Cultural Boundaries of Science Credibility on the Line
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Cultural Boundaries of Science Credibility on the Line

SKU: 9780226824420

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Additional information

Full Title

Cultural Boundaries of Science Credibility on the Line
Author(s)

Thomas F. Gieryn
Edition
ISBN

9780226824420, 9780226292618, 9780226292625
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Format

PDF and EPUB

Description

Why is science so credible? Usual answers center on scientists’ objective methods or their powerful instruments. In his new book, Thomas Gieryn 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. 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 a timely epilogue, Gieryn finds this same controversy at the heart of the raging “science wars.”

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