense of more original and innovative projects that often come with higher risk. It has also been shown that the review process is affected by significant measures of chance. Against this background, the aim of this study is to the- orize the notions of academic judgment and agonistic chance and to present and analyze situations in which expert reviewers are faced with the challenge of trying to decide which grant proposals to select when there is strong dis- agreement. The empirical analysis is based on ethnographic observations of ten panel groups at the Swedish Research Council in the areas of natural and engineering sciences. By focusing on disagreement, the study provides a more in-depth understanding of how agonistic chance creeps into the peer-review process and becomes part of the consensus that is created.

At present, peer review is the most common method used by funding agencies to make decisions about resource allocation. But how reliable, efficient, and fair is it in practice? The ex ante evaluation of scientific novelty is a fundamentally uncertain endeavor; bias and chance are embedded in the final outcome. In the current study, I will examine some of the most central problems of peer review and highlight the possible benefits of using a lottery as an alternative decision-making mechanism. Lotteries are driven by chance, not reason. The argument made in the study is that the epistemic landscape could benefit in several respects by using a lottery, thus avoiding all types of bias, disagreement, and other limitations associated with the peer review process. Funding agencies could form a pool of funding applicants who have minimal qualification levels and then select randomly within that pool. The benefits of a lottery would not only be that it saves time and resources, but also that it contributes to a more dynamic selection process and increases the epistemic diversity, fairness, and impartiality within academia.

What are the implications of microchimerism in sociocultural and ethico-legal contexts, particularly as they relate to the destabilization of genetic origins? Conventional biomedicine and related law have been reluctant to acknowledge microchimerism-the existence of unassimilated traces of genetic material that result in some cells in the body coding differently from the dominant DNA-despite it becoming increasingly evident that microchimerism is ubiquitous in the human population. One exception is maternal-fetal microchimerism which has long been recognized, albeit with little consideration of the nonmedical implications. Most immediate issues concern the ongoing biomedical debate around whether microchimerism is beneficial in terms of enhancing the body's range of immunological responses, harmful in provoking autoimmune diseases, or simply neutral with respect to subsequent health. That controversy remains unresolved, but whichever way it develops, I want to extend consideration by insisting that changing biological concerns cannot be separated from sociocultural and ethico-legal effects. Once the diversity of DNA coding in a singular body has been established, relations of kinship, the identification of legal parenthood, and the operation of surrogacy laws are of direct interest. The overriding problematic asks whether our ethical and legal apparatus is able to address such newly emerging questions.

This article explores processes of articulation in the controversies over third-generation mobile phone transmitters and the interrelated phenomenon of “electrosensitivity.” The argument is that the search to fix public image and public concerns tends to alienate the public from technology discussions. An alternative political epistemology of articulations is suggested to explore the dynamics among prereflexive motives, public engagement, and institutional requirements for public deliberations

Numerical simulations have come to be widely used in scientific work. Like experiments, simulations generate large quantities of numbers (output data) that require analysis and constant concern with uncertainty and error. How do simulationists convince themselves, and others, about the credibility of output? The present analysis reconstructs the perspectives related to performing numerical simulations, in general, and the situations in which simulationists deal with uncertain output, in particular. Starting from a distinction between idealized and realistic simulations, the paper presents the principal methods of evaluation in relation to these practices and how different audiences expect different methods. One major challenge in interpreting output data is to distinguish between real and numerical effects. Within the practice of idealized simulations, simulationists hold the underlying model accountable for results that manifest real effects, but because numerical and real effects cannot be distinguished on the basis of what they derive from, attempted causal explanations are rather justifications for their conclusions. At the same time, simulationists' explanations are part and parcel of their contradictory perspectives, according to which they believe in simulations largely due to the underlying model, while painfully recognizing everything they have to add to make computations doable on the basis of this model.

This article explores the practice of simulation modeling byinvestigating how parameterizations are constructed and integratedinto existing frameworks. Parameterizations are simplified processdescriptions adapted for simulation models. On the basis ofa study of meteorological research, the article presents predictiveand representative construction as two different ways of developingparameterizations and the trade-offs involved in this work.Because the overall aim in predictive construction is to improveweather forecasts, the most practical solutions are chosen overthe best theoretical solutions. In representative construction,the situation is reversed, but while discourse focuses on theoryand models, the everyday work is often tied to computer programs.These different ways of construction work are closely relatedto the role of the simulation models as epistemic or technicalobjects, and this characterization is also used to compare theresults with previous research.