Alex WellersteinVerified account

And indeed, with quantum physics in particular, its pioneers were VERY aware of this. N. Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation based on this.

Are there "errors in translation"? Sure — all the time. Science is largely the process of figuring those out, where our understanding lacks.

What this means is that our understanding of these truths is always tentative. In other words, always partial, always human.

This is where talking about social constructs is more useful than talking about "discovering truths."

It reminds us that if we want to understand why some communities find truths that seem to endure, and others don't, there is a reason.

It reminds us that to create, convince, maintain truths requires an entire social apparatus. What we call "the scientific community."

What it does not do is say, "scientific facts are arbitrary." That is not what social construction means.

It is unfortunate that many people think it means that. I suspect most have not read the works they claim to criticize.

Which is ironically not very scientific! /thread

One last little thing: here's another way to think about it. Are nuclear weapons themselves social constructs?

In the sense meant by social construction, yes. They are created by society, by social practices. They certainly don't just grow on trees.

They are made to satisfy certain social goals, of certain societies. Over time, those goals have shifted a bit—hence the weapons have, too.

Their creation, deployment, and use are all dictated by social practices. And indeed, the weapons themselves may dictate some practices—

for example, they tend to require secrecy in the organizations that create them.

Does that make the weapons not real? Of course not. They're real. Society making something doesn't make it non-real.

Money is a social construct — but you still have to pay the bills.

Race is a social construct — a fact that won't help you if you're an African-American in a dodgy traffic stop.