Publications - Publications

Fluer på skovturen

Nielsen, K. H. — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:36:39 +0200

Oppenheimers sande ansigt

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 20:36:39 +0200

Seconds to Midnight. A History of Nuclear Weapons 1932-2025

Andersen, C., Nielsen, H. — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 20:36:39 +0200

Care, Sociality, and Artificial Companionship

Falco, E., Nyrup, R. — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 20:36:39 +0200

Loneliness is a recurring concern for older people. Many worry that increased use of AI and robotics could further deprive older people of opportunities for social interaction. Yet some also see in these advances a potential solution in the form of technologies intended to compensate for, or substitute, missing human interaction. Companionship for older people is an oft-cited use case in research publications and marketing materials for technologies like social robotics and conversational AI systems. The ethics of such “artificial companions” for older people is the subject of complex debates. This paper focuses on a tendency, within these debates, to blend discussions of care and social interaction. The underlying assumption seems to be that care and sociality tend to (and perhaps ought to) come from the same source. In this paper, this assumption is called the Blending of Care and Sociality (BOSC). BOSC underwrites the assumption that the automation of care work will deprive older people of sociality, unless the companionship that carers provide can also be automated. This premise, which in this paper is called the Care Automation/Sociality Trade-off (CAST), is shared by arguments both supporting and questioning the use of artificial companions: proponents take CAST as a strong reason for developing artificial companions, while opponents, by denying that sociality can be adequately automated, conclude that care work should not be automated in the first place. This paper rejects BOSC and CAST on the grounds that they reflect ageist stereotypes, and that they prime designers to create unhelpful solutions.

Exploring temporal and cross-national patterns: The use of generative AI in science-related information retrieval across seven countries

Greussing, E., Guenther, L., Baram-Tsabari, . A., et al. — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

KUDOS-normerne som ramme for undervisning i fagets videnskabsteori

Nielsen, K. H. — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Anonyme tip om snyd

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Den lange kamp om lymfekarrene

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Organisational outputs of administrative reforms

Kjeldsen, L., Amby, F., Agergaard, T. E. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Employment rates of people with and without disabilities differ substantially in most countries, and policymakers have tried, with mixed effects, to reduce this gap through different policy measures. However, studies show that governance and managerial reforms also affect implementation of policy. In this study, we examine how the Danish large-scale administrative reform of 2007 has affected the role and structure of the approach of the public employment system (PES) to unemployed people with disabilities. Using Pollitt and Bouckeart's framework on reform effects, we report on a document analysis of policy papers and a 2019 survey of caseworkers and disability keypersons (N = 453). The analysis identifies few and vague objectives on a process and systems level, with the overall goal being more coherent service delivery. Specifically, a new division of tasks between the state and municipal level was established, including the creation of a disability keyperson at the municipal level to inform and guide job centre colleagues in assisting unemployed with disabilities. In practice, most of the keypersons were doing administrative casework and placed in sections focussed on unemployed with a reduced work ability. Hence, we identify a mismatch between objectives and implementation, questioning whether service delivery has become more coherent.

Betalt af Coca-Cola

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Trump og atomet

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:36:39 +0100

The perception and use of generative AI for science-related information search: Insights from a cross-national study

Greussing, E., Guenther, L., Baram-Tsabari, A., et al. — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Publicly accessible large language models like ChatGPT are emerging as novel information intermediaries, enabling easy access to a wide range of science-related information. This study presents survey data from seven countries (N = 4320) obtained in July and August 2023, focusing on the perception and use of GenAI for science-related information search. Despite the novelty of ChatGPT, a sizable proportion of respondents already reported using it to access science-related information. In addition, the study explores how these users perceive ChatGPT compared with traditional types of information intermediaries (e.g. Google Search), their knowledge of, and trust in GenAI, compared with nonusers as well as compared with those who use ChatGPT for other purposes. Overall, this study provides insights into the perception and use of GenAI at an early stage of adoption, advancing our understanding of how this emerging technology shapes public understanding of science issues as an information intermediary.

