Science and Exploding Frogs

The idea that science can be understood in terms derived from social, cultural and literary theory is of course a mistake.

Science is both cultural (what isn’t) and social (what isn’t). However, what is distinctive about science is its counter-cultural nature; its desire not for consensus and collective harmony but rather for dissensus and shock; specifically, to the attempt to shock by exploding frogs, burning insects and making strange gadgets. It is this that makes science fundamentally destabilising of extant culture.

Neil Turnbull