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Collins and Pinch are the sort of sociologists that I have been criticizing so harshly. As an example, they talk on p. 2 about "the invention of germs." That is bizarre. If germs were "invented" when they say they were, then the Black Plague was not caused by germs (since they hadn't been invented yet) and the disease, which is still with us, known as Bubonic Plague, which we have learned to control very effectively isn't the same disease, and so the fact that the Black Plague was controlled by the same methods, and the fact that the germ was isolated from people with the same symptoms and etiology of disease are all just coincidences.
So, why am I using their book? First of all, they have a pretty mild case of social constructivism. Second, and this is the main thing, if you want to know what it is like to do science in the social and laboratory context in which it is done, the only people who try to find out are sociologists, and (the symmetry principle) they are just as interested in failures as successes, which is important to get a balanced picture.
