Naked Science is about contested domains and includes different science cultures: physics, molecular biology, primatology, immunology, ecology, medical environmental, mathematical and navigational domains. While the volume rests on the assumption that science is not autonomous, the book is distinguished by its global perspective. Examining knowledge systems within a planetary frame forces thinking about boundaries that silence or affect knowledge-building. Consideration of ethnoscience and technoscience research within a common framework is overdue for raising questions about deeply held beliefs and assumptions we all carry about scientific knowledge. We need a perspective on how to regard different science traditions because public controversies should not be about a glorified science or a despicable science.
This is a collection of essays on different science traditions by scholars in the social sciences. The contributors demystify formal, Western science and encourage readers to "think of science in the plural and in lower-case". Anthropologists have tended to demarcate science as a domain that is separate from indigenous systems of knowledge. By drawing these boundaries, anthropologists have priviledged science and increased its power. The value of pulling together these different papers is that when science is viewed cross-culturally it becomes one of many knowledge traditions. The book covers different science cultures: physics, molecular biology, primatology, and ecology.