Deconstructing Quarks

Abstract

To what considerations is it proper to appeal in explaining how scientific controversies are resolved? Sociologists of science such as Andrew Pickering, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch disparage the view that internal scientific factors afford an answer to this question. Their strategy is to motivate, and then to offer, sociological explanations of cases of scientific enquiry that interest them. We question in turn both their motivating arguments and the sociologically based alternatives they advance. We identify the arguments common to these sociologists, argue that their shared strategy begs the question against epistemological explanation of scientific events, and show that their putative sociological explanations are incapable of accounting, even on their own terms, for the episodes in question. We conclude that distinctively sociological explanation of scientific development remains to be formulated.