Science studies arguments were co-opted by science deniers

Evidence

Entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint, and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives. Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field known as science studies? Is it enough to say that we did not really mean what we said? Why does it burn my tongue to say that global warming is a fact whether you like it or not? Why can’t I simply say that the argument is closed for good? — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 287

Categorization

• QUESTION: Latour’s legacy question about whether sociologists of science bear responsibility for today’s epistemically weaponized skepticism is worth chasing further.
• CANDY: “Why can’t I simply say that the argument is closed for good?” - the insight that intellectual nuance can block urgently needed certainty is compelling elevator-conversation material.
• XREF: connects to: Social constructivists aimed to undermine science’s single privileged perspective. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 252; Questioning science may have been borrowed from postmodernism by right-wing ideologues. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 264