Hi Denise, I didn't deny that "science" has a material referent, and certainly didn't deny that there is a tangible referent to the term "material world." Indeed, I don't know of any social constructionist who would do so, despite the army of objectivists who busily construct straw social constructionists who do do so. What I did do was claim that whatever material thing or set of material practices we conjure in our heads or reference by the term "science" is something whose boundaries have been set by people rhetorically struggling over the use of the term. As an extension, I would also claim that the realm of things and concepts to which we apply any term is shaped by the discourses in which we use each term, and that those discourses--even scientific ones--can be politically fraught. Consider past discourses about "phlogiston" or current discourses about "fibromyalgia." However, I don't claim that the use of every term is politically fraught--political wrangling is not the only process by which meanings and things are socially constructed. Further, and more importantly, to the contrary of Hobbes, I claim that politics and science are not polar opposites. Indeed, if one's use of a term leads to a culturally valued result (like the building of a significantly more steady bridge), then one's political stock within science (as understood to this point) will often (though not always) rise, albeit often only after a great deal of resistance from the scientific establishment (e.g., the establishment's resistance to Einstein's unique use of the terms "mass," "energy," "time," "space," etc. both individually and in concert). That is, the politics of science, as that has been variously constructed in our society, has till now actually led, however spasmodically, to scientific "progress." Whatever the case, I also claimed that a lot of variable analytic social scientists have a funny way of constructing the referent of the term "science"--they often do so by limiting the referent to variable analytic studies, despite the fact that those "scientists" they look up to--physicists, etc.--do not construct the referent of science thus. --Christian Nelson On Jan 16, 2008, at 6:39 PM, Denise N. Rall wrote:
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