|
|
Article: Science & the promise of democracy in America.
- Article from:
- Daedalus
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The intellectual skirmishes known as the science wars have centered on whether scientific facts and theories are socially constructed. This is, of course, a substantive argument over meaningful issues: the nature of truth, the possibility of objective knowledge, and the proper methodology for scholarly inquiry.
But why in the past decade has debate over this particular set of abstract questions become so acrimonious, so deeply politicized? And why has the debate erupted most stridently in the United States?
Commentators sometimes claim that sociological factors explain the intensity of the conflict, and that this philosophical quarrel gains its emotional ...