rical review of the development of certain scientific theories in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, scientist and historian Thomas Kuhn raised some philosophical objections to claims of the possibility of scientific understanding being truly objective. In Kuhn's analysis, scientists in different disciplines organise themselves into de facto paradi

gms within which scientific research is done, junior scientists are educated, and scientific problems are determined. When observational data arises which appears to contradict or fal

sify a given scientific paradigm, scientists within that paradigm historically have not immediately rejected it, as Karl Popper's philosophical theory of falsificationism would have them do. Instead th

ey have gone to considerable lengths to resolve the apparent conflict without rejecting the paradigm. Through ad hoc variations to the theory and sympathetic interpretation of the data, supporting scientists will resolve the apparent conundrum. In extreme cases, they may ignore the data altogether. Thus, the failure of a scientific paradigm will go into crisis when a significant portion of scientists working in the field lose confidence in it. The corollary of this observation is that a paradigm is contingent on the social order amongst scientists at the time it gains ascendancy. Kuhn's theory has been criticised by scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Alan Sokal as presenting a relativist view of scientific progress. Donna Haraway's Situated Knowledges Further information: Knowledge § Situated knowledge In Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988), Donna Haraway argues that objectivity in science and philosophy is traditionally understood as a kind of disembodied and transcendent "conquering gaze from now