Science for People (was Re: language)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Hi Kelley & Sam:
>>You might want to distinguish between a scientific theory and the uses to
>>which it is put.
>
>why might i want to do this.  there is a conceptual connection, not an
>accidental one, between an epistemological position which shapes how social
>research is conducted and the political practices (uses to which it is put)
>which are engaged in the name of that research.

Why do we want to make at least a conceptual if provisional distinction
between 'a scientific theory and the uses to which it is put'? Because as
marxists and feminists, we must be interested in not only what sorts of
ontology and epistemology that (philosophies of) sciences presuppose (and
criticizing ideology therein) but also _doing_ science, as practicing
scientists, for we would like to appropriate for the working class both
emancipatory processes and results of science. Science studies may be
better developed if we criticize the existing modes of doing science in
such a manner that better scientific inquiries become possible as a result
of our endeavor. (And many people who study science are doing so already,
unlocking the metaphorical locks that ideology places on science, for
instance, as Stephen Jay Gould & Ruth Hubbard have.)

Yoshie