Customer Reviews

Science as Social Knowledge

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This was one of the required readings for Rice University's Philosophy of Science Spring 2004 class. The following is a brief account of the book by various members of the 40 person class:

PROs: ~ Chapters one through four and chapter ten
~ The discussion of objectivity as a social process in chapter four.
~ The focus on the differences among the various branches of science: hard sciences (physic & chemistry) vs. moderate sciences (psychology) vs. soft sciences (sociology and anthropology)

CONs: ~ Chapters five through nine
~ The writing style (too philosophical, too much time spent discussing other views as opposed to the authors)
~ Too little said about the hard sciences
~ Pushing feminist agenda
~ Critical discussion on scientific studies unpersuasive

Despite the CONs the professor (a philosophy professor with a specialization in logic) still believes that, in comparison to other books on similar topics, this one does the best job of presenting the material. The class was a little more skeptical and recommends to future readers to focus on chapters one through four and ten and pay little attention to the remainder.