I should teach the world that science strives towards providing an objective analysis of the material world, but science also reflects the dominant values of the society it emerges from.

In an optimistic age, scientific discoveries were driven by the aspiration and the demand for broader social transformation. In our pessimistic age, science is merely used to provide shallow empirical evidence, to confirm predetermined outlooks. Hence understanding the supposed scientific method, without appreciating the driving role of social context, is both limited and limiting.

Bill Durodié is author of Poisonous Dummies: European Risk Regulation After BSE (download this book (.pdf 679 KB)), and a contributor to Science: Can We Trust the Experts? (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)).