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I can only subscribe to Wade Hands' conclusion that we need to be clear 
what  
SSK is and what it is not, and like to contribute a bit towards that 
direction. 
 
a) Wade suggests that "SSK is less radical when applied to a social science 
like  
economics than when applied to natural science" because the referents of  
economic theories are social rather than natural. 
 
It seems to me that SSK is the more radical the 'harder' is the knowledge 
which it  
takes as its subject matter. One of the harder areas is certainly 
mathematics  
and logic, and at least the 'strong programme' in SSK has paid particular  
attention to these fields. Given the role of formalistic reasoning in 
economics  
the impact of SSK could be as radical (think of the Arrow-Debreu existence  
proofs) 
 
b) although perhaps not that widely known, Barry Barnes and David Bloor are 
committed realists (see Barnes 1988 The Nature of Power, and the graduate  
textbook Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis, by Barnes, Bloor 
and  
Henry 1996), while much of SSK in general appears to be rather hostile to a 
realist position. 
 
A vital distinction  here is between scientific knowledge being 
UNdetermined and  
UNDERdetermined by nature. 
 
c) One commentator pointed to an alleged lack of willingness of SSK to 
apply  
its methods to itself. Well, a PhD student will be working on just that 
here in  
the Science Studies Unit in a couple of months, if all goes well. 
 
Matthias Klaes 
 
__________________________________________________ 
Science Studies Unit              [log in to unmask] 
University of Edinburgh     Fax (+44) 131/650 6886 
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