ScienceWhat qualifies such seemingly disparate disciplines as paleontology, high-energy physics, industrial chemistry and genetic engineering as "sciences," and hence worthy of sustained public interest and support? In this innovative and controversial introduction to the social character of scientific knowledge, Steve Fuller argues that if these disciplines share anything at all, it is more likely to be the way they strategically misinterpret their own history than any privileged access to the nature of reality. The book features a report written in the persons of a Martian anthropologist who systematically compares religious and scientific institutions on earth, only to find that science does not necessarily live up to its own ideals of rationality. |
Contents
The Sociological Peculiarity of the Natural Sciences | 12 |
Some Exercises | 24 |
A Lost Martian Chronicle | 40 |
Copyright | |
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academic Al-Ghazali Averroës become believe Big Science citation cited civilization claims conception contrast critical culture Democracy democratic difference disciplinary disciplines economic elite enabled Enlightenment epistemic especially Europe European experimental explain fields form of knowledge Fuller Greek history of science human idea increasingly industrial innovations inquiry intellectual interest Islam Japan Japanese journals Kuhn laboratory ledge Martians Merton's modern Muslim natural sciences Needham Newtonian mechanics nineteenth century norms one's Oriental overdeterminationist past perspective philosophical physicists physics political practice production pursuit Qur'an rationality reality regarded relevant religion religious rhetoric science policy science's scientific knowledge Scientific Revolution scientists sense Shen Kua simply social epistemology social sciences society sociology sociology of science specific standard Steve Fuller strategy tendency theories Thomas Kuhn tific tion trajectory Truth doctrine turn typically understanding of science West West's Western science world-systems theory