Explanations: Styles of Explanation in Science

by John Cornwell (editor)

Our lives, states of health, relationships, behavior, experiences of the natural world, and the technologies that shape our contemporary existence are subject to a superfluity of competing, multi-faceted and sometimes incompatible explanations. Widespread confusion about the nature of "explanation" and its scope and limits pervades popular exposition of the natural sciences, popular history and philosophy of science. This fascinating book explores the way explanations work, why they vary between disciplines, periods, and cultures, and whether they have any necessary boundaries. In other words, Explanations aims to achieve a better understanding of explanation, both within the sciences and the humanities. It features contributions from expert writers from a wide range of disciplines, including science, philosophy, mathematics, and social anthropology.

266 pages, Hardcover

First published April 22, 2004

About the author

John Cornwell is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he is also, since 2009, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (University of Leicester) in 2011. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 (Seminary Boy) and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year (science, medicine in Sunday Times Magazine), British Press Awards 2006. He won the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler's Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority - Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. In addition to his books on the relationship between science, ethics and the humanities, he has written widely on the Catholic Church and the modern papacy.

Reviews

[Alex Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful essay collection that had its roots in a symposium (1999) of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians. It is rare to find in one place an array of disciplines sharing perspectives on something that is fundamental in each.

Much of contemporary science (with exception of the physicists) has mutely accepted that what had formerly been searches for explanations have merely become interpretations. Indeed, a main takeaway is that explanations are hard fought and easily relinquished. But even if, as I believe, Hawking's theory of everything (and its counterparts in other sciences) doesn't exist, it is still fun to see Barrow play metaphysical hopscotch in chapter 5 in response to Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Such is why, I hope to return to this book, for doubtless much of the technicality of each writer's field has been lost on me, but still some have garnered insight and interest to explore their "interpretation" further.