It’s a book born from deep reflection, going all the way back to the author's time in Papua New Guinea, where a youthful vision of science for a better world began to bump up against the messy reality of life as it's actually lived. That early suspicion that something was amiss with the purely scientific standpoint ripened over decades, eventually leading to this book. The core of the book grapples with what the author calls "modernity's nagging question". Never before have we had such a compelling dream of consciously directing history, and science – from neuroscience and genetic science to big data – is seen as the key to steering our future. But here's the rub: will _we_ be steering science, or will science steer _us_?. Science has become the dominant form of rationality in modern societies. If something is labelled "scientific," it often means we don't feel the need to seriously consider other perspectives. If non-scientific accounts are considered at all, they're often expected not to contradict scientific claims. The very idea of "science" is tied to truth in a way that suggests it can only be surpassed by more science. This self-assured authority is coupled with a sense of disquiet, particularly regarding science's ever-expanding reach into understanding human beings and societies. It's not that science is necessarily wrong or incomplete, but there's anxiety that its authority, if accepted without sufficient reflection, could potentially limit freedom and even facilitate domination. The book highlights that today, science isn't a single monolithic entity but a varied collection of different practices and knowledges, loosely unified by vague similarities. Each area has its own problems, objects, and methods. While science seeks truths within its specialized conventions, it necessarily abstracts away from the complex, rich context of everyday life. Yet, science isn't separate from society; it's shaped by social discourses, and in turn, its ideas seep back into society, quietly forming an unquestioned background against which we understand ourselves, the good life, and the good society. This unquestioned authority can sometimes manifest as "naïve scientism," which uncritically praises every scientific development as progress. Figures like Richard Dawkins are mentioned as popularizing science as a fight against backwardness. New fields like biotechnology and data science often promise revolutionary insights and technologies. The idea is that problems only need a more scientific approach or a more rigorous science for solutions. However, this has sparked a reaction: growing skepticism about science and counter-movements defending different ways of life against what feels like the relentless force of instrumental thinking. Science is no longer universally accepted as the ultimate source of truth or a guarantee of progress. Interestingly, these counter-movements often use the very language and terms of the rationality they're resisting, which suggests there might be limits to thinking and speaking outside the framework where science is the preeminent form of rationality. This can lead to things like political discourse being narrowed by scientific-sounding economic jargon, hiding the underlying values at play. The situation is further complicated by "postmodern" ideas (sometimes based on misunderstandings of thinkers like Foucault) suggesting science is just another way power operates. This confused public space, where science is both misunderstood and misused, allows vested interests to deliberately distort debates, perhaps by using pseudo-science or pitting different scientific claims against each other (like economic arguments versus environmental ones) as if science alone could settle deeply complex matters. This "weaponization" of science, as the author puts it, really damages the fragile trust society needs, and that science itself relies on. It's like we're facing a "crisis of faith in the scientific worldview". The author deliberately uses "faith" here, noting the irony that science, which claims to be based purely on evidence, is itself underpinned by a certain level of belief without sufficient evidence. A "crisis" here means a situation we can't quite grasp or respond to adequately. While specific scientific issues can be clear, what exactly is problematic about the overall picture isn't always easy to articulate. The book stresses that while we must acknowledge science's achievements, we should reject the simple idea of inevitable scientific progress moving towards a fully rational society. A key point the book makes is that the assumptions and values held by scientists and the society they are part of inevitably shape the questions science asks and the ways it seeks answers. If there were no assumptions or values, science wouldn't even get started, because everything would remain open to question. By taking certain aspects of reality as settled, specific questions can be directed to particular sciences, but this already limits the nature of possible answers. For instance, science might frame problems in terms of economic growth, employment rates, or crime statistics, rather than questions of justice, ecological balance, or living sustainably. To inform practical decisions, the insights from many specialized sciences often need to be brought together, sometimes filtered through a social science like economics. However, the book highlights a crucial difference: the reality social sciences look at is different from the reality natural sciences study. Social things (like economies or societies themselves) aren't as independent of our minds as natural kinds. They emerge and are maintained as we recognize and interact with the concepts associated with them. Objects, concepts, institutions – they all interact to form social reality, showing how science is both shaped by society and, in turn, shapes society. When a leader denies the existence of society, for example, they are diminishing its reality; when they prioritize economic studies, they are affirming the economy's reality. By framing problems with certain assumptions and values, science's authority can be used strategically to narrow what counts as "real" or shift its scope. Drawing a clear line between natural and social reality is tricky. What counts as the "given," non-interpretable natural world is fuzzy and changes over time. Things become more real as they become scientific objects and get embedded in the material culture and practices of science. "Nature" itself can be seen as a political idea that influences how we interact with things and people. The modern scientific worldview, based on measurement and calculation, can lead us to see the Earth as simply resources to be used or traded, and even ourselves as "human resources". Issues like climate change or the refugee crisis highlight this crisis, where scientific "solutions" often treat complex problems as mere technicalities, ignoring how risks are unevenly distributed. This allows ideas like space colonization to seem thinkable, while concepts like living with less are dismissed as naive. Scientific ideas spread widely