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Author: Steven L. Goldman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197518621
Category : Discoveries in science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
There is ample evidence that it is difficult for the general public to understand and internalize scientific facts. Disputes over such facts are often amplified amid political controversies. As we've seen with climate change and even COVID-19, politicians rely on the perceptions of their constituents when making decisions that impact public policy. So, how do we make sure that what the public understands is accurate? In this book, Steven L. Goldman traces the public's suspicion of scientific knowledge claims to a broad misunderstanding, reinforced by scientists themselves, of what it is that scientists know, how they know it, and how to act on the basis of it. In sixteen chapters, Goldman takes readers through the history of scientific knowledge from Plato and Aristotle, through the birth of modern science and its maturation, into a powerful force for social change to the present day. He explains how scientists have wrestled with their own understanding of what it is that they know, that theories evolve, and why the public misunderstands the reliability of scientific knowledge claims. With many examples drawn from the history of philosophy and science, the chapters illustrate an ongoing debate over how we know what we say we know and the relationship between knowledge and reality. Goldman covers a rich selection of ideas from the founders of modern science and John Locke's response to Newton's theories to Thomas Kuhn's re-interpretation of scientific knowledge and the Science Wars that followed it. Goldman relates these historical disputes to current issues, underlining the important role scientists play in explaining their own research to nonscientists and the effort nonscientists must make to incorporate science into public policies. A narrative exploration of scientific knowledge, Science Wars engages with the arguments of both sides by providing thoughtful scientific, philosophical, and historical discussions on every page.
Author: Steven L. Goldman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197518621
Category : Discoveries in science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book
Book Description
There is ample evidence that it is difficult for the general public to understand and internalize scientific facts. Disputes over such facts are often amplified amid political controversies. As we've seen with climate change and even COVID-19, politicians rely on the perceptions of their constituents when making decisions that impact public policy. So, how do we make sure that what the public understands is accurate? In this book, Steven L. Goldman traces the public's suspicion of scientific knowledge claims to a broad misunderstanding, reinforced by scientists themselves, of what it is that scientists know, how they know it, and how to act on the basis of it. In sixteen chapters, Goldman takes readers through the history of scientific knowledge from Plato and Aristotle, through the birth of modern science and its maturation, into a powerful force for social change to the present day. He explains how scientists have wrestled with their own understanding of what it is that they know, that theories evolve, and why the public misunderstands the reliability of scientific knowledge claims. With many examples drawn from the history of philosophy and science, the chapters illustrate an ongoing debate over how we know what we say we know and the relationship between knowledge and reality. Goldman covers a rich selection of ideas from the founders of modern science and John Locke's response to Newton's theories to Thomas Kuhn's re-interpretation of scientific knowledge and the Science Wars that followed it. Goldman relates these historical disputes to current issues, underlining the important role scientists play in explaining their own research to nonscientists and the effort nonscientists must make to incorporate science into public policies. A narrative exploration of scientific knowledge, Science Wars engages with the arguments of both sides by providing thoughtful scientific, philosophical, and historical discussions on every page.
Author: Anthony Walsh
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412851637
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211
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Book Description
Few issues cause academics to disagree more than gender and race, especially when topics are addressed in terms of biological differences. To conduct research in these areas or comment favorably on research can subject one to scorn. When these topics are addressed, they generally take the form of philosophical debates. Anthony Walsh focuses upon such debates and supporting research. He divides parties into biologists and social constructionists, arguing that biologists remain focused on laboratory work, while constructionists are acutely aware of the impact of biologists in contested territories. "Science Wars" introduces the ideas motivating the parties and examines social constructionism and its issues with science. He explores arguments over conceptual tools scientists love and constructionists abhor, and he provides a solid discussion of the co-evolution of genes and culture. Walsh then focuses his attention on gender, how constructionists view it, and the neuroscience explanation of gender differences. Moving to race, Walsh looks at how some have tried to bury the concept of race, while others emphasize it. He considers definitions of race--essentialist, taxonomic, population, and lineage--as they have evolved from the time of the Enlightenment to the present. And finally, he attempts to bring the opposing sides together by pointing out what each can bring to a meaningful discussion.
Author: Keith Ashman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113461618X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
The "War" in science is largely the discussion between those who believe that science is above criticism and those who do not. After the Science Wars is a collection of essays by leading philosophers and scientists, all attempting to bridge interdisciplinary gulfs in this discussion.
Author: Steven Gil
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442256206
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
Stargate-1’s original run overlapped the peak and aftermath of the Science Wars, which allowed for the show to engage questions about the nature of science and technology. This book focuses on how the series depicted science (as an enterprise) and scientists at a time when the Science Wars were raging and the nature of both was sharply contested.
