Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact PDF Author: Ludwik Fleck
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022619034X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Originally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theory—including his own—is culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword, "Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource." "To many scientists just as to many historians and philosophers of science facts are things that simply are the case: they are discovered through properly passive observation of natural reality. To such views Fleck replies that facts are invented, not discovered. Moreover, the appearance of scientific facts as discovered things is itself a social construction, a made thing. A work of transparent brilliance, one of the most significant contributions toward a thoroughly sociological account of scientific knowledge."—Steven Shapin, Science

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact PDF Author: Ludwik Fleck
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022619034X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Originally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theory—including his own—is culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword, "Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource." "To many scientists just as to many historians and philosophers of science facts are things that simply are the case: they are discovered through properly passive observation of natural reality. To such views Fleck replies that facts are invented, not discovered. Moreover, the appearance of scientific facts as discovered things is itself a social construction, a made thing. A work of transparent brilliance, one of the most significant contributions toward a thoroughly sociological account of scientific knowledge."—Steven Shapin, Science

How Knowledge Grows

How Knowledge Grows PDF Author: Chris Haufe
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026237160X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
An argument that the development of scientific practice and growth of scientific knowledge are governed by Darwin’s evolutionary model of descent with modification. Although scientific investigation is influenced by our cognitive and moral failings as well as all of the factors impinging on human life, the historical development of scientific knowledge has trended toward an increasingly accurate picture of an increasing number of phenomena. Taking a fresh look at Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in How Knowledge Grows Chris Haufe uses evolutionary theory to explain both why scientific practice develops the way it does and how scientific knowledge expands. This evolutionary model, claims Haufe, helps to explain what is epistemically special about scientific knowledge: its tendency to grow in both depth and breadth. Kuhn showed how intellectual communities achieve consensus in part by discriminating against ideas that differ from their own and isolating themselves intellectually from other fields of inquiry and broader social concerns. These same characteristics, says Haufe, determine a biological population’s degree of susceptibility to modification by natural selection. He argues that scientific knowledge grows, even across generations of variable groups of scientists, precisely because its development is governed by Darwinian evolution. Indeed, he supports the claim that this susceptibility to modification through natural selection helps to explain the epistemic power of certain branches of modern science. In updating and expanding the evolutionary approach to scientific knowledge, Haufe provides a model for thinking about science that acknowledges the historical contingency of scientific thought while showing why we nevertheless should trust the results of scientific research when it is the product of certain kinds of scientific communities.

From Neurons to Neighborhoods

From Neurons to Neighborhoods PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309069882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

Science as a Process

Science as a Process PDF Author: David L. Hull
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226360490
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
"Legend is overdue for replacement, and an adequate replacement must attend to the process of science as carefully as Hull has done. I share his vision of a serious account of the social and intellectual dynamics of science that will avoid both the rosy blur of Legend and the facile charms of relativism. . . . Because of [Hull's] deep concern with the ways in which research is actually done, Science as a Process begins an important project in the study of science. It is one of a distinguished series of books, which Hull himself edits."—Philip Kitcher, Nature "In Science as a Process, [David Hull] argues that the tension between cooperation and competition is exactly what makes science so successful. . . . Hull takes an unusual approach to his subject. He applies the rules of evolution in nature to the evolution of science, arguing that the same kinds of forces responsible for shaping the rise and demise of species also act on the development of scientific ideas."—Natalie Angier, New York Times Book Review "By far the most professional and thorough case in favour of an evolutionary philosophy of science ever to have been made. It contains excellent short histories of evolutionary biology and of systematics (the science of classifying living things); an important and original account of modern systematic controversy; a counter-attack against the philosophical critics of evolutionary philosophy; social-psychological evidence, collected by Hull himself, to show that science does have the character demanded by his philosophy; and a philosophical analysis of evolution which is general enough to apply to both biological and historical change."—Mark Ridley, Times Literary Supplement "Hull is primarily interested in how social interactions within the scientific community can help or hinder the process by which new theories and techniques get accepted. . . . The claim that science is a process for selecting out the best new ideas is not a new one, but Hull tells us exactly how scientists go about it, and he is prepared to accept that at least to some extent, the social activities of the scientists promoting a new idea can affect its chances of being accepted."—Peter J. Bowler, Archives of Natural History "I have been doing philosophy of science now for twenty-five years, and whilst I would never have claimed that I knew everything, I felt that I had a really good handle on the nature of science, Again and again, Hull was able to show me just how incomplete my understanding was. . . . Moreover, [Science as a Process] is one of the most compulsively readable books that I have ever encountered."—Michael Ruse, Biology and Philosophy

