"...as though their thrift would mark them out as second-rate scientists."

Machine envy

Giant instruments are giving us a sea of data. Can science find its way without any big ideas at the helm?

by Philip Ball 

"Scientific instruments have always been devices of power: those who have the best ones can find out the most. Galileo knew this — he kept up a cordial correspondence with his fellow astronomer Johannes Kepler in Prague, but when Kepler requested the loan of a telescope, the Italian found excuses. Galileo saw that, with one of these devices, Kepler would become a more serious rival. Instruments, he understood, confer authority.

Today, however, they have become symbols of prestige as never before. I have several times been invited to admire the most state-of-the-art device in a laboratory purely for its own sake, as though I was being shown a Lamborghini. Stuart Blume, a historian of medical technology of the University of Amsterdam, has argued that the latest equipment serves as a token of institutional might, a piece of window-dressing to enhance one’s competitive position in the quasi-marketplace of scientific ideas. I recently interviewed several chemists about their use of second-hand equipment, often acquired from the scientific equivalents of eBay. Strangely, they all asked to remain anonymous, as though their thrift would mark them out as second-rate scientists."