] "Helen Longino has written a timely book that fills a
] critical gap in the existing literature between
] philosophy of science and the social studies of science.
] Her exposition of scientific inquiry as a context-laden
] process provides the conceptual tools we need to
] understand how social expectations shape the development
] of science while at the same time recognizing the
] dependence of scientific inquiry on its interactions with
] natural phenomena. This is an important book precisely
] because there is none other quite like it." --Evelyn Fox
] Keller, author of "Reflections on Gender and Science"
] Conventional wisdom has it that the sciences, properly
] pursued, constitute a pure, value-free method of
] obtaining knowledge about the natural world. In light of
] the social and normative dimensions of many scientific
] debates, Helen Longino finds that general accounts of
] scientific methodology cannot support this common belief.
] Focusing on the notion of evidence, the author argues
] that a methodology powerful enough to account for
] theories of any scope and depth is incapable of ruling
] out the influence of social and cultural values in the
] very structuring of knowledge. The objectivity of
] scientific inquiry can nevertheless be maintained, she
] proposes, by understanding scientific inquiry as a social
] rather than an individual process. Seeking to open a
] dialogue between"

This is the first of many books assigned for my psych/phil class on "Science versus Pseudoscience". I read the first chapter tonight, and found that my interest was so peaked that I paced around my apt. for an hour after finishing it. I figured it may be of interest to some people here, so I decided to meme it