Yes Christian, I couldn't agree more about the boundary work. But when I hope that the bridge will stay up, and the airplane will stay in the sky, I want the scientific method. That limits the domain of understanding considerably, but for material processes, I am more than happy to make the exception. That doesn't lessen the political burdens, but perhaps puts a box around it. It's our job as social scientists to make sure it's not a black one. Ok, that's me done. Cheers, Denise --- Christian Nelson <xianknelson@mac.com> wrote:
aren't always that useful for describing science, often because they are really created to perform political "boundary work" that denies some people the scarce resources available to "scientists" (whatever they are) by such entities as universities, grant agencies, etc.
Denise N. Rall, PhD Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html Make the switch to the world's best email. Get the new Yahoo!7 Mail now. www.yahoo7.com.au/worldsbestemail