The Scientific Imagination: With a New Introduction

by Holton

New scientific ideas are subjected to an extensive process of evaluation and validation by the scientific community. Until the early 1980s, this process of validation was thought to be governed by objective criteria, whereas the process by which individual scientists gave birth to new scientific ideas was regarded as inaccessible to rational study. In this book Gerald Holton takes an opposing view, illuminating the ways in which the imagination of the scientist functions early in the formation of a new insight or theory. In certain crucial instances, a scientist adopts an explicit or implicit presupposition, or thema, that guides his work to success or failure and helps determine whether the new idea will draw acclaim or controversy. Using firsthand accounts gleaned from notebooks, interviews, and correspondence of such twentieth-century scientists as Einstein, Fermi, and Millikan, Holton shows how the idea of the scientific imagination has practical implications for the history and philosophy of science and the larger understanding of the place of science in our culture. The new introduction, "How a Scientific Discovery Is The Case of High-Temperature Superconductivity," reveals the scientific imagination at work in current science, by disclosing the role of personal motivations that are usually hidden from scientific publications, and the lessons of the case for science policy today.

Genres: Science

Paperback

First published March 28, 1978

Reviews

[Allan Olley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written set of essays about the different factors including broad conceptual attitudes and some social elements that go into scientific theory making and experiment. It also contains the author's thoughts on the relation of scientists to society, and an account of his own attempts to create a more socially relevant science curriculum for students. However, the book is more a collection of essays then a single work.

Note I read the 1978 edition later editions apparently added additional material.

[Hardimah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good explanation in terms of Dionysians and Apollonians,