Science and Empires

Science and Empires PDF Author: P. Petitjean
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401125945
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
SCIENCE AND EMPIRES: FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM TO THE BOOK Patrick PETITJEAN, Catherine JAMI and Anne Marie MOULIN The International Colloquium "Science and Empires - Historical Studies about Scientific De velopment and European Expansion" is the product of an International Colloquium, "Sciences and Empires - A Comparative History of Scien tific Exchanges: European Expansion and Scientific Development in Asian, African, American and Oceanian Countries". Organized by the REHSEIS group (Research on Epistemology and History of Exact Sciences and Scientific Institutions) of CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), the colloquium was held from 3 to 6 April 1990 in the UNESCO building in Paris. This colloquium was an idea of Professor Roshdi Rashed who initiated this field of studies in France some years ago, and proposed "Sciences and Empires" as one of the main research programmes for the The project to organize such a colloquium was a bit REHSEIS group. of a gamble. Its subject, reflected in the title "Sciences and Empires", is not a currently-accepted sub-discipline of the history of science; rather, it refers to a set of questions which found autonomy only recently. The terminology was strongly debated by the participants and, as is frequently suggested in this book, awaits fuller clarification.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions PDF Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description


Determinants and Controls of Scientific Development

Determinants and Controls of Scientific Development PDF Author: K.D. Knorr
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401018316
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
This book constitutes the outcome of an international conference held at the Otto-Mobes-Volkswirtschaftsschule, Graz-Stifting( Austria), from June 16 to 22, 1974. The conference was initiated by a project group working on determinants and controls of social science development at the In stitute for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research in Vienna and or ganized by the editors of this volume. It was held under the auspices of the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research. The main topics of the conference were those at the forefront of the 'state of argumentation' (to borrow from one of our contributors) in philosophy and sociology of science ever since the controversy between Thomas S. Kuhn and Sir Karl R. Popper has sharpened our awareness for the methodological and substantial presuppositions involved with questions of growth and development in science. Let us give two examples of those topics. The borderline between sociology of science and philo sophy of science has become more and more unclear; while the work of at least some philosophers of science comes to have an empirical flavour, sociologists of science are increasingly apt to include logical and methodo logical components of the research process as their objects of examina tion. Papers included in this volume testify to both tendencies.

Mathematical and Scientific Development in Early Childhood

Mathematical and Scientific Development in Early Childhood PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309095034
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
Expectations for early learning are very different than they were even as recently as a decade ago. With increased recognition of the intellectual capacities of young children, as well as a growing understanding of how these capacities develop and can be fostered, has come a growing recognition that early childhood education, in both formal and informal settings, may not be helping all children maximize their cognitive capacities. Mathematical and Scientific Development in Early Childhood explores the research in cognition and developmental psychology that sheds light on children's capacity to learn mathematical and scientific ideas. This summary report of the discussions and presentations at the workshop is designed to frame the issues relevant to advancing research useful to the development of research-based curricula for mathematics and science for young children.

Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance PDF Author: Henk Zandvoort
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940094764X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
From the nineteen sixties onwards a branch of philosophy of science has come to development, called history-oriented philosophy of science. This development constitutes a reaction on the then prevailing logical empiricist conception of scientific knowledge. The latter was increasingly seen as suffering from insurmountable internal problems, like e. g. the problems with the particular "observational-theoretical distinction" on which it drew. In addition the logical empiricists' general approach was increasingly criticized for two external shortcomings. Firstly, the examples of scientific knowledge that the logical empiricists were focusing on were con sidered as too simplistic to be informative on the nature of real life science. Secondly, it was felt that the attention of these philosophers of science was restricted to the static aspects of scientific knowledge, while neglecting its developmental aspects. History-oriented philosophy of science has taken up the challenge implicit in the latter two criticisms, i. e. to develop accounts of science that would be more adequate for understanding the development 1 of real life science. One of the more successful products of this branch of philosophy of science is Lakatos's theory of scientific development, sometimes called the "methodology of scientific research programmes". This theory conceives science as consisting of so called research program mes developing in time, and competing with each other over the issue which one generates the best explan~tions of the phenomena that they address.

Reproducibility and Replicability in Science

Reproducibility and Replicability in Science PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309486165
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a scientific effort fails to independently confirm the computations or results of a previous study, some fear that it may be a symptom of a lack of rigor in science, while others argue that such an observed inconsistency can be an important precursor to new discovery. Concerns about reproducibility and replicability have been expressed in both scientific and popular media. As these concerns came to light, Congress requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to assess the extent of issues related to reproducibility and replicability and to offer recommendations for improving rigor and transparency in scientific research. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science defines reproducibility and replicability and examines the factors that may lead to non-reproducibility and non-replicability in research. Unlike the typical expectation of reproducibility between two computations, expectations about replicability are more nuanced, and in some cases a lack of replicability can aid the process of scientific discovery. This report provides recommendations to researchers, academic institutions, journals, and funders on steps they can take to improve reproducibility and replicability in science.