A01=Thomas F. Gieryn
Author_Thomas F. Gieryn
Category=JHM
Category=PDA
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780226292618
- Weight: 709g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jan 1999
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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".