Introduction: The Making of The Anatomy of Plants

Eriksen, C. B., Mackenzie, P. — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 20:36:39 +0100

In this introduction to Nehemiah Grew's seminal 17th-century publication The Anatomy of Plants (1682), we discuss the various influences on and impacts of Grew's innovative approach to studying plant life. We offer a review of the current literature on Grew and argue for the importance of his work in its contribution to fields ranging from microscopy to agriculture and from comparative anatomy to scientific illustration. The articles included in this special issue on “The Making of The Anatomy of Plants” are also introduced. We make a case for Grew as a figure of great interest and relevance in our contemporary moment; as plant studies have taken hold in the humanities, historical narratives in the history of science are expanding to include more of the life sciences—a field that, as we show, Grew actively promoted and participated in throughout his tenure at the Royal Society.

Apricots, Plums, and Garden Beans

Eriksen, C. B. — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 20:36:39 +0100

Nehemiah Grew is rightly lauded as one of the first and most sophisticated promoters of the discipline of plant anatomy—the observation and representation of the insides of plants. Overlooked so far, though, are his activities as a plant collector. In this paper, I reconstruct Grew's plant-collection practices from his first medical garden, through his incorporation of specimens from the Royal Society's repository, and to its expansion through his support of intercontinental plant-gathering missions. These activities gave Grew access both to fresh, local plant samples, which he could observe again and again, as well as to foreign specimens that exhibited some of the more curious variations of nature. I argue that these different plant-collecting strategies reflected his overarching ambitions with his plant anatomy, which was to construct an idealised model of plant formation, generation, and growth. In order to do this, Grew pieced together his observations of individual specimens into one generalised model through the method of collation. While not offering concrete advice on how to grow plants more efficiently, I argue that Grew's idealised representation of the processes of plant life was offered as a framework for further botanical experimentation.

Klorokin-krisen

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Den moralske fare ved gratis lægehjælp

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

Is the Lack of Inter-referee Reliability a Threat to the Effectiveness of Peer Review in Science?

Wray, K. B. — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 20:36:39 +0200

Many have criticized the peer-review system employed in scientific publication because of the apparent lack of inter-referee reliability. It is often remarked that if referees cannot agree about the quality of a scientific manuscript, then the selection of manuscripts for publication is arbitrary. Some critics have even called for abolishing pre-publication peer-review. I argue that too much emphasis has been put on inter-referee reliability. As such, a lack of inter-referee reliability in the current peer-review system is not damning for the system. I argue that peer review is effective at finding mistakes.

Livsvidenskabernes materialitet

Eriksen, C. B., Erslev, T. — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 20:36:39 +0100

Livsvidenskabernes materialitet

Eriksen, C. B. — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 20:36:39 +0100

Rezension zu: Östling, Johan; Sandmo, Erling; Larsson Heidenblad, David; Nilsson Hammar, Anna; Nordberg, Kari H. (Hrsg.): Circulation of Knowledge. Explorations in the History of Knowledge. Lund 2018 , ISBN 978-91-88661-28-9

Eriksen, C. B. — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 20:36:39 +0100

Stalking the eighteenth-century empiricists

Eriksen, C. B. — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 20:36:39 +0100

Peber, ingefær, nelliker og muskatnød

Basse Eriksen, C. — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 20:36:39 +0100

Undersøgelse af den fleksible ekspertrolle som den hollandske videnskabsmand fra 1600-tallet havde som både kvalitetskontrollør for koloniale handelsselskaber og videnskabelig observatør for Royal Society i England. Dette er et eksempel på, at ekspertroller ikke er et distinkt moderne fænomen, og at videnskabsmandens arbejde har ikke eksisteret i et vakuum uafhængigt af forretningsmæssige interesser

Videnskabshistoriens fremtid

Eriksen, C. B. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van

Eriksen, C. B. — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 20:36:39 +0100

Grew, Nehemiah

Eriksen, C. B. — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 20:36:39 +0100

Microscopy in Early Modern Natural Philosophy

Eriksen, C. B. — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 20:36:39 +0100

Peering Horizontally Through the Microscope

Eriksen, C. B. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Early-modern microscopy has long been associated with the ambition to go down to nature’s least level and make observations of the most fundamental parts, the particles, atoms, or corpuscles. In Stephen Gaukroger’s words, early-modern microscopy developed along the lines of a vertical model of explanation. Yet, as Gaukroger has shown us, during the early modern and Enlightenment periods, this model was put under pressure by horizontal models of explanations, which sought to explain natural phenomena in terms of relations between cause and effect taking place on the same level. In this essay, I explore Gaukroger’s analysis further as I show the benefits of revisiting early-modern microscopy in terms of horizontality rather than verticality. This allows to see how the leading microscopists subverted the notion of magnification as a descension to a more foundational level through the stabilization of the sub-visible world as a space in its own right.

