"At stake in the "Science Wars" that have raged in academe and in the media is nothing less than the standing of science in our culture. One side argues that science is a "social construct," that it does not discover facts about the world, but rather constructs artifacts disguised as objective truths.

For constructivists, "nature" and "reality" are simply what scientists agree to regard as natural or real, and the methods and standards of science are mere "rules of the game" adopted to serve political and social agendas. This view threatens the authority of science and rejects science's claims to objectivity, rationality, and disinterested inquiry.

Drawing Out Leviathan examines this argument in the light of some major debates about dinosaurs: the case of the wrong-headed dinosaur, the dinosaur "heresies" of the 1970s, and the debate over the catastrophic extinction of dinosaurs."--BOOK JACKET.