scientific knowledge is produced by communities of practice, which range from relatively small laboratory teams to rather large groups organized by scientific disciplines and subdisciplines. In this sense, science is done in groups, both small and large. Through extended and iterative cycles of activity, these groups plan, conduct, and troublesboot investigations; analyze, interpret, and make sense of data; build, scrutinize, and refine arguments, challenge, criticize, defend, and revise claims to scientific knowledge; and collectively vet and admit such claims to the scientific cannon, The social interactions particularly extensive communication, associated with these activities range from the loosely structured laboratory team discussions, to highly structured and rigorously implemented and monitored blinded reviews involved, for example, in examining findings submitted for publication in peer refereed professional journals or reviewing proposals for federal or state funding. The social Nos, or "science as social knowledge," refers to the epistemic function of these social activities: It refers to the constitutive values associated with those established venues for communication and criticism within the scientific enterprise (e.g.. blind review processes), which serve to enhance the objectivity of collectively scrutinized scientific knowledge through decreasing the impact of individual scientists' idiosyncrasies and subjectivities (Longino 1990). In this specific sense, it should be noted, social Nos refers to conceptions of science as advanced by philosophers of science such as Helen Longino (e g. Longino 1990) and should not be confused with relativistic notions of scientific knowledge.