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The Invention of Science

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Julia Loughlin

Syracuse University, NY

Social and cultural studies of science revolutionized our understanding of science during the last quarter of the 20th century. This achievement has been accomplished in the face of great resistance and at great cost to the critics and theorists of science. In this paper, we explore some of the reasons for the resistance to and costs of analyzing science as a social fact. At the same time, we try to regain some of the momentum science studies achieved in the 1960s and 1970s. Our approach is to consider the consequences of bringing science into the dialogue on orientalism and occidentalism. We discuss the invention of science in terms of the traditions against or in opposition to which it was invented. Science, no matter how we define it, is intertwined with the industrial, and military technologies that grounded European movement into and around the world. Social theory is not only a route to critique and theory in science studies, but also a route for saving science as an intellectual enterprise.

Key Words: colonialism • occidentalism • orientalism • science • science studies

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