If models are not innocent, then neither is what sustains them.
We now turn from construal to coordination.
1. The background assumption
Scientific practice is typically treated as neutral ground:
- a set of procedures
- a method for testing hypotheses
- a transparent pathway from observation to knowledge
On this view:
- practice serves meaning
- method guarantees objectivity
- coordination is merely instrumental
But this inherits the same illusion:
that meaning can exist without value.
2. Practice as system
What appears as neutral procedure is, in fact, highly structured:
- protocols define acceptable action
- methodologies prescribe sequences
- standards regulate outcomes
- institutions enforce compliance
These are not meanings.
They are patterns of coordination.
They determine:
- who can participate
- how participation is recognised
- what counts as success or failure
- when a claim is taken as valid
This is not the expression of knowledge.
It is the production of order.
3. Method as norm
“Method” is often invoked as if it were purely logical:
- follow the method
- eliminate bias
- let the data speak
But method does not operate in a vacuum.
It is:
normative coordination, stabilised and naturalised.
- certain procedures are required
- others are excluded
- deviations are sanctioned
4. The choreography of the laboratory
Consider the laboratory:
- instruments calibrated in specific ways
- experiments conducted under controlled conditions
- observations recorded according to standard formats
This is not just technical.
It is choreography.
Bodies, tools, and time are coordinated:
- actions synchronised
- roles distributed
- sequences enforced
Meaning does not organise this.
Value does.
5. Peer review and the regulation of legitimacy
Scientific claims do not become valid simply by being made.
They must pass through:
- peer review
- editorial processes
- disciplinary scrutiny
These are not epistemic filters alone.
They are mechanisms of coordination:
- aligning participants
- stabilising standards
- enforcing boundaries
6. Replication as alignment
Replication is often treated as the gold standard of objectivity:
- if a result can be reproduced, it is real
But replication is not merely verification.
It is:
the successful re-coordination of practice across contexts.
To replicate is to:
- align procedures
- match conditions
- reproduce constraints
When replication fails, it is not simply that truth is absent.
It is that coordination has broken down.
7. Training the scientist
Scientific practice is not intuitively obvious.
It must be learned:
- through education
- through apprenticeship
- through immersion in disciplinary norms
What is transmitted is not just knowledge.
It is:
a way of acting.
- how to design an experiment
- how to interpret results
- how to write a paper
- how to recognise a “good” question
These are not meanings.
They are forms of participation.
8. Neutrality as effect
Despite all this, practice appears neutral.
Why?
Because the coordination is:
- stabilised
- repeated
- institutionally reinforced
Over time, it is no longer seen as coordination.
It becomes:
- method
- rigour
- objectivity
Neutrality is not a property of practice.It is an effect of its successful stabilisation.
9. The disavowal continues
At every point, the same move is made:
- coordination is redescribed as logic
- norm is redescribed as necessity
- alignment is redescribed as truth-seeking
The value system disappears into the background.
What remains is the illusion:
that science operates on meaning alone.
10. The coupling holds
And yet, the structure is the same as before:
- models construe
- practices coordinate
- their relation is stabilised
- and misrecognised as unity
Only here, the narrative is inverted:
11. The cost of denial
This denial has consequences.
When coordination is invisible:
- its constraints cannot be examined
- its exclusions cannot be questioned
- its transformations cannot be understood
Problems appear as:
- errors in method
- failures of reasoning
- anomalies in data
Rather than:
shifts or breakdowns in coordination.
12. The next step
then the central claim of science must be re-examined:
objectivity itself.
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