WHAT will 2002 be remembered for? Publication of the mouse genome or the emergence of RNA interference, with all their potential for treating human disease? The solution to the solar neutrino problem? Or as the year that physics lost its innocence?
Ask physicists and they will tell you that their subject is intrinsically trustworthy because it leaves little room for subjective thinking. No matter what question they ask, eventually they hit nature’s bedrock, where the true shape of reality reveals itself.
Not everyone agrees. Some thinkers argue that scientific knowledge depends on social and cultural conditions and is not a…
