This book is a survey of roughly one hundred years of argument about the
nature of science. We’ll look at a hundred years of argument about what
science is, how it works, and what makes science different from other ways
of investigating the world. Most of the ideas we will examine fall into the
field called “philosophy of science,” but we will also spend a good deal of
time looking at ideas developed by historians, sociologists, psychologists,
and others.
The book mostly has the form of a “grand tour” through the decades;
ideas will be discussed in roughly the order in which they appeared. Note the
word “roughly” in the previous sentence; there are exceptions to the historical
structuring of the book, and I will point out some of them as they arise.
Why is it best to start with older ideas and work through to the present?
One reason is that the historical development of general ideas about science
is itself an interesting topic. Another reason is that the philosophy of
science has been in a state of fermentation and uncertainty in recent years.
A good way to understand the maze of options and opinions in the field at
the moment is to trace the path that brought us to the state we’re in now.
But this book does not only aim to introduce the options. I will often take
sides as we go along, trying to indicate which developments were probably
wrong turns or red herrings. Other ideas will be singled out as being on the
right track. Then toward the end of the book, I will start trying to put the
pieces together into a picture of how science works.
Philosophy is an attempt to ask and answer some very basic questions
about the universe and our place within it. These questions can sometimes
seem far removed from practical concerns. But the debates covered in this
book are not of that kind. Though these debates are connected to the most
abstract questions about thought, knowledge, language, and reality, they have also turned out to have an importance that extends well outside of
philosophy. They have made a difference to developments in many other academic
fields, and some of the debates have reverberated much further, affecting
discussions of education, medicine, and the proper place of science
in society.
In fact, throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, all the fields
concerned with the nature of science went on something of a roller-coaster
ride. Some people thought that work in the history, philosophy, and sociology
of science had shown that science does not deserve the dominating
role it has acquired in Western cultures. They thought that a set of myths
about the trustworthiness and superiority of mainstream science had been
thoroughly undermined. Others disagreed, of course, and the resulting debates
swirled across the intellectual scene, frequently entering political discussion
as well. From time to time, scientific work itself was affected, especially
in the social sciences. These debates came to be known as the “Science
Wars,” a phrase that conveys a sense of how heated things became.
The Science Wars eventually cooled down, but now, as I write these
words, it is fair to say that there is still a great deal of disagreement about
even the most basic questions concerning the nature and status of scientific
knowledge. These disagreements usually do not have much influence on
the day-to-day practice of science, but sometimes they do. And they have
huge importance for general discussions of human knowledge, cultural
change, and our overall place in the universe. This book aims to introduce
you to this remarkable series of debates, and to give you an understanding
of the present situation.