ABSTRACT
Recent philosophy of science has been marked by a strong wave of support for heterodox views of the nature and ambitions of the natural sciences and the relationships among the various sciences. The themes of this new wave are disunity of science, autonomy (of each of the several sciences), antireductionism, anti-imperialism (of physics), and, most recently, antifundamentalism. Nancy Cartwright has been an important leader of this new wave, and unlike most earlier philosophers of science she has a political agenda-a very progressive one-that accompanies her views on science. She calls for society to support science that demonstrably works to help people live better and not to give undue eminence (nor financial support) to so-called fundamental physics, with its ever-larger and more expensive particle accelerators.1
