Preface to second edition -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Science, culture and society -- In the laboratory -- Scientific knowledge -- History -- Scientists and scientific communities -- Popular science -- Science fiction -- Science in a changing world -- References.

The book addresses key questions of what science is and how it is carried out, what the relationship between science and society is, how science is represented ...

The usual suspects Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9453-9 Authors Mark Erickson, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9PH UK Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

For philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, an outcome of the Plato-led victory of philosophers over poets is the ‘conquest of abundance’ where abstraction replaces the ‘richness of being’. This poignant motif is visible in the project of the social sciences, where theory describes classificatory schemas that can be imposed upon the social world to categorise and, subsequently, explain it. However, Homer’s writings provide a completely different frame of reference. By reimagining ourselves within this work we may be able to rethink (...) and reconfigure our understanding of science, and perhaps even the practice of science. This paper reports on a Feyerabendian ‘experiment’ in sociology of science which attempts to write contemporary scientific production from the frame of reference of Homer. This new methodology leads to fragments of epic poetry which act as a provocation to, and a disruption of, sociology of science and STS and their ways of making sense of science in society. (shrink)

This article examines the role of the Christian, or liturgical, year as one of the simplest yet most powerful ways of spiritually forming people, both individually and corporately, to become more like Jesus. Many Christians and churches are subtly shaped more by the time structures of the average work week or cultural holidays than the life of Christ or the church. The tendency to address individual spiritual formation focuses largely on cognitivist approaches to change or individual formative practices. However, the (...) author explores several ways in which the Christian year offers a wholistic approach to life formation through the steady, time-bound patterns of the Christian year. Engaging both the conscious and unconscious self in cognitive practices and steady habits, both the individual Christian and local congregations are trained toward Christlikeness. (shrink)

History of science is, we are told, an important subject for study. Its rise in recent years to become a ‘stand alone’ discipline has been mirrored by an expansion of popular history of science texts available in bookstores. Given this, it is perhaps surprising that little attention has been given to how history of science is written. This article attempts to do that through constructing a typology of histories of science based upon a consideration of audiences who read these texts (...) and writers who construct them. It identifies four ideal types of history of science which describe the opposite poles of two continua running from exoteric to esoteric. The article also examines the content of a sample of history of science texts and finds that often these texts, whether esoteric or exoteric, provide only a chronology of events (often incredibly detailed), avoiding discussion or even mention of wider social, economic and political contexts. Such histories serve to reinforce a ‘standard’ account of science as ‘separate’ from the rest of society, an account that is at odds with almost all contemporary sociology of science and science and technology studies. This prompts the question: why should I read histories of science? (shrink)

History of science is, we are told, an important subject for study. Its rise in recent years to become a ‘stand alone’ discipline has been mirrored by an expansion of popular history of science texts available in bookstores. Given this, it is perhaps surprising that little attention has been given to how history of science is written. This article attempts to do that through constructing a typology of histories of science based upon a consideration of audiences who read these texts (...) and writers who construct them. It identifies four ideal types of history of science which describe the opposite poles of two continua running from exoteric to esoteric. The article also examines the content of a sample of history of science texts and finds that often these texts, whether esoteric or exoteric, provide only a chronology of events, avoiding discussion or even mention of wider social, economic and political contexts. Such histories serve to reinforce a ‘standard’ account of science as ‘separate’ from the rest of society, an account that is at odds with almost all contemporary sociology of science and science and technology studies. This prompts the question: why should I read histories of science? (shrink)

There are 2,000 hair cells in the cochlea, but only three cones in the retina. This disparity can be understood in terms of the differences between the physical characteristics of the auditory signal (discrete excitations and resonances requiring many narrowly tuned receptors) and those of the visual signal (smooth daylight excitations and reflectances requiring only a few broadly tuned receptors). We argue that this match supports the physicalism of color and timbre.