Systematics as Cyberscience: Computers, Change, and Continuity in Science

by Christine Hine
The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008
320 pp., illus. 12 b/w. Trade, $35.00
ISBN: 0-262-08371-X.

Reviewed by Amy Ione
Director, The Diatrope Institute

ione@diatrope.com

I was drawn to Christine Hine’s Systematics as Cyberscience: Computers, Change, and Continuity in Science because the synopsis of the book suggested it was a study of the ways that biologists working in this field have engaged with new technologies as the field sustained its heritage and changed to accommodate new possibilities. While some information about research techniques and practices was included, I was disappointed to find that the book’s concern was not with the practices that advance the field but, rather, the dynamics of the community as its tools change. More to the point, as Hine acknowledges in the final pages, the project paid “less attention to the detail of scientific practice and more to the varied sites in which the discipline [systematics] was manifested” (p. 260). As a result, in my view, Hine missed a real opportunity to educate the public in a meaningful sense about a field that is increasingly a part of the current ecological debates. In focusing on the discipline as a community, rather than on the change and continuity within the scientific practices employed, the book seemed more interested in the field’s veneer than the substance of what the people who drive the field’s accomplishments do.

For those who are not familiar with the term, Systematics is a discipline that focuses on the classification and naming of organisms and the exploration of evolutionary relationships. Interest in this discipline, which we can trace back to ancient thinkers like Aristotle, has recently re-surfaced as ecological analysis has raised concerns about to the diversity of life on the planet Earth, which has in turn renewed our interest in relationships among living things over time. Simultaneously, as is the case in all fields today, systematics is integrating its long established practices with the new field of information and communication technologies (ICTs). How this integration is coming about sociologically is Hine’s concern as she explores the parameters of ICTs as discussed biologists working in systematics. This discussion expands on her earlier book Virtual Ethnography, where she looked at the social dynamics surrounding the Internet in the late 1990s. In investigating how systematics has become a cyberscience, the author employs what she defines as an ethnographically informed style to both question some of the assumptions in current science policy as it relates to systematics and to offer a study that contributes (more broadly) to the sociology of science.

Researchers in systematics will, no doubt, relate to her narrative of the field’s efforts to integrate the new ICT options more than the general reader will. As someone who came to the book with only a vague notion of what systematics is and what systematicists do, I found myself wishing the author had paid more attention to the fact-finding side of the discipline each time she offered nuggets of information that drew on research and the study of specimens. This is not to say that the sociological study is not interesting. Some topics captured my imagination. I was intrigued by her discussion of the idea that virtual settings are both cultural sites in their own right and cultural artifacts subject to ongoing processes of interpretation. I also was fascinated by her discussions on how balancing historical approaches with the introduction of cyberspace created a need to seek a balance between automation and expertise. I also was quite taken with the sections that detailed the difference between material and virtual samples, although I would have liked more information on this topic. The paragraphs where she mentioned what sytematicsts do and/or compared their goals with other branches of science (e.g., genetics) are particularly informative. Indeed, these comparative sections convinced me that the writing would have communicated better to generalists had Hine introduced the field initially and stressed scientific practices more than the sociological aspects of the field. Similarly, a different approach to the examination of the use of computers in science as a topic in policy circles, including the appeal of efficiency, data sharing, and collaboration within the debates might have served her better. As an outsider, I was left with many questions and disappointed to find that parts of the book I found most informative were outside the scope of the study. Some of my questions were as well. For example, I wondered about the connections between systematics and evolutionary theory.

To my mind, the book’s overall organization undermined the depth of its research and background. Hine opens with a quite interesting vignette of her personal history to explain what led her to write what she sees as a somewhat idiosyncratic ethnographic study. I was actually quite enthusiastic about what would follow because she clearly articulated her fascination with the field and that she had looked at it from the inside, as an undergraduate, before stepping into the ethnographic role and adopting a sociological perspective. Her second chapter was intended to flesh out what claims are made for ICTs in science and how we think about technologies more broadly, particularly in terms of policy. Although I assume this discussion was intended to show a broader connectivity among fields, it did not accomplish this goal because the discussion came off more as a literature review intended to place her study within the sociological arena. She really does not offer an in-depth introduction to what “systematics” is until the third chapter (on page 64). By the time the “introduction” showed up, I had already gone online to clarify the term.

The end-result is that Hine’s interest in showing connectivity within the systematics community was so narrowly presented that it the book seems to obscure the actual research within the field. She also seemed to assume the reader was totally naïve of the entry of ICTs into science as a whole. But, it was the narrowly defined assumptions that were perhaps the most striking aspect of this book. These assumptions made the carefully written text seem more academically correct than scientifically robust in a substantive way. Paragraph after paragraph was filled with details and references explaining what was to come and where related discussion could be found; yet, the totality seemed to lack a core. For example, while Hine states that science is not a singular pursuit in terms of how researchers address systematics, and stresses the value in connective research; she writes with a surprising disregard for how much of the “sociology of systematics” as she presents it is a part of all sciences today. For example, she repeatedly refers to the systematics email list, TAXACON, as if it is unique and unusual. I am on many email discussion lists, for all kinds of fields, so I can say that the types of discussion she relates are common as practitioners confront various types of problems/projects. She writes as if she is unaware that all fields have lists like TAXACON. Surely, this is not the case! While I recognize that academic studies earn their credibility by focusing in on narrowly defined parameters; in this case, the “narrowing” process undermined what the book could have accomplished. That a great deal of debate about the impact of the new technologies on systematics research has taken place on mailing lists (in this case TAXACON) strikes me as less “important” than the scientific ramifications of these debates in a larger sense.

In summary, as noted above, I was drawn to the book because it was billed as a study of the ways that biologists working in this field have engaged with new technology. I thought an in-depth account of how one of the oldest branches of has science transformed itself into one of the newest and became a cyberscience would educate me more about systematicist practices. Hine’s use of an ethnographic approach successfully conveys that a virtual culture in systematics has emerged and indicates that this new culture is entwined with the field's existing practices and priorities. The sociological aspect of the work might appeal more to specialist readers in this discipline. Similarly, her examination of the policy perspectives on systematics rather than scientific practices might appeal to others. I, however, found that the book was less effective in conveying how the contemporary outcomes are thoroughly rooted in the heritage of the discipline than in conveying the conversations among practitioners, institutions, and others involved in fact-finding. While Hine does convincingly argue that we need to take account of the many complex and conflicting pressures navigated by contemporary scientists if we are to understand the impact of information and communication technology in science, her presentation only touches upon the relationship between systematicists and contemporary efforts to explain the Earth’s biodiversity. Still, because she does convey that results of technological developments are rarely unambiguous and that they are highly discipline-specific, the book did capture enough about the “systematicist” experience to give me new insights about the sciences of systematics. I am eager to learn more.