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Thinking About Science: Essays on the Nature of Science
A collection of essays on the nature of science and its sometimes fuzzy distinction from pseudoscience. These essays were originally published as a regular column in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, one of the best sources of information available on controversies surrounding pseudoscience. The column, entitled “Thinking About Science” (just like this collection) is still going at the time of this writing (early 2009), and the interested reader will be able to enjoy its future installments to follow the evolution of the author's thoughts about how science works.
Science is a human activity, and as such it is hampered by all the typical human frailties. Scientists are no less interested than anyone else in glory, money, and sex, not necessarily in that order. Yet, as philosophers of science have argued for some time now, science as a social activity manages to be remarkably objective and truth-augmenting. Scientists may blunder, as in the infamous case of “Piltdown Man” recalled in one of these essays, but in the long run they seem to get it mostly right (after all, it was scientists, not, say, creationists, who uncovered the Piltdown forgery). This is very different from the situation with pseudoscience, where astrologers and paranormalists seem to be perennially stuck in the same place, always making the same arguments, and chronically short of empirical evidence to back them up.
These essays look at science from both the point of view of a scientist and that of a philosopher. This reflects Pigliucci's own dual background, with original training in evolutionary biology and the later addition of philosophy of science. The two disciplines have always had a difficult relationship, ever since science originated as natural philosophy and became independent in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scientists of the time, like Galileo and Newton, thought of themselves at least in part as philosophers, and figures that we count today as philosophers, like Descartes and Bacon, thought of themselves as scientists. But today's academy all too often relishes the division, with scientists like physicist Steven Weinberg brazenly writing essays entitled “Against Philosophy,” and philosophers like Paul Feyerabend calling for “a formal separation between science and state” to guard society from the evils of science. These essays are written instead in the spirit that science and philosophy have much to gain from each other, with philosophy providing a broad view of how science works, and even criticism of specific scientific enterprises, and science returning the favor by informing philosophical debates with the best understanding of the facts of the universe that we can achieve at any particular moment.
The author hopes the reader will enjoy the quest as much as he does, and that readers will come to value honest human intellectual endeavor both for its own sake and for the good it can do to the human condition. As David Hume aptly put it, “What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought.'”
Science is a human activity, and as such it is hampered by all the typical human frailties. Scientists are no less interested than anyone else in glory, money, and sex, not necessarily in that order. Yet, as philosophers of science have argued for some time now, science as a social activity manages to be remarkably objective and truth-augmenting. Scientists may blunder, as in the infamous case of “Piltdown Man” recalled in one of these essays, but in the long run they seem to get it mostly right (after all, it was scientists, not, say, creationists, who uncovered the Piltdown forgery). This is very different from the situation with pseudoscience, where astrologers and paranormalists seem to be perennially stuck in the same place, always making the same arguments, and chronically short of empirical evidence to back them up.
These essays look at science from both the point of view of a scientist and that of a philosopher. This reflects Pigliucci's own dual background, with original training in evolutionary biology and the later addition of philosophy of science. The two disciplines have always had a difficult relationship, ever since science originated as natural philosophy and became independent in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scientists of the time, like Galileo and Newton, thought of themselves at least in part as philosophers, and figures that we count today as philosophers, like Descartes and Bacon, thought of themselves as scientists. But today's academy all too often relishes the division, with scientists like physicist Steven Weinberg brazenly writing essays entitled “Against Philosophy,” and philosophers like Paul Feyerabend calling for “a formal separation between science and state” to guard society from the evils of science. These essays are written instead in the spirit that science and philosophy have much to gain from each other, with philosophy providing a broad view of how science works, and even criticism of specific scientific enterprises, and science returning the favor by informing philosophical debates with the best understanding of the facts of the universe that we can achieve at any particular moment.
The author hopes the reader will enjoy the quest as much as he does, and that readers will come to value honest human intellectual endeavor both for its own sake and for the good it can do to the human condition. As David Hume aptly put it, “What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought.'”
- GenresSciencePhilosophy
113 pages, Paperback
First published February 21, 2009
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34 people want to read
About the author
Massimo Pigliucci
91 books1,172 followersMassimo Pigliucci is an author, blogger, podcaster, as well as the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York.
His academic work is in evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophy. His books include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books) and Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press).
His new book is Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers (The Experiment).
His academic work is in evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophy. His books include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books) and Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press).
His new book is Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers (The Experiment).
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