>What Latour and others are discussing is not the idea that there isn't an external reality, but that what we know about reality is inevitably filtered by our p

>What Latour and others are discussing is not the idea that there isn't an external reality, but that what we know about reality is inevitably filtered by our perception, which includes our social, economic and institutional contexts. It is extremely annoying when people present this is some kind of new groundbreaking idea, when it fact this is the exact observation that lead to creation of the scientific method. The basis of the scientific method is the notion that human perception has quirks, therefore to learn about reality as it really is we need to design system that correct for those quirks. Alan Kay and Neil DeGrasse Tyson have good talks on this subject. Big problems with modern science are not philosophical ones. They stem from institutional structures, incentives and the economy of modern science. Guess what? An institution distorting it own conclusions because of group biases bad economic incentives is not conceptually different from human brain distorting conclusions because of individual biases and instincts. It is something that should and can be handled through better process design. Most scientists do not deny that these problems exist. There are plenty of them who analyze these issues, criticize the current state of affairs and propose actionable solution. Maybe we should listen to them before listening to post-modernists, eh? I am aware of exactly zero positive changes in science that ever resulted from post-modernist critique. Feel free to provide counter-examples.