The customization of science: An introduction to the debate

Abstract

The core idea discussed in this book is the thesis that science today is becoming increasingly customized in various ways, whether it be to fit the economic interests, the political ideologies, or the religious or antireligious convictions of different institutions and groups in society; and that, owing to this development, people’s conception of science is changing. It is not just that science customizes us, changing our ideas about nature, society, and ourselves; we customize science in return, and increasingly so. There is two-way traffic, rather than a one-way street, and this needs to be taken into account in our theories about science, and about how it relates to society as a whole.