Skip Nav Destination
Close Modal
Update search
NARROW
Format
Journal
TocHeadingTitle
Date
Availability
1-1 of 1
Sophie Ritson
Close
Follow your search
Access your saved searches in your account
Would you like to receive an alert when new items match your search?
Sort by
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Perspectives on Science (2015) 23 (2): 192–227.
Published: 01 April 2015
Abstract
View articletitled, Contested Boundaries: The String Theory Debates and Ideologies of Science
View
PDF
for article titled, Contested Boundaries: The String Theory Debates and Ideologies of Science
Over the last three decades, physicists have engaged in, sometimes heated, debates about relative merits and prospects of string theory as a viable research program and even about its status as a science. The aim of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of this controversy as a particular form of boundary discourse. Drawing on the sociological work of Thomas Gieryn and Lawrence Prelli, we bring to light the way in which protagonists appeal to, and rhetorically construct, different views about the scientific method and the scientific ethos , in an effort to legitimize or delegitimize string theory.