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Dear Colleagues, I’m afraid we have had to cancel tomorrow’s (Wednesday 27January) London PUS seminar, due to unforeseen circumstances. Our apologies to everyone who was planning tocome. The next seminar will be at 4.15pm on Wednesday24th February 2016, in room QUE3 28/29 at LSE and we are delighted to announce that ourspeaker will be Professor Martin Bauerfrom LSE, talking about ‘Atoms, Bytes and Genes – Public Resistance andTechnoScientific responses’. Hisabstract is below and more details are on our website. Subsequent seminars will be on 16thMarch and 25th May 2016. Details of speakers to follow. Hope to see you in February. Best wishes Jane Gregory Martin Bauer Simon Lock Melanie Smallman 4.15pm,Wednesday 24th February 2016, Room QUE3 28/29, LSE ProfessorMartin Bauer, LSE: ‘Atoms, Bytes and Genes – Public Resistance andTechnoScientific responses’. MartinBauer will present and discuss the key theoretical ideas of his recent books ‘Resistance– and the Practice of Rationality (Cambridge, Scholars, 2013) and ‘Atoms,Bytes & Genes – public resistance and techno-scientific responses (NY,Routledge, 2015). Tarde (1890) had influentially argued that creativity andinvention have none or little regularity, while the diffusion of new ideas andpractices follows the ’laws of imitation’. This influential idea ofmindless-but-lawful imitation remains influential in the model of diffusion ofinnovation and the linear model of science -> engineering -> marketing.He will argue that the logistic-sigmoid model of diffusion with the tippingpoint (maybe at 50%) is a special case, namely when there is no resistance inthe process; a very rare case which begs the question: why does the dog notbark (as in Sherlock Holme’s story)? Why is there no resistance? More commonare efforts of mobilisation for change processes that encounter resistance, andthen we must ask: what does resistance contribute to the process? He will arguethat the functions of resistance are analogous to pain in relation to everydayactivity: focussing attention where needed; enhancing the ‘bodily self-image’,evaluating on-going mobilisation and urging strategic adaptation andalterations to the plan. His pain model of resistance is a more realisticaccount of the innovation process. He will illustrate the points madewith observations on the development biotechnology in Brazil, US and Europesince the 1990 and its impact.