Abstract
A central focus of recent work in the social and cultural studies of science and technology (SCSST for short) has been to show how modern sciences have been constituted by their practices and cultures, not just externally enabled by them in ways that leave no marks on their cognitive cores.1 They are local knowledge systems or, in other words, “ethno-sciences.” Most of these authors have insisted on abandoning claims to universality, objectivity and rationality for modern sciences since such claims are themselves only socially established. To put the point another way, since the perception of scientific claims as universal, objective and rational is itself locally constructed and not an internal, trans-cultural feature of any truly scientific processes, any appeal to such notions should carry no more authority than the claims can command on other grounds.
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Harding, S. (1997). Is Modern Science an Ethno-Science? Rethinking Epistemological Assumptions. In: Shinn, T., Spaapen, J., Krishna, V. (eds) Science and Technology in a Developing World. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2948-2_2
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