John,
 
The problem is that even in coming up with the hypothesis culture and hence
politics has already consumed the process. Take your example of Agassiz
 
>The only
>science involved in this was demonstrating that one can measure certain
>racial characteristics in people.
 
But race itself is a cultural, historic construction, not a natural one
"found out there." The probe and the subsequent conclusions are contiguous
and continuous and can't simply be separated into "pure" science and
"application." The dream of the "pure" I would contend is a fantasy of a
truth beyond the foibles of human politics, but as Donna Haraway reminds
us: all knowledge is situated and partial and (hence) political.
 
--In dialogue
 
Matthew Weinstein
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