Table Of ContentRoutledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine
EVIDENCE IN ACTION
BETWEEN SCIENCE
AND SOCIETY
CONSTRUCTING, VALIDATING,
AND CONTESTING KNOWLEDGE
Edited by
Sarah Ehlers and Stefan Esselborn
Evidence in Action between
Science and Society
This volume is an interdisciplinary attempt to insert a broader, historically
informed perspective into current political and academic debates on the
issue of evidence and the reliability of scientific knowledge.
The tensions between competing paradigms, different bodies of knowledge
and the relative hierarchies between them are a crucial element of the historical
and contemporary dynamics of scientific knowledge production. The
negotiation of evidence is at the heart of this process. Starting from the
premise that evidence constitutes a central, but also essentially contested concept
in contemporary knowledge-based societies, this volume focuses on how
evidence is generated and applied in practice—in other words, on “evidence
in action.” The contributions analyze and compare different evidence practices
within the field of science and technology, how they interlink with different
forms of power, their interaction with and impact on the legal and political
domain, and their relationship to other, more heterodox forms of evidence that
challenge traditional notions of evidence. In doing so, this volume provides
much-needed context and historical background to contemporary debates on
the so-called “post-truth” society.
Evidence in Action is the perfect resource for all those interested in the
relationship between science, technology, and the role of knowledge in society.
Sarah Ehlers is a postdoctoral researcher working on the global history of
medicine, science and the environment at the Institute for the History of
Science and Technology at the Deutsches Museum and an affiliated re-
searcher at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Stefan Esselborn is a postdoctoral researcher at the Professur für
Technikgeschichte at the Technical University of Munich. He is writing
and teaching on topics in the fields of global and colonial history, the
history of science and technology, the history of knowledge and expertise,
and the history of risk and safety.
Routledge Studies in the History of Science,
Technology and Medicine
Cold Science
Environmental Knowledge in the North American Arctic During the Cold War
Stephen Bocking and Daniel Heidt
Medical Memories and Experiences in Postwar East Germany
Treatments of the Past
Markus Wahl
Politics, Statistics and Weather Forecasting, 1840–1910
Taming the Weather
Aitor Anduaga
Social Class and Mental Illness in Northern Europe
Edited by Petteri Pietikäinen and Jesper Vaczy Kragh
Medicine and Justice
Medico-Legal Practice in England and Wales, 1700–1914
Katherine D. Watson
Lifestyle and Medicine in the Enlightenment
The Six Non-Naturals in the Long Eighteenth Century
Edited by James Kennaway and H.G. Knoeff
Germs in the English Workplace, c.1880–1945
Laura Newman
Pathogens Crossing Borders
Global Animal Diseases and International Responses, 1860–1947
Cornelia Knab
Evidence in Action between Science and Society
Constructing, Validating, and Contesting Knowledge
Edited by Sarah Ehlers and Stefan Esselborn
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Studies-in-the-History-of-Science-Technology-and-Medicine/book-
series/HISTSCI
Evidence in Action
between Science and
Society
Constructing, Validating, and
Contesting Knowledge
Edited by Sarah Ehlers and
Stefan Esselborn
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Sarah Ehlers and Stefan Esselborn;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Sarah Ehlers and Stefan Esselborn to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-032-03705-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-03706-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18861-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003188612
Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xv
1 Introduction: Evidence in Action 1
SARAH EHLERS AND STEFAN ESSELBORN
PART I
Establishing Evidence: The Formation of Disciplinary
Cultures 19
2 War, Wheat, and Crop Diseases of the Late
Enlightenment: Contesting and Producing Evidence in
Agriculture in Great Britain 21
JOHN LIDWELL-DURNIN
3 Presenting Chemical Practice in Court: Forensic
Toxicology in Nineteenth‐Century German States 42
MARCUS B. CARRIER
4 No “Mere Accumulation of Material”: Fieldwork
Practices and Embedded Evidence in Early (Latin)
Americanist Anthropology 60
JULIA E. RODRIGUEZ
vi Contents
PART II
Innovating Evidence: Contemporary Technoscientific
Approaches 81
5 Prototyping Evidence: How Artifacts Demonstrate
Technological Futures 83
SASCHA DICKEL
6 On Top of the Hierarchy: How Guidelines Shape
Systematic Reviewing in Biomedicine 102
ALEXANDER SCHNIEDERMANN, CLEMENS BLÜMEL, AND ARNO SIMONS
7 On the (Im)possibility of Identifying the Evidence Base
