Journal ArticleDOI
Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists
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TLDR
The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities is an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists and is examined as a practical problem for scientists in this article, where a set of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied.Abstract:
The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways.read more
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The Role of Science in Environmental Regimes: The Case of LRTAP
Rolf Lidskog,Göran Sundqvist +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the role of science in environmental regimes, focusing on three key findings of the sociology of scientific knowledge, namely that knowledge never moves freely, that the value of science is the result of negotiations and that science and policy are co-produced.
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The Crisis in Crisis
TL;DR: The authors argue that crisis has become a counter-revolutionary idiom in the twenty-first century, a means of stabilizing an existing condition rather than minimizing forms of violence across militarism, economy, and the environment.
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PERSPECTIVE—Relaxing the Taboo on Telling Our Own Stories: Upholding Professional Distance and Personal Involvement
TL;DR: The authors argue that the taboo against telling our own stories stems in part from an epistemological misunderstanding, and that the two dimensions should not be conceptualized as opposite ends of a continuum.
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When scientists turn to the public: alternative routes in science communication
TL;DR: The authors argue that both the traditional normative models and the more refined (continuity) models of public communication of science fail to account adequately for cases of deviation, i.e. deviations from the norm.
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Crossing Boundaries Social Science in the Policy Room
TL;DR: The authors discusses the relationship between deconstructivist method in science and technology studies (STS) and the more recent moves towards a reconstructivist engagement with science and science policy making, and identifies three forms of engagement and their relative utility and limitations.
References
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TL;DR: The INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ Books files are available at the online library of the University of Southern California as mentioned in this paper, where they can be used to find any kind of Books for reading.
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TL;DR: In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. as mentioned in this paper presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.
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Labor and Monopoly Capital
TL;DR: In this paper, the structure of the working class and the manner in which it had changed in the United States were investigated. But the details of this process, especially its historical turning points and the shape of the new employment that was taking the place of the old, were not clear to me, and since these things had not yet been clarified in any comprehensive fashion, there was a need for a more substantial historical description and analysis of the process of occupational change than had yet been presented in print.