Steve Fuller's social epistemology aims to integrate the philosophy of science and sociology of science, and to enhance the ability of these disciplines to contribute to science policy. While applauding the re?vitalizing energy of the enterprise, a sociological perspective requires attention to four key aspects of the programme. First, the character of interdisciplinarity requires careful specification, lest the critical dynamic of social studies of science be compromised by calls to pluralism. Second, social epistemology can and should transcend the traditional epistemological (...) attribution of positions ('positionism') to protagonists. Third, the argumentative dynamic of social studies of science, which enables the successive reconceptualization of ?epistemic? matters, suggests some problems for social epistemology's use of ?sociological results?. Finally, social epistemology requires a more sociologically informed understanding of what in practice counts as normative research, since the current programme trades upon unexamined conceptions of policy audience. (shrink)

Does Allan Franklin’s study of atomic parity-violation experiments provide convincing evidence against social constructivism? According to Franklin (1990a, p. 2), “when questions of theory choice, confirmation, or refutation are raised they are answered on the basis of valid experimental evidence… [and] there are good reasons for belief in the validity of that evidence.” Franklin asserts that social constructivists take the opposite position: “They would say that it is not the experimental results, but rather the social and/or cognitive interests of the (...) scientists, that must be used in the explanation.” Having set up the contrasting positions, he then asks the reader, “which of us is telling the more plausible story?” (Franklin 1990b, p. 163). Consistent with his evidence model, he proposes to discriminate between the two opposed positions by consulting historical evidence. He describes the results of two different sets of experiments on atomic parity-violations, and assesses the extent to which the experimental data match predictions based on the Weinberg-Salam unified theory of electroweak interactions. (shrink)