ABSTRACT
Bruno Latour was a professor in sociology at the Centre de sociologie de l'innovation at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines in Paris. Apart from philosophy Latour also studied anthropology. Undoubtedly this study stood him in good stead when he was doing research for one of his best known books, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. It proves that science in practice sometimes runs completely contrary to the idealistic descriptions in handbooks. The human side appears to play a much more significant role than suggested by the books. In theoretical study, Latour is known especially for the actor-network-theory that he developed in cooperation with Michel Callon and John Law. This chapter shows technicians that they cannot even conceive of a technological object without taking into account the mass of human beings with all their passions and politics and pitiful calculations, and that by becoming good sociologists, good humanist, they can become better engineers and better informed decision-makers.
