Question Details

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.


Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices. For example, in astronomy, observation - until what is today called the new astronomy - had always been limited to what could be seen within the limits of optical light. Indeed, until early modernity the limits to optical light were also limits of what humans could themselves see within their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lensed optical instruments - telescopes - astronomers could begin to observe phenomena never seen before. Magnification and esolution began to allow what was previously imperceptible to be perceived - but within the familiar limits of optical vision. Galileo, having learned of the Dutch invention of a telescope by Hans Lippershey, went on to build some hundred of his own, improving from the Dutch 3x to nearly 30x telescopes - which turn out to be the limit of magnificational power without chromatic distortion. And it was with his own telescopes that he made the observations launching early modern astronomy (phases of Venus, satellites of Jupiter, etc.). Isaac Newton’s later improvement with reflecting telescopes expanded upon the magnificational-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued on to the later very large array of light telescopes today - following the usual technological trajectory of “more-is-better” but still remaining within the limits of the light spectrum.


Today’s astronomy has now had the benefit of some four centuries of optical telescopy. The “new astronomy,” however, opens the full known electromagnetic spectrum to observation, beginning with the accidental discovery of radio astronomy early in the twentieth century, and leading today to the diverse variety of EMS telescopes which can explore the range from gamma to radio waves. Thus, astronomy, now outfitted with new instruments, “smart” adaptive optics, very large arrays, etc., illustrates one style of instrumentally embodied science - a technoscience. Of course astronomy, with the very recent exceptions of probes to solar system bodies (Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids), remains largely a “receptive” science, dependent upon instrumentation which can detect and receive emissions. Contemporary biology displays a quite different instrument array and, according to Evelyn Fox- Keller, also a different scientific culture.


She cites her own experience, coming from mathematical physics into microbiology, and takes account of the distinctive instrumental culture in her Making Sense of Life (2002). Here, particularly with the development of biotechnology, instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case. Microscopic instrumentation can be and often is interventional in style: “gene-splicing” and other techniques of biotechnology, while still in their infancy, are clearly part of the interventional trajectory of biological instrumentation. Yet, in both disciplines, the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalized and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories. So, minimalistically, one may conclude that the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ, and perhaps the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment is mathematics, which only contemporarily has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.


To which one of the following instruments would the characterisations of instruments in the passage be least applicable?

Options

A

Milestone

B

Kitchen oven

C

Scalpel

D

Saxophone

Show Answer

Correct Answer :

Option A

Milestone

Solution :

The correct answer is Milestone.

To understand why this is the correct choice, let's break down how the passage describes and categorises instruments.

According to the passage, instruments used in different disciplines are characterised by their functional trajectory, primarily falling into two main categories:
1. Receptive instruments: The passage uses telescopes as an example of instruments that "detect and receive emissions," expanding the limits of what can be perceived.
2. Interventional instruments: Tools used in microbiology and biotechnology (like gene-splicing) are described as actively manipulating or altering the subject matter.
Additionally, the passage mentions "computational machinery" used in mathematics as another functional tool.

Now, let's evaluate each of the provided options based on these active, functional characterisations:

Scalpel: A scalpel is a cutting tool used in surgery or dissection. It is actively used to alter physical material, making it a clear example of an "interventional" instrument.

Kitchen oven: An oven actively changes the physical and chemical state of food by applying heat. This functional manipulation means it can also be broadly characterised as an "interventional" tool.

Saxophone: A saxophone is a musical instrument that is actively manipulated by a user to generate, control, and emit sound waves.

Milestone: A milestone is merely a static piece of stone or marker placed beside a road to indicate distance. It does not perform any active function—it does not receive or detect emissions, it does not intervene in or manipulate any processes, nor does it compute.

Because a milestone is completely passive and static, the dynamic characterisations of instruments in the passage (as either receptive or interventional) are the least applicable to it.

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