[The] … main thesis [of Facts on the Ground] … appears on page 11.

Disputing the notion that all experimentation is dominated by theory, Ian Hacking insists that experimentation has a life of its own (1983: 150; see also Galison 1987, 1997). In other words, the history of experiment cannot be subsumed to that of theory. … In granting experimentation independence from theory, Hacking also argues that we reconceptualize “the criteria of reality” (142). He suggests that reality has far less to do with what we think about the world than what we do in and to it (17). … And it is precisely such processes of manipulation — of intervention — that characterize experimental life: the “making, moving, changing” of phenomena (Galison 1997:800).

Abu el-Haj demonstrates in her book that the practice of Israeli archeology affects the theory and the sociology of Israeli archeology and hence the larger Israeli society. If Lassner had a clue, could have overcome his Zionist prejudice, and had read the book (carefully), he might have recognized the tremendous scientific achievement in elucidating a process that occurs in many situations.

During Southern slavery Southern doctors used their slaves as experimental subjects to the profound corruption of the theory and sociology of US medicine, and the effects of this perversion lingered to affect the larger American society long after the end of slavery.