When people say that knowledge is “universally true,” we must understand that it is like railroads, which are found everywhere in the world but only to a limited extent. To shift to claiming that locomotives can move beyond their narrow, and expensive rails is another matter. Yet magicians try to dazzle us with “universal laws” which they claim to be valid even in the gaps between the networks.

Bruno Latour 1988, The Pasteurization of France, Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press.