through many channels – journals, media, social media, education – eventually becoming part of common sense, subtly altering our preconceptions. Although science's authority is supposed to come from being separate from partisan interests, it's never entirely pure. Its authority can be used to dismiss other forms of knowledge like common sense, religion, or indigenous knowledge. Now, let's get to the heart of the book's analytical engine: the work of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. The book aims to use their ideas to understand the "opacities of scientific modernity" and show their relevance to pressing issues today, even though neither thinker directly addressed things like climate change or AI. Their thinking is highly relevant because it tackles the fundamental issue of why modern scientific reason fails to adequately address major threats when it moves from specialized settings into everyday life. Both philosophers open up new ways of thinking that respect everyday ideas like morality, free will, and value. The book seeks to show common ground between them within the Enlightenment tradition, as well as Foucault's more radical departure from it. The book treats Habermas and Foucault as representing two distinct, yet related, strategies within modern reflective thinking. Habermas, broadly in the Kantian tradition, seeks to establish limits for reason. He tries to build a non-metaphysical foundation for a progressive understanding of reason using universal norms, offering a powerful, though fallible, way to diagnose modernity and analyze social issues. He sees the problems of modernity as arising when one form of reason, like objective, instrumental rationality tied to science, oversteps its bounds and colonizes other areas of life. For Habermas, philosophy works with science to diagnose distortions of the "lifeworld" – the shared realm of everyday life where we coordinate actions through communication. Science offers a counter-intuitive perspective the lifeworld lacks, but it's not the ultimate authority; it needs to be translated back into commonsense understandings. Philosophy, in this view, acts as an interpreter, preserving the unity of different types of understanding (cognitive, normative, aesthetic) that specialized discourses like science threaten to split apart. Foucault, on the other hand, radicalizes this critique. Instead of establishing limits, he wants to push beyond them, challenging what seems necessary or universal to open up new possibilities for who we are and how we think. He suspends the authority of science and its claims to truth, instead showing how science is deeply intertwined with power. Foucault's approach, seen in his "archaeological" and "genealogical" methods, reveals how scientific knowledge and practices are tied to power relations that shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. For example, his work on madness shows how it was socially constructed and how psychiatric knowledge became linked to power dynamics between doctors and patients. He argues that knowledge isn't just discovered but is "invented" through struggles and is provisional. This doesn't mean specific scientific claims are arbitrary, but that the framework distinguishing truth from falsity emerges from complex historical processes entangled with power. Foucault focuses particularly on the human sciences, arguing they are linked to power structures that normalize society and define us. His concept of "power/knowledge" emphasizes that power and knowledge aren't separate but condition and generate each other. This perspective suggests that scientific knowledge, even in the natural sciences, is embedded in practices of control and ordering. In his later work, Foucault shifted focus to the "genealogy of the subject," exploring how individuals constitute themselves, which allows for a perspective of agency and resistance against scientific power/knowledge. He sees science as one "regime of truth" among others, thereby questioning its ultimate authority. This late work suggests that political resistance requires an ethics based on our relationship with ourselves, something that science cannot provide. While Habermas aims to find universal norms to ground social critique, Foucault is often seen as resisting prescriptive norms. Habermas criticizes Foucault for implicitly relying on normative ideas while claiming a value-free stance, a "performative contradiction". The book suggests this might be a misunderstanding, seeing Foucault's approach as a critical orientation that challenges apparent necessities and opens up possibilities, rather than seeking to establish normative foundations in the way Habermas does. Foucault's goal isn't to provide solutions or universal standards, but to destabilize our certainties and provoke reflection by showing how what seems natural or necessary is contingent and historically constructed. Bringing them together, Habermas seeks to _discover_ necessary, universal norms (like those in communicative action) to consciously guide the Enlightenment project and protect reason from distortion. Foucault, conversely, seeks _self-transformation_ by revealing apparent necessities to be contingent, thus loosening the grip of domination and opening previously unthinkable possibilities. Habermas's work highlights science's emancipatory potential but criticizes its slide into "bad philosophy" (like scientism) that ignores the lifeworld's values and intuitions. Foucault, influenced by thinkers like Georges Canguilhem (who saw norms as social values intertwined with biology and lamented the focus on the body as mere machinery), also seeks to challenge the reduction of human life to purely scientific terms. The book suggests that despite their differences, both Habermas and Foucault offer crucial insights into the limits of scientific reason and the entanglement of science with social and political life. Habermas provides conceptual tools for systematic social analysis and a normative basis for critique, while Foucault offers a radical historical perspective that reveals the contingent nature of what we take for granted, including the authority of science itself. Neither thinker offers a simple dismissal of science, but rather a deeper, more critical understanding of its role as a powerful social institution in shaping modern society and our understanding of ourselves. This exploration into McIntyre's analysis opens up so many interesting avenues! For instance, how does Foucault's idea of "regimes of truth" play out in today's debates about "fake news" or scientific consensus on climate change? How might Habermas's call for philosophy as an interpreter bridge the gap between complex scientific findings (like those in neuroscience or genetics) and everyday ethical concerns? The book hints that revisiting these thinkers can help us better grasp contemporary challenges, especially as digital technologies further complicate the landscape of communication, power, and knowledge that both Habermas and Foucault explored. It seems there's always more to reflect on when it comes to science and its place in our world.