ISBN: 0816631255

A surprising examination of our understanding of science. Science is a swashbuckling book. Fuller's formidable scholarship takes no prisoners. Nature What qualifies such seemingly dispara… More...

A surprising examination of our understanding of science. Science is a swashbuckling book. Fuller's formidable scholarship takes no prisoners. Nature What 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 the way they strategically misinterpret their own history rather than any privileged access to the nature of reality. Science features a report written in the persona 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. Fuller highlights science's multicultural nature through a discussion of episodes in which the West's own perception of science has been decisively affected by its encounters with islam and Japan. Through this analysis we come to understand that science's most attractive feature -- its openness to criticism -- is threatened by the role it increasingly plays in the maintenance of social and economic order. education and reference,history and philosophy,philosophy,politics and social sciences,popular culture,science and math,social philosophy,social sciences,sociology Philosophy, Univ Of Minnesota Press<

ISBN: 9780816631254

Univ Of Minnesota Press. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possib… More...

Univ Of Minnesota Press. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possible ex library copy, will have the markings and stickers associated from the library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included., Univ Of Minnesota Press<