Confronting Nature

Explanation and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.- Strategic Research Sites for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.- Experiment and Evidential Context: Their Early History and Background.- Experiment and Evidential Context — Funding the Link.- Consolidating the Link.- The Reception of Davis’s Results — When is a Contradiction Not a Contradiction?.- The Interpretative Flexibility of Evidential Contexts.- Conclusion — Evidential Contexts and Social Contexts.

`Is science a social construction as Pinch maintains? Of course it is, because it constructed by scientists. But as Pinch's study demonstrates, it is constructed from experimental evidence, rational discussion and criticism, and the inventiveness of scientists.'
British Journal for History of Science
`...he (Pinch) has produced an important book which will be useful to historians of science, who will find a sentive and detailed history of an important episode of modern science who want to find a common ground to discuss the hypothetical specificity of sience vis-a-vis others cultural activities.'
Science, 235
`This is a much more readable account than normal in texts on the sociology of science, and its attention to historical detail is commendable.'
Physics Bulletin (1987)
`This book is a very welcome contribution to the sociology and the contemporary history of science.'
Sociology, 23:3 (1989)