The Fate of Knowledge

当代公众对科学的讨论在不加批判的奉承和彻底的拒绝之间摇摆不定。这两种态度都不适合像我们这样的社会，因为我们的社会深受科学的智力发展和技术成就的影响。科学的社会和文化研究学者是最新的科学与社会之间的调解，他们认为科学是渗透的，并显著地受到社会和文化利益的影响。他们进一步认为，推理和观察的哲学概念对理解科学实践没有任何影响。这样的争论使得非科学家无法区分合格与不合格、可信与有争议的科学。PI拒绝社会和认知之间的二分法，这种二分法是社会建构主义者和他们的哲学对手的基础。相反，她发展了一种对科学探究的分析，既承认探究的社会维度，又为传统上哲学家们所关注的规范性和规范性问题留出了空间。她的工作将通过对两个研究领域的科学论文进行详细分析，从而得出一本书，该书将检查科学中的争议和不统一对我们对科学探究本质的概念的影响。

Contemporary public discussion of the sciences oscillates between uncritical adulation and sweeping rejection. Neither of these attitudes is appropriate for societies such as ours, which are profoundly affected by the sciences' intellectual development and technological achievements. Scholars in the social and cultural studies of science, the latest to mediate between science and society, have argued that the sciences are permeated and significantly shaped by social and cultural interests. They further argue that philosophical conceptions of reasoning and observation have no bearing on understanding scientific practice. Such arguments leave nonscientists unable to differentiate between competent and incompetent, credible and disputable, science. The PI rejects the dichotomy between the social and the cognitive that underlies both social constructivists and their philosophical opponents. Instead, she develops an analysis of scientific inquiry that both acknowledges the social dimensions of inquiry and keeps room for the normative and prescriptive concerns that have been the traditional preoccupation of philosophers. Her work will proceed through a detailed analysis of scientific papers in two areas of research, leading to a book that will examine the consequences of controversy and disunity in science for our conception of the nature of scientific inquiry.