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Article: The science wars.(objectivity and political influence on scientists)
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- April 21, 1997
- Author:
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How much is research influenced by political and social fashions? An important debate is making scientists re-examine their assumptions of objectivity.
SCIENTISTS WORSHIP AT THE shrine of objectivity, but even the pious occasionally lapse. A century ago archeologists who discovered the great stone ruins of Zimbabwe went through all sorts of contortions to prove that the magnificent oval palace and other structures were built by the Phoenicians of King Solomon's time--or by anyone other than the ancestors of the Bantus. In the 1960s biologists studying conception described the "whiplashlike motion and strong lurches" of sperm "delivering" genes required to ...