Pablo Pellegrini

CONICET / National University of Quilmes

The continental drift controversy has been deeply analysed in terms of rationalist notions, which seem to find there a unique topic to describe the weight of evidence for reaching consensus. In that sense, many authors suggest that Alfred Wegener’s theory of the original supercontinent Pangea and the subsequent continental displacements finally rea...

Practices related to research misconduct seem to have been multiplied in recent years. Many cases of scientific fraud have been exposed publicly, and journals and academic institutions have deployed different measures worldwide in this regard. However, the influence of specific social and cultural environments on scientific fraud may vary from soci...

Various scientists and social movements are involved in the controversy over GM crops. This paper examines the controversy in Brazil, where the issue may in the future be defined internationally, given the expanse of the country’s arable land. It focuses on a central actor in the dispute: the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), a pe...

The origins of plant transgenesis are discussed and the experiments that led to the first transgenic plants are analyzed. This process involved a series of actors, practices and interests specific to biotechnology. Consensus about the meaning of fundamental experiments was also at issue here. These events illustrate some of the conflicts related to...

Regulatory frameworks on genetically modified crops present several differences, according to the specific procedures they take to deal with what they consider to be risks. Some of these differences have been studied between the United States and Europe, but there are other scenarios and subjects that may also be involved. Argentina not only has on...

This article aims to analyze attitudes towards the pandemic by finding correlations between them that can be used to identify different styles of thought. The research involved two surveys (with 5990 participants) conducted in Argentina during the period of isolation regulations. These surveys assessed people’s attitudes toward the pandemic, their...

El abordaje de controversias científicas en la enseñanza de las ciencias es considerado hoy en día un elemento clave para enseñar la naturaleza de la ciencia, capacitar en la toma de decisiones y contextualizar el contenido científico. Además, numerosos documentos curriculares resultados de la última reforma educativa argentina han remarcado la imp...

El tratamiento de controversias sociocientíficas (CSC) en el aula es indispensable para lograr una alfabetización científica que capacite para la toma de decisiones. Este artículo describe un estudio de caso que busca comprender cómo son entendidas las CSC por un docente y cómo éste las aborda en clase. Para esto se indagó su trayectoria profesiona...

Nas últimas décadas, os bancos de sementes ganharam uma importância crescente no domínio da agricultura e da alimentação. No entanto, apesar de serem instituições-chave relacionadas à utilização e à conservação de recursos naturais, não foram suficientemente analisadas pelas ciências sociais. Neste trabalho, analisamos os bancos de sementes através...

En las últimas décadas se han desplegado diversas normas, políticas e instituciones dedicadas a promover el desarrollo sustentable y cuidar los recursos naturales. Sin embargo, suele haber una distancia entre el plano normativo y el funciona- miento real que adquieren esos instrumentos, y eso se debe a que la diversidad de actores sociales e intere...

In recent decades, seed banks have spread out worldwide as essential institutions for biodiversity preservation, like new Noah’s arks. However, little is known about the diversity of practices that are involved in them. The aim of this study is to reconstruct the dynamics of operation of the different seed banks, developing a typology of them worth...

La innovación ha dejado de ser concebida como un proceso de decisión individual independiente del contexto, pasando a una conceptualización sistémica con actores insertos y entrelazados en distintas redes de instituciones. En ésta línea, las relaciones entre Universidades, empresas y gobierno resultan de particular interés para comprender las dinám...

Históricamente la producción de conocimiento cient'ifico en Argentina se caracteriza por una gran separación entre el sector productivo y la investigación cient'ifica. Sin embargo, en los últimos años se puede observar incipientes casos de innovación que articulan relaciones entre los investigadores y empresas. Particularmente interesa estudiar el...

El Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) es el organismo público más importante en lo que se refiere a investi-gación en temas agropecuarios en la Argentina. Comenzó sus acti-vidades en 1958 y ha desplegado una gran presencia territorial en el país, desarrollando investigaciones básicas y aplicadas, así como tareas de extensión rural...

This article aims to investigate the process of institutionalization of a new scientific discipline. In particular, the displacements that occur between disciplines with the emergence of a new one: molecular biology. The case presented in this article is the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) of Argentina, institution created in 1...

The dynamics of research and innovation within firms devoted to development of transgenic crops are scarcely studied. In the private sector, where profit seeking is crucial, parameters that define these dynamics are different from academy: firms must take into account strategies, research funding, market conditions and public opinion (especially im...

Plant biotechnology is a fertile field for social studies of science regarding the controversies of genetically modified organisms. But it is also a privileged context for the study of international division of scientific labor in the industrial sector, for inquiring the sort of research developed by firms of plant biotechnology. Despite vegetal bi...

Dominique Pestre es un historiador de la ciencia, y uno de los autores más desafiantes dentro de los estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología. Se desempeña en la École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (ehess) en París y dirigió el Centre Alexandre Koyré Histoire des Sciences et des Technicques. Pero no siempre se dedicó a la historia de...

La noción de riesgo tecnológico suele ser empleada para cuestionar los impactos que las nuevas tecnologías -en particular, la biotecnología moderna- tendrían sobre el medio ambiente, la salud humana y la dinámica socio-económica. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la posición que asumen los movimientos sociales frente a estas tecnologías a pa...

The present work discusses social-political occurrences which could indicate a process of transformation of subjectivity. In order to comprehend this change, it is necessary to investigate how subjectivity is built, that is, how concrete, imaginary and simbolic modes of doing, thinking, feeling, speaking and fantasizing are constructed. We depart f...

Technological risk notion is frequently used to question impacts that new technologies -in particular, modern biotechnology- would have on environment, human health and socio-economic dynamics. This paper's purpose is to analyze social movements attitude against these technologies from their speech on technological risk. With such aim we analyze th...