A Textbook Case Revisited

Latour’s two main points of focus in “A Textbook Case Revisited- Knowledge as a Mode of Existence”, seem to be knowledge, perception, and time. He begins with the example of an exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History on the evolution of horses. It displayed not only the horses as they evolved over time, but also the progression of scientific theory about these horses as they changed over time. This gives some history to the science, which he seems to think is difficult and not done frequently enough.
He brings up the issue of the timeline of these ideas, regarding the linear vs. non-linear. The course of science is not a linear progression towards an increasingly accurate truth. Instead it is something that moves back and forth between various theories that have developed. This is a frightening to show the viewer of an exhibition, because it calls into question the assumption that we are closer now to the truth about science than we have ever been.
Latour also brings up the important difference between “ideas” and “facts”. Many things in science that are taken as facts, may simply be ideas, or a certain mode of interpretation that will later change. There is also the problem that the object or artifact being analyzed, is not really moving through time. It remains static in itself, and only our representations of it are moving.
Ultimately Latour says that we are asking something of science that it can never really provide, ultimate truth or unquestionable fact.