From an email with a professor dancing near the subject of the nature
of science:

I suspect that much of my resistance to social informatics related
"stuff" is that given it is so aware of the magic concepts of "social
forces" and "context" it seems those things have a greater weight than
I would like.

In my mind the weight of history or society must of course be
considered, but in the exploration for new knowledge we must willfully
lighten that load lest we prune too soon some interesting areas of
investigation.

For example I'm very strongly of the opinion that professionalization
and specialization in academics institutionalizes a powerful
constraint on innovation. This is very well supported by the reading
we have done right in 547 where horizontal organization is lauded as
the most feritle path to discovery.

To some extent travel is encouraged, but the declaration of a home
base is expected. New lodgers who are resistant to permanent addresses
are interesting but need focus.

If people stayed home less they would get around to the other side of
things and revolt more frequently.