Nobody can separate the "internal" history of science from the "external" history of its allies. The former does not count as history at all. At best it is court historiography, at worst the Legends of the Saints. The latter is not the history of "science," it is history.

When we become agnostic, we have to admit that most places of scientific pilgrimage look much like Lourdes, but more gullible still, for they mock Lourdes!

Still others express amazement that the laws of physics "are universally applicable," that Newton discovered them, and that Einstein revolutionized them. "Science" becomes truly a circus sideshow with geniuses, revolutions, and dei ex machina. But no one talks of the chamber of horrors down below.

Some say that it is a miracle that "mathematics is applicable to physical reality." Others say that "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's at all comprehensible."

I am vulgar, but this is essential in a domain where injustice is so profound. They laugh at those who believe in levitation but claim, without being contradicted, that theories can raise the world.

But if "theories" rather than tables are moved, then people talk excitedly of a Kuhnian "paradigm shift."

If a young couple move a piece of furniture in their living room and conclude, little by little, that it does not look right and that all the furniture will have to be moved for everything to fit again, who finds this worthy of note?

If the most obscure Popperian zealot talks of "falsification," people are ready to see a profound mystery. But if a window cleaner moves his head to see whether the smear he wants to clean is on the inside or outside, no one marvels.

But if a famous philosopher in Amsterdam asserts that we must "divide up each of the difficulties into as many parts as possible," no greater admiration could be expressed for "a method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking for truth in the sciences."

If consumers cut their steak into small pieces to make it easier to chew, no one comments.

If an unfortunate witch attributes success in battle to a magic rite, she is mocked for her credulity. But if a celebrated researcher attributes the success of her laboratory to a revolutionary idea, no one laughs, even though everyone should. The thought of making a revolution with ideas!

If a capitalist sells an unprofitable factory, he is accused of rapacity. But if an illustrious scientist renounces a discredited hypothesis, then on the contrary he is held to be showing disinterestedness.

If the mongrel tribes that do the dirty work were withheld from "physics," its elucubrations could not be distinguished from those of alchemists or psychoanalysts: was this possible in the past when there were not so many tribes?

The tiny fraction that remains is valued by a few thousand people only, communicated to a few thousand more, and popularized for the benefit of a few million brave souls who hardly understand it at all. For billions of others all these networks are *invisible*.

Two to three percent of the GNP of a few industrial nations, two-thirds of which is spent on industry and for military purposes—that is not much.

All of which is to say that this precis, which prepares the way for the analysis of science and technology, is not epistemology, not at all.

"Be instant in season, out of season," to say that "there is something in addition, there is also reason." This cry of the faithful conceals the violence that it perpetrates, the violence of *forcing* this division.