Nicole C. Nelson, author and expert in science and technology studies, dives deep into the complexities of using mice as models for understanding human psychiatric disorders. She explores the historical motivations behind animal experiments and the challenges researchers face in aligning theory with practice. Nelson discusses the intricacies of modeling alcoholism and anxiety, reveals the emotional struggles of scientists navigating complex behaviors, and critiques science communication with the media, emphasizing the delicate balance in conveying nuanced scientific findings.
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insights INSIGHT
Complexity as Practical Problem
Researchers see behavior's complexity not as a fixed ontological state but as a practical problem in experiments.
Every small lab change can alter behavior, making stable findings elusive.
insights INSIGHT
Careful Claims due to Eugenic History
Historical eugenics legacy makes behavior genetics researchers cautious with claims.
They temper optimism about genomics, pushing knowledge horizons far into the future.
insights INSIGHT
Animal Model Claims Are Negotiated
Scientists negotiate and limit claims about what animal models can reveal.
Model builders restrict overclaims, contrasting fact-making literature where claims usually expand.
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Animal Experiments, Complexity, and the Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders
Nicole C. Nelson
Nicole C. Nelson's "Model Behavior" offers a deep dive into the complexities of animal experiments in behavioral genetics. The book challenges traditional views of the laboratory as a place of controlled simplification, revealing a reality where stable findings are elusive. Nelson's ethnographic study highlights the crucial role of environmental factors, often overlooked in the pursuit of genetic explanations. The research underscores the inherent challenges in translating animal models to human behavior, emphasizing the provisional nature of scientific knowledge in complex systems. The book's insights are relevant to anyone interested in the philosophy of science, animal ethics, and the intricacies of scientific research.
Mice are used as model organisms across a wide range of fields in science today--but it is far from obvious how studying a mouse in a maze can help us understand human problems like alcoholism or anxiety. How do scientists convince funders, fellow scientists, the general public, and even themselves that animal experiments are a good way of producing knowledge about the genetics of human behavior? In Model Behavior: Animal Experiments, Complexity, and the Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders(U Chicago Press, 2018), Nicole C. Nelson takes us inside an animal behavior genetics laboratory to examine how scientists create and manage the foundational knowledge of their field.
Behavior genetics is a particularly challenging field for making a clear-cut case that mouse experiments work, because researchers believe that both the phenomena they are studying and the animal models they are using are complex. These assumptions of complexity change the nature of what laboratory work produces. Whereas historical and ethnographic studies traditionally portray the laboratory as a place where scientists control, simplify, and stabilize nature in the service of producing durable facts, the laboratory that emerges from Nelson's extensive interviews and fieldwork is a place where stable findings are always just out of reach. The ongoing work of managing precarious experimental systems means that researchers learn as much--if not more--about the impact of the environment on behavior as they do about genetics. Model Behavior offers a compelling portrait of life in a twenty-first-century laboratory, where partial, provisional answers to complex scientific questions are increasingly the norm.
New Books in Psychology 