Contradictory Histories of Global Development

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Narratives of Global Fat: Aarhus Oliefabrik and United Plantations Company

Heymann, M. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

What is QSMRTS? Thinking about a new subdomain in the history of technology

Heymann, M. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Roundtable

van der Vleuten, E., de Hoop, E., van der Straeten, J. ., et al. — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

In the face of diverse and uneven environmental crises across the globe, ongoing efforts to “globalize” the history of technology field may be considered urgent. In doing so, however, we risk uncritically exporting the norms and practices of a predominantly Western-centric field—an arguably colonial act. This roundtable explores four areas of contention: how to conceptualize “the global”; why, how and with whom to study “history” amid threatened “futures”; how to articulate and delineate the field’s subject matter (“technology”); and how researchers can collaborate equitably within and across diverse sites around the globe. Building on these discussions, we propose three themes for further conversation: how to transcend the North-South binary without disregarding its critical insights; how to balance the use of locally specific vocabularies with quasi-global terms; and how to develop collaborative relationships with those whose histories historians document, fostering joint experimentation with “historiographical interventions.”.

Det kostede topforsker jobbet hos Google at stå fast på basale forskningsværdier

Nyrup, R. — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 20:36:39 +0100

De store techfirmaer sidder tungt på den mest avancerede AI. Det skaber nogle svære dilemmaer for videnskabsfolk. Både for dem der gerne vil påvirke teknologiens udvikling, og for dem der blot vil bruge AI som et værktøj i deres forskning.

Klima

Heymann, M., Gorbahn, K. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Videnskab i blåzonen

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Farlig fluor

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Early host defense against virus infections

Paludan, S. R., Pradeu, T., Pichlmair, A., et al. — Tue, 24 Dec 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Early host defense eliminates many viruses before infections are established while clearing others so they remain subclinical or cause only mild disease. The field of immunology has been shaped by broad concepts, including the pattern recognition theory that currently dominates innate immunology. Focusing on early host responses to virus infections, we analyze the literature to build a working hypothesis for the principles that govern the early line of cellular antiviral defense. Aiming to ultimately arrive at a criteria-based theory with strong explanatory power, we propose that both controlling infection and limiting inflammation are key drivers for the early cellular antiviral response. This response, which we suggest is exerted by a set of "microbe- and inflammation-restricting mechanisms," directly restrict viral replication while also counteracting inflammation. Exploring the mechanisms and physiological importance of the early layer of cellular antiviral defense may open further lines of research in immunology.

Blomstens følelser

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Beskedne genier

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 20:36:39 +0100

En bredere fysik

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Mathematical understanding – Common themes in philosophy and mathematics education

Carter, J. — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 20:36:39 +0100

We present different characterizations of mathematical understanding given by mathematicians, philosophers of mathematics, and mathematics educators. One purpose is to illustrate the diversity of these characterizations. Although the descriptions of understanding may seem incompatible, the paper ends by pointing to some shared themes. They include an emphasis on qualities such as relations and unification. Additionally, we note that re-presentation, including visual representations, is thought to play a role in understanding.

Ten Years and Farewell

Wray, K. B. — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Vinderen tager det hele

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 20:36:39 +0200

Fupkonferencer

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 20:36:39 +0200

Modvækst i modvind

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 20:36:39 +0200

Trust as an intercultural lens for addressing challenges in science communication

Nielsen, K. H., Fage-Butler, A., Ledderer, L. K. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

UNESCO as a teacher of norms in science popularization

Nielsen, K. H., Andersen, C. — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 20:36:39 +0100

A hobbit’s guide to technology ethics

Wray, K. B. — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 20:36:39 +0100

Transforming research and public libraries into catalysts for citizen science

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:36:39 +0200

Mdma afvist

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:36:39 +0200

Ingeniørkunst på isen

Nielsen, K. H. — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:36:39 +0200