Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line (Paperback)
$34.31 - Save $0.69 (1%) - RRP $35.00 Free shipping worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for Cultural Boundaries of Science An investigation of the boundaries of science. Gieryn argues that when scientific claims reach courtrooms, boardrooms and living rooms, we use cultural 'maps' to decide whom to believe and to demarcate science from ideology, faith or nonsense. He argues that there are no stable criteria to distinguish science from non-science.
Full description- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Published: 05 February 1999
- Format: Paperback 376 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Anthropology | Philosophy Of Science
- ISBN 13: 9780226292625 ISBN 10: 0226292622
- Sales rank: 841,171
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Full description for Cultural Boundaries of Science
Why is science so credible? Usual answers centre on scientists' objective methods or their powerful instruments. This text argues that a better explanation for the cultural authority of science lies downstream, when scientific claims leave laboratories and enter courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms. On such occasions, we use "maps" to decide who to believe - cultural maps demarcating "science" from pseudoscience, ideology, faith, or nonsense. Thomas F. Gieryn looks at episodes of boundary-work: Was phrenology good science? How about cold fusion? Is social science really scientific? Is organic farming? After centuries of disputes like these, Gieryn finds no stable criteria that absolutely distinguish science from non-science. Science remains a pliable cultural space, flexibly reshaped to claim credibility for some beliefs while denying it to others. In an epilogue, Gieryn finds this same controversy at the heart of the raging "science wars".
