Laboratory Notebooks: Can the Daily Record Illuminate the Broader Picture?

Examined is the extent to which research in the history of science should rely on actual scientific experimentation as recorded in scientific notebooks, rather than on the social & institutional contexts of scientific production. It is maintained that to reconstruct creative scientific activity, historians need not isolate specific moments of scientific insight, but rather, should trace interwoven patterns of thought, observation, & experimentation. One way to do this is through the use of laboratory notebooks; illustrative excerpts from the notebooks of Claude Bernard & Hans Krebs are provided. It is concluded that the history of science can benefit by relying more heavily on scientific notebooks to reveal the nature of scientific practice, the process of discovery, & the processes by which scientific knowledge is constructed. 3 Figures. W. Howard