New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies

by Steve Fuller

Overview

Steve Fuller has a reputation for setting the terms of debate within science and technology studies. In his latest book, New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies he charts the debates likely to be of relevance in the coming years.

• Should science and technology be treated as separate entities?
• What impact has globalization had on science and technology?
• Can science be clearly distinguished from other forms of knowledge?
• Does the politicization of science really matter?
• Is there a role for the social regulation of scientific inquiry?
• Should we be worried about research fraud?

These questions are explored by examining an array of historical, philosophical and contemporary sources. Attention is paid, for example, to the Bruno Latour's The Politics of Nature as a model for science policy, as well as the global controversy surrounding Bjorn Lomborg's The Sceptical Environmentalist, which led to the dismantling and re-establishment of the Danish national research ethics board.

New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies will appeal strongly to scholars and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses concerned with the social dimensions of science and technology, and anyone who cares about the future of science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745636948
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	10/01/2007
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Boxes vi

Introduction 1

Part I: The Demarcation Problem 9

1 Science's Need for Revolution 11

2 Science's Need for Unity 53

Part II: The Democratization Problem 83

3 Contrasting Visions 85

4 The Politics of Science Journalism 128

5 So-called Research Ethics 145

Part III: The Transformation Problem 179

6 The Future of Humanity 181

7 The Future of Science and Technology Studies 205

Bibliography 218

Index 230

Editorial Reviews

As the leading STS intellectual provocateur, Steve Fuller’s encyclopedic range keeps astounding novices and professionals alike. The book is detailed, analytic, critical, and friendly all at the same time. Fuller himself has been an active participant, and at times an instigator, of some of the most fascinating debates in this domain of research and practice –this survey brings out some of his own novel ideas and approaches. In the end, Fuller remains firmly in the liberal-democratic camp, with a utopian dream of knowledge integration, and reaches a deep appreciation of the significant contribution of science to contemporary culture.”

Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

“Fuller provides a scintillating critique of the fashionable actor network theory and other anti-humanist projects that, their claims to the contrary notwithstanding, threaten to derail the critical and democratic potential of STS. His insightful and lively diagnosis of the past and the present state of the field enables him to formulate an exciting and politically engaged agenda for STS.”

Zaheer Baber, University of Toronto

“In recognition of the great changes in science in last two decades, STS has become focused on technoscience and regulatory science and the new institutional realities of science. What has been lost sight of, Fuller points out, are some other topics that have changed along with this change: the public justification and face of science, the ways in which science understands the problem of the unity of knowledge, new meanings of old concepts, such as fraud and consensus, and demands to democraitze knowledge. With an eye to the grand figures of the past, he restates the big issues for the present – a much needed effort.”

Stephen Turner, University of South Florida

From the Publisher