I’ve been following the discussion on the Sys Sci list that asks the question, “What Is Systems Science?”. I haven’t found the time to join in yet but it is very interesting to me on account of the fact my work on Inquiry Driven Systems for the last 30 years or so can be seen to ask the converse question, “How Is Science a (Cybernetic or Dynamic) System?”.
The idea that sciences operate as (some order of) cybernetic systems is nothing new but there remains a lot of work to do detailing that insight and especially building intelligent software systems that assist scientific research by availing themselves of that task and user model.
Inquiry Into Inquiry 
I like the way you turn that question around. It’s important to talk about how science is a social system; it’s just one way of reducing the complexity of life, or making meaning. And it is cybernetic in the sense that it’s recursive; it feeds back into itself.
Pragmatism after Peirce holds Truth and its object Reality in relation to an indefinite community of inquiry. That much gives pragmatism claim to a social theory of truth. But the “indefinite” part is what distinguishes the truth of pragmatism from truth by consensus over actual, finite communities.
Can you unpack that a little?
For the statistically inclined I would say the relation between actual, finite communities and indefinite, unlimited communities plays a role analogous to the relation between finite samples and theoretical populations.
More philosophically, there is this notable bit of Chapter & Peirce on Community & Reality.
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