What makes biomedical knowledge specific, sensitive, reliable, or valid? How have biomedical scientists used these evaluative categories in practice throughout the twentieth century? Inspired by these questions the members of the Research Group have designed a diverse format double session for the bianniaul meeting of the International Society for the History Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, to explore questions of validity from within and beyond the epistemic boundaries of their disciplinary approaches.

The first session, centered around investigating concepts of “validity” and their impact, aims first, to interrogate the history, philosophy, and social nature of validity and to identify what can be learned by the diverse findings from one biomedical science to the next. Secondly, to enrich the understanding of the role of validity in the biomedical sciences across the disciplinary boundaries of historical actors.

A moderated round table discussion will probe the concerns that gave rise to validity and how validity coordinates knowledge through scientific, institutional, and administrative practices in a crossdisciplinary perspective.

The second session builds on the first, to investigate the methods and perspectives that have contributed to their analyses of validity in biomedicine in a metalevel perspective. The members of the Research Group address various ways of tracking and tracing the concept of validity and reflect on how analytic perspectives and forms of collective research bridge the individual disciplinary domains within the research group. A brief overview of research designs and methods is followed by a moderated panel discussion. The second session will be delivered in a workshop style to consider emerging and ongoing epistemic and ethical issues that arise from studying validity in the biomedical sciences.