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 [log in to unmask]