On the Science Question I Don't Know How to Answer

I caught Jenny in conversation with a friend the other day about whether or not she was a social scientist. Asked to give a definition of what made a social scientist, I offered the flip, She uses numbers. Not terribly satisfying, and I seem to remember the conversation leaving us at an impasse.

Donna Haraway doesn't help us get extricate ourselves, but she does write this (from 'Situated Knowledges'):

So science becomes the paradigmatic model not of closure, but of what which is contestable and contested. Science becomes the myth not of what escapes human agency and responsibility in a realm above the fray, but rather of the accountability and responsibility for translations and solidarities linking the cacophonous visions and visionary voices that characterize the knowledges of the subjugated.

The key moment in a scientific project, then, becomes that in which science opens up a multitude of explanations, demonstrates not only what is but what is continually coming to be. Perhaps. I'll be honest - that second sentence eludes me, so I'll settle with a small comment: Cacophonous, literally defined, means Ill-sounding, having a harsh or unpleasant sound. To summon up cacophonous visions is something of a contradiction. I'm reminded of this only because I remember Denis making that point in seminar to a colleague of mine, who was a bit nonplussed. Does Haraway know that? She might, suggesting that one might read this as a rhetorical demonstration of precisely the partial and paradoxical projects she's arguing for.

(For a first response to Haraway, see here)