Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice

This fascinating study in the sociology of science explores the way scientists conduct, and draw conclusions from, their experiments. The book is organized around three case studies: replication of the TEA-laser, detecting gravitational rotation, and some experiments in the paranormal.

"It is central to the canon of the highly influential 'sociology of scientific knowledge' tradition that grew up in Britain during the 1970s."--Andrew Pickering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"In his superb book, Collins shows why the quest for certainty is disappointed. He shows that standards of replication are, of course, social, and that there is consequently no outside standard, no Archimedean point beyond society from which we can lever the intellects of our fellows."--Donald M. McCloskey, "Journal of Economic Psychology"

"Collins has written, in sum, a masterful, amusing book, showing on the ground how the society of science argues, showing that replication works, but only the way other human institutions work, by agreement. Scientific knowledge, he shows, is social."--Donald M. McCloskey H. M. Collins is the director of the Science Studies Unit at the University of Bath.