What was chaos theory, and why would people want to borrow it? -- Disciplinary pluralism -- The rhetorical functions of borrowing and the uses of disciplinary prestige -- Motivating methodological change -- Metaphorical chaos -- How to criticize a metaphor -- Facts, values, and intervention -- Beautiful chaos? -- Postmodern chaos and the challenge of pluralism
What happens to scientific knowledge when researchers outside the natural sciences bring elements of the latest trend across disciplinary boundaries for their own purposes? Researchers in fields from anthropology to family therapy and traffic planning employ the concepts, methods, and results of chaos theory to harness the disciplinary prestige of the natural sciences, to motivate methodological change or conceptual reorganization within their home discipline, and to justify public policies and aesthetic judgments. Using the recent explosion in the use (and abuse) of chaos theory, Borrowed Know
