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Competition Among Scientific Disciplines in Cold Nuclear Fusion Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

James W. McAllister
James W. McAllister
Affiliation:
Faculteit der WijsbegeerteRijksuniversiteit te Leiden
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Abstract

In the controversy in 1989 over the reported achievement of cold nuclear fusion, parts of the physics and chemistry communities were opposed in both a theoretic and a professional competition. Physicists saw the chemists' announcement as an incursion into territory allocated to their own discipline and strove to restore the interdisciplinary boundaries that had previously held. The events that followed throw light on the manner in which scientists' knowledge claims and metascientific beliefs are affected by their membership of disciplinary communities. In particular, the controversy offers evidence for a constructivist reinterpretation of the “division of nature into levels,” which is customarily held to underpin the division of science into disciplines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 1992 , pp. 17 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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