Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line - Hardcover

Gieryn, Thomas F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226292614 ISBN 13: 9780226292618

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 1999

Über diesen Titel

Reseña del editor

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".

Biografía del autor

Thomas F. Gieryn is professor of sociology at Indiana University. He is the editor of three books, most recently of Theories of Science in Society.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0226292614
• ISBN 13: 9780226292618
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 412