On the History of Science

     On The History of Science is an interview with director of The Max Planck Institute for the history of science, Lorraine Daston, conducted by David Cayley. It's subject is the framing of the philosophy and history of science. It brings under scrutiny even our modern views of what science is, what science means, and the role of science in the twenty first century and into the future. As a student of physics and science, as well as a lover of history and philosophy, this is a subject near and dear.

     The primary subject of the interview is the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. One of his central arguments is that the manner in which the general population and even scientists of the modern and pre-modern eras have placed science into their worldviews and intellectual frameworks. Kuhn declares the essential problem is the lack of both understanding and examination of the axiomatic philosophies of science and the form of scientific progression. He surmises that a fundamental disconnect exists in the behavior of near religious abstraction by some prolific theorists. He argues that this attitude has seen memetic transfer to humanity and our social constructs at large. Examining the tendency for famous and influential scientists to be taken as a kind of seer or prophet provides a foundation for agreeing.

     The interview's second narrative and an argument I find more effective as it has become quite attachable to and enforced as a lesson of my personal experiences; is that the study of the history and philosophy of science has become far too concerned with names and theory rather than experiment itself. Encompassing the modern tendency within physics culture to garner more attention upon elegant mathematical systems, such as string theory, rather than fully appreciating the basis of empiricism itself. While there are certainly valid reasons to appreciate the deep symmetries and invariance within the art that is theoretical mathematics, experiment and applied mathematics are far more fundamental and crucial to the relevance and importance of science to mankind.

     Especially in modern time where humanity is presented with a practical tsunami of novel devices and information, all owing their origin to the practice science, it has become noticeable that a mistrust of science has slipped in and taken root in the public consciousness. Daston argues that this unfortunate phenomena has resulted from two primary reasons. The first being that scientific inquiry fundamentally clashes with the vestiges and remnants of archaic theological thought that is still firmly entrenched into the shared consciousness of our society. The second is her argument against the Kuhnian theory of periodic scientific revolutions. It is rather, she argues just a continued series of modifications on the older frameworks of thought.

     While it is undoubted that much of humanity, maybe even a majority, hold tightly to archaic modes of thought out of fear, desire or imagination, it is clear to me, at least in knowledge of myself and those I have known that at least some minds have been permanently and thoroughly disconnected from the erroneous perceptions inherited from our fore-bearers of thought. While history itself has many lessons to teach and it is still necessary to understand the ethical, emotional and pathological mentalities of those that came before us we are privileged to a panoramic view of our existence that allows the modern thinker to escape the bondage of thought that preceded the previous three centuries.