of the Impact of Star Architecture Projects 127
NADIA ALAILY-MATTAR, DIANE ARVANITAKIS, MARTINA LÖW,
AND ALAIN THIERSTEIN
PART III
Governing Evidence: Evidence-Based Practice and
Politics 143
8 The Thing We Call Evidence: Toward a Situated
Ontology of Evidence in Policy 145
KARI LANCASTER AND TIM RHODES
9 “Drawing Thresholds That Make Sense”: Diagrammatic
Evidence and Urgency in Automatic Outbreak
Detection 165
STEFFEN KRÄMER
10 Producing Migration Knowledge: From Big Data to
Evidence-Based Policy? 185
LAURA STIELIKE
PART IV
Contesting Evidence: The Politics of Heterodox
Evidence 201
11 Fearful Narratives: Evidence Production in the Visual
Rhetoric of the Historic Anti‐vaccine Movement in the
German States 203
CHRISTIANE ARNDT
Contents vii
12 The Politics of Evidence: State Secrecy, Ambiguity, and
Counterforensic Practice in “Missing Persons” Cases in
Pakistan 227
SALMAN HUSSAIN
13 Digital Ethnographic Art(i)Facts as Evidence:
Anthropological Entanglements between Techne and
Episteme 246
ANNA APOSTOLIDOU
Index 267
Figures
2.1 Illustration of wheat rust by Franz Bauer in Joseph
Banks, A Short Account of the Diseases in Corn (London:
Nicoll, 1806) 36
5.1 Time and location, Virgin Hyperloop, “Hyperloop
One—Propulsion Open Air Test,” uploaded 11 May
2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiokghLXFYM 93
5.2 Propulsion air test, Virgin Hyperloop, “Hyperloop
One—Propulsion Open Air Test,” uploaded 11 May
2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiokghLXFYM 93
5.3 Model, Virgin Hyperloop, “Hyperloop One—Propulsion
Open Air Test,” uploaded 11 May 2016. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=xiokghLXFYM 94
5.4 Demonstration, Virgin Hyperloop, “Hyperloop One—
Propulsion Open Air Test,” uploaded 11 May 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiokghLXFYM 95
7.1 A conceptual impact model of how a star architecture
project “works.” It depicts the flow (bottom to top)
from starting conditions to actions, which results in
outputs and their respective effects. The particular
“offerings” of star architecture—as a subset of
outputs—are indicated by the dashed rectangle.
Reproduced from Alain Thierstein, Nadia Alaily-
Mattar, and Johannes Dreher, “Star Architecture’s
Interplays and Effects on Cities,” in About Star
Architecture: Reflecting on Cities in Europe, ed. Nadia
Alaily-Mattar, Davide Ponzini, and Alain Thierstein
(Basel: Springer International Publishing, 2020), 49 131
7.2 To the left, the location of the Phaeno in Wolfsburg
(Source: authors, based on OpenStreet Map). To the
right image of Phaeno with Volkswagen factory in the
back (Source: photograph by Dominik Bartmanski) 134
Figures ix
8.1 The whiteboard, reproduced from Twitter: Dominic
Cummings (@Dominic2306), Twitter, 26 May 2021 152
8.2 Suppression strategy, reproduced from Neil Ferguson et al.,
Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce
COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand, Imperial College
COVID-19 Response Team (2020), 12. https://www.
imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/
gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-
modelling-16-03-2020.pdf 156
9.1 Control chart explaining the detection algorithm used by
the RKI, from Maëlle Salmon, Dirk Schumacher, and
Michael Höhle, “Monitoring Count Time Series in R:
Aberration Detection in Public Health Surveillance,”
Journal of Statistical Software 70, no. 10 (2016). The chart
is almost identical to a chart published in Michael Höhle,
“Surveillance: An R Package for the Monitoring of
Infectious Diseases,” Computational Statistics 22, no. 4
(2007) about the R programming package “surveillance.”
The triangle on the bottom of the x-axis points to the
position of an alarm signal 171
9.2 Unrealized mockup for the design of the new signal
report of the RKI in November 2016. Photograph of the
author 173
9.3 Current design of the signal report at the RKI since April
2017, reprinted with permission from: https://www.rki.
de/DE/Content/Infekt/IfSG/Signale/Projekte/Signale_
Projekte_node.html 174
11.1 Title page of Hugo Wegener, Segen der Impfung. Wenig
von Vielem (Frankfurt a. M.: Verlag Luise Wegener,
1911) 209
11.2 Hugo Wegener, Der Impf-Friedhof. Was das Volk, die
Sachverständigen und die Regierungen vom “Segen
der Impfung” wissen (Frankfurt a. M.: Verlag Luise
Wegener, 1912), 21 210
11.3 Wegener, Impf-Friedhof (1912), p. 281 212
11.4 Appropriation of medical imagery (left) by the anti-
vaccinist movement (right). Queen’s University
Collection of the Museum of Health Care, Wax Model,
Joseph Towne 1850, Kingston, item #997002031;
Wegener, Impf-Friedhof (1912), case number 222, p. 92 215
11.5 Die Gartenlaube 38 (1867), image b 605. The image is
titled Impfstube; it is notably displaying a style resembling
the 1858 painting Impfstube by R.S. Zimmermann 216
13.1 Hints of tampering with truth (from digital artifact) 250
