What is good science? What goal - if any - is the proper end of scientific activity? Is there a legitimizing authority that scientists may claim? These questions have long been debated but, as Gerald Holton points out, every era must offer its own responses. This book sets out to examine these questions, not in the abstract, but showing their historic roots and the answers emerging from the scientific and political controversies of the past century. Employing the case-study method and the concept of scientific themata that ...
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What is good science? What goal - if any - is the proper end of scientific activity? Is there a legitimizing authority that scientists may claim? These questions have long been debated but, as Gerald Holton points out, every era must offer its own responses. This book sets out to examine these questions, not in the abstract, but showing their historic roots and the answers emerging from the scientific and political controversies of the past century. Employing the case-study method and the concept of scientific themata that he has proposed, Holton displays the broad scope of his insight into the workings of science: from the influence of Ernst Mach on 20th-century physicists, biologists, psychologists, and other thinkers, to the rhetorical strategies used in the work of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and others; from the bickering between Thomas Jefferson and the US Congress over the proper form of federal sponsorship of scientific research, to philosophical debates since Oswald Spengler over whether our scientific knowledge will ever be complete. In his final chapter, Holton scrutinizes the "anti-science phenomenon". This he defines as the world views and political ambitions of the proponents of science as it is practised today; and on the other hand, those of the critics of "establishment science" (animal rights activists, environmentalists, feminists and social-constructionists, and those worried that science might overwhelm the individual in the postmodern world) and the adherents of "alternative science" (creationists, New Age healers and astrologers). Science and Anti-Science will be of great interest not only to scientists and scholars in the field of science studies but also to educators, policymakers, and all those who wish to gain a fuller understanding, of challenges to and doubts about the role of science in our lives today.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good jacket. Book. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Hardcover, x, 203 pp., illustrated jacket. Minor wear at top corners, no owner names or gift notes, clean text, tight binding, nice jacket overall but with tiny top edge tear on front flap. What good is Science? What goal--if any--is the proper end of scientific activity? Is there a legitimating authority that scientists may claim? How serious a threat are the anti-science movements?
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Seller's Description:
Very good in very good dust jacket. Minor wear on the covers, corner, and the edges. Like shelf wear. Very Clean Copy-Over 500, 000 Internet Orders Filled.
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Seller's Description:
Good. Very Good Dust Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. pp. 203. 203 pp. Tightly bound. Corners not bumped. Text is free of markings. No ownership markings. Very good dust jacket. NOTE: The reason for the lower "good" rating is because there is foxing to the page edges. This copy is smyth sewn. Smyth sewing is a method of book binding where groups of folded pages (referred to as signatures) are stitched together using binder thread. Each folded signature is sewn together individually with multiple stitches and then joined with other signatures to create the complete book block. This is the traditional and best method of bookbinding.