What Ever Happened to the Anthropology of Science? From the Science Wars to the Post-Truth Era

The anthropology of science emerged in the 1980s as a critique of science and technocracy, exposing the social construction of scientific facts and their role in reinforcing ideologies such as capitalism, racism, and gender inequality. This project positioned anthropologists as challengers of scientific authority, culminating in the science wars of the 1990s. By the 2000s, the political landscape shifted as climate skeptics appropriated social constructionist arguments. In response, some anthropologists adopted neorealist epistemologies that view scientific facts as constructed but real, enabling collaborations with scientists but also generating new conflicts. This review argues that in the post-truth era, the anthropology of science has struggled to reconcile its critical origins with a defense of scientific authority. These normative agendas aside, we need close-up ethnographic observation of scientific practice more than ever to understand what comes after the “knowledge societies” from which the anthropology of science had been born some 40 years ago.