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Nature 458, 30 (5 March 2009) | doi:10.1038/458030a; Published online 4 March 2009

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We cannot live by scepticism alone

See associated Correspondence: Kukreja, Nature 459, 321 (May 2009)

Harry Collins1

  1. Harry Collins is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK. He is currently working on a book about tacit and explicit knowledge.
    Email: collinshm@cf.ac.uk

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Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

The term 'science studies' was invented in the 1970s by 'outsiders', such as those from the social sciences and humanities, to describe what they had to say about science. Science studies have been through what my colleagues and I at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, UK, see as two waves.