Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line

Abstract

Why is 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 lies downstream, when scientific claims leave laboratories and enter courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms. On such occasions, we use to decide who to believe - cultural maps demarcating 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 really scientific? Is organic farming? After centuries of disputes like these, Gieryn finds no stable criteria that absolutely distinguish 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.

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