Like other human practices, scientific activity is governed by rules, but these rules have varied across time and contexts of scientific practice. How can we think of science as rule-governed when the rules are unstable? What makes any one rule for scientific conduct more appealing than another?
Steven Shapin is Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. He joined Harvard in 2004 after previous appointments as Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and at the Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University.
Free and open to the public. Reception following.
This lecture is made possible by support from the Templeton Religion Trust and the John J. Reilly Center.
Originally published at ctshf.nd.edu.