This article may be unbalanced toward certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page.(January 2024)
In elucidating some of the sociological factors prevailing in particle physics, Pickering also wrote a number of papers for journals and conferences.[2][3][4][5] According to Pickering, theory and experiment come in packages, and traditions of experiment generate just the kind of data which will fuel further theorising, while traditions of theory generate new problems for further development.[6]
Pickering thus described two theoretical frameworks in particle physics: 'old physics' – which at the time of its death, was "still alive"[6] – dominated high energy physics through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, and concerned itself with 'common [particle physics] phenomena'. 'New physics' refers to the theory and experiment 'package' concerned with rare phenomena, such as the search for quarks. While each theoretical framework had little to say about the other, and "was useless in the phenomenal world of its rival",[6] each was satisfactory in its own terms. Despite this, Pickering also outlined a process of "magical transmutation", where new theories are produced from old, by what he called "analogical recycling".[7] Pickering noted that all this is symptomatic of Kuhnian type revolutions.[6]
He authored The mangle of practice: Time, agency and science (University of Chicago Press, 1995), where he develops a performative conception of scientific practice, focusing on non-human agency and strongly contributing to the posthumanist trend of Science and Technology Studies. His most recent book, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future traces the history of British Cybernetics after the Second World War. Pickering considers Cybernetics as a type of nomad science that, instead of seeking to dominate reality as its modern counterpart (thus leading to processes of enframing, following Heidegger) rather develops an ontological theatre between humans and non-humans. In this book, Pickering explores projects that intertwine, for instance, technology, psychiatry, spirituality, education and, of course, brain sciences.
Pickering, Andrew; Guzik, Keith (2008). The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society, and Becoming. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN9780822390107.
Pickering, Andrew (1982), "Interests and Analogies", in Barnes, Barry; Edge, David O. (eds.), Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 125–146, ISBN9780262520768
Pickering, Andrew (1982), "Elementary Particles: Discovered or Constructed?", in Trower, W. Peter; Bellini, Gianpaolo (eds.), Physics in Collision: High-Energy ee/ep/pp Interactions, volume 1, New York, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 439–448, ISBN9780306409967
Pickering, Andrew (1992), "From Science As Knowledge to Science As Practice", in Pickering, Andrew (ed.), Science As Practice and Culture, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–28, ISBN9780226668017
Pickering, Andrew; Stephanides, Adam (1992), "Constructing Quaternions: On the Analysis of Conceptual Practice", in Pickering, Andrew (ed.), Science As Practice and Culture, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, pp. 139–167, ISBN9780226668017
Pickering, Andrew (2004), "The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer's Cybernetic Informatics", in Rayward, W. Boyd; Bowden, Mary Ellen (eds.), The History and Heritage of Scientific and Technological Information Systems, Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, Inc., pp. 29–38, ISBN9781573872294
^Pickering, Andy (1981). Elementary Particles: Discovered or Constructed?. Pre-publication copy of article to appear in Proc. of Int. Conf. on Physics in Collision: High Energy ee/ep/pp Interactions. Blacksburg, VA. p. 11. Archived from the original on 14 December 2012.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
