ABSTRACT
The global bioeconomy and sociotechnology turn is data-driven and large-scale, raising critical questions at the interface of law, human rights, science communication, and bioethics. Global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and the ongoing climate crisis place the life sciences at the epicenter of modeling, testing, problem-solving, and disseminating data. This chapter offers a brief historiography of the life sciences to situate the reader, discusses a methodological overview of studying biologists as intellectuals, and presents a case study of the category of celebrity scientist. Today, the history of science and intellectual history are written by professional historians who continue to dismantle actors and historiographical categories building intersectional and interdisciplinary methodologies. This brief chronology indicates that writing about the life sciences mimics the discipline of history by locating and following asymmetrical power dynamics, the unintended trajectories science created, and the contingencies of creating scientific knowledge.