Author: Ullica Segerstrale
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791492397
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Beyond the Science Wars offers a broad contextualization of the "Science Wars"—an ongoing debate between scientists and social scientists over the nature and meaning of science—from interdisciplinary sociological, historical, scientific, political, and cultural perspectives. Beyond providing an understanding of the conflict itself, this book presents the comments of two science and technology studies' (STS) "founding fathers" (Bernard Barber and John Ziman), a scientist's protest that STS has abandoned its original mission, a historian's view of the fluctuating social support for science, and a sociologist's analysis of the motives of "anti-antiscience warriors." In addition, an STS statesman discusses ongoing structural changes in science, a sociologist sorts out different views of objectivity, and an STS veteran from the Science Wars brings us tales from the front and evaluates the meaning of recent events. Contributors include Bernard Barber, Henry H. Bauer, Valery Cholakov, Stephan Fuchs, Steve Fuller, Ullica Segerstrale, and John Ziman.
Author: Martin Carrier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9783540210092
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Is what science tells us about the world determined unambiguously by facts, or does the content of any scientific theory in some way depend on the human condition. Sokal's hoax attacked the mere seriousness of post-modern views of science and shifted this controversial debate to a new level, which very quickly came to be known as "Science Wars." This book examines the broad range of philosophical positions on this issue to expound the epistemic merits of science and to tackle the central question: in what sense can science justifiably claim to provide a truthful portrait of reality?
Author: John D. Baldwin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317260430
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
The "science wars" have been raging for decades, raising many questions about the power of science. Some critics claim that science, including social science, is "merely a social construction" that fallible humans have created with words and other symbols. If this is true, is science as formidable a source of knowledge as most scientists claim? Baldwin explains why the edifice of science has robust properties that make it one of the most useful forms of knowledge that humans have ever created, although it is not perfect. He trenchantly examines all sides of the debate and uses the philosophy of pragmatism to reveal the special characteristics that make science work as well as it does. Ending the Science Wars shows how science is far better grounded than its critics claim. The book not only helps resolve many current debates about science, it is a major contribution for explaining science in terms of a powerful philosophical system. This makes the book valuable to scientists in all fields of research-and intellectually challenging for science's critics.
Author: Ethan Pollock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691124674
Category : Communism and science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
Between 1945 and 1953, while the Soviet Union confronted postwar reconstruction and Cold War crises, its unchallenged leader Joseph Stalin carved out time to study scientific disputes and dictate academic solutions. He spearheaded a discussion of "scientific" Marxist-Leninist philosophy, edited reports on genetics and physiology, adjudicated controversies about modern physics, and wrote essays on linguistics and political economy. Historians have been tempted to dismiss all this as the megalomaniacal ravings of a dying dictator. But in Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars, Ethan Pollock draws on thousands of previously unexplored archival documents to demonstrate that Stalin was in fact determined to show how scientific truth and Party doctrine reinforced one another. Socialism was supposed to be scientific, and science ideologically correct, and Stalin ostensibly embodied the perfect symbiosis between power and knowledge. Focusing on six major postwar debates in the Soviet scientific community, this elegantly written book shows that Stalin's forays into scholarship can be understood only within the context of international tensions, institutional conflicts, and the growing uncertainty about the proper relationship between scientific knowledge and Party-dictated truths. The nature of Stalin's interventions makes clear that more was at stake than high politics: these science wars were about asserting that the Party was rational and modern, and about codifying the Soviet worldview in a battle for the hearts and minds of people around the globe during the early Cold War. Ultimately, however, the effort to develop a scientific basis for Soviet ideology undermined the system's legitimacy.
Author: Muriel Lederman
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415213585
Category : Feminism
Languages : en
Pages : 524
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Book Description
The Gender and Science Reader brings together key articles in a comprehensive investigations of the nature and practice of science.
Author: Steven Weinberg
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674071999
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Just as Henry David Thoreau “traveled a great deal in Concord,” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg sees much of the world from the window of his study overlooking Lake Austin. In Lake Views Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive today, continues the wide-ranging reflections that have also earned him a reputation as, in the words of New York Times reporter James Glanz, “a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate—and sting.” This collection presents Weinberg’s views on topics ranging from problems of cosmology to assorted world issues—military, political, and religious. Even as he moves beyond the bounds of science, each essay reflects his experience as a theoretical physicist. And as in the celebrated Facing Up, the essays express a viewpoint that is rationalist, reductionist, realist, and secular. A new introduction precedes each essay, explaining how it came to be written and bringing it up to date where necessary. As an essayist, Weinberg insists on seeing things as they are, without despair and with good humor. Sure to provoke his readers—postmodern cultural critics, enthusiasts for manned space flight or missile defense, economic conservatives, sociologists of science, anti-Zionists, and religious zealots—this book nonetheless offers the pleasure of a sustained encounter with one of the most interesting scientific minds of our time.
