ABSTRACT
Contemporary chaos theory explains phenomena traditional science cannot and reveals hidden order in the apparent random behavior of, among other things, business cycles, epidemics, and insect populations. It also provides a vision of nature that challenges the notion of nature central to traditional science. In its concept of nature and methodology, chaos theory parallels the efforts of contemporary feminists to reshape traditional understanding of scientific inquiry. Both feminist philosophers of science and chaos theory presume a methodology that attends to difference, is nonreductionistic, attributes agency to nature, and conceives of inquiry as fallible.
