ABSTRACT
In October 1975 a young French philosopher arrived at the Salk Institute in San Diego. Called Bruno Latour, he later wrote that his ‘knowledge of science was non-existent; his mastery of English was very poor’ (Latour and Woolgar 1986, 273). He watched the work of the Salk Institute endocrinologists for nearly two years and then wrote a book about it with sociologist of science Steve Woolgar. Called Laboratory Life, this appeared in 1979 and, with books by one or two others,15 helped to create a new field, that of the ethnography of science.
