Snow's book came out when I was in college. Later, when I became editor of the college newspaper, I wrote an editorial proposing a change in curriculum: that the non-lab biology course that arts majors were required to take, and which was pretty useless, be replaced with a two-year course in the history and methodology of science. Naturally, this never happened, but I still think it's a good idea.
Absolutely. It's far more important that genuinely educated people should have a solid understanding of what science actually is, how it functions, and what its strengths and limitations are than that they carry with them out of college a few largely irrelevant details about frog innards. Were that the actually situation, such half-baked or unbaked and outdated notions such as "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Design" simply could not survive.
ReplyDelete(Did I ever mention that, as an undergraduate, I majored in physics for 3 years before I became an English major? No doubt that accounts for some of my perfectly reasonable and thoroughly correct bias in this matter.)
Naturally, I agree. It probably would also be a good idea for people like Richard Dawkins to learn something about philosophy before undertaking to practice it.
ReplyDeleteWell, if it ain't one by the Anglo-Saxons, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans of well-known repute? Then, I'd say, with neither hesitation nor qualification, the Bible.
ReplyDeleteI got Popper and Kuhn over at Nature Network (where I asked the question) - good replies.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure about the Bible, in this particular context, though!
Drats, Drats, Doubtle Drats, Maxine :) . . . I thought The Guy who created all that stuff He created in six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight . . . Oh, wait a sec . . .
ReplyDeleteNo, my motivation for mentioning the Bible originated in the notion that science would not exist without the creation of the world as we know it (and I feel fine); and, certainly, God did make all that stuff (without the help of NASA, IIRC, hehehehe . . .).
Also? Truf? Blame Hedgie; he started it, what with his refs to "Creation Science" and "Intelligent Desgn."
However, ISTM Popper really does rate, in this context, numero-uno status. Highly respected and solid in his several exegeses when it came not only to his extraordinarily cogent and accessible understanding of the true nature, methodology, and role of science and logic; but, also, and of no less importance, IMO, when one considers he went the distance in terms of his inestimable contribution to debunking "those myths" surrounding political systems and counter-systems. A true friend of science and humanity (both of which he valued equally), infinitely worthy of the distinction.
(Neither Bohr nor Einstein nor Rutherford . . . none of the "pure" scientists elected to seamlessly incorporate such an overwhelmingly humanistic slant in his/her work as Popper did, a fact which bears so much upon scientific exploration, one which, ISTM, is sometimes sadly overlooked by those who are, in essence, creating a better world in their work.)
Popper certainly achieved more for the notion of "democracy," IMO, than most purebred philosophers ever have (or will, again IMO). Kuhn's none-too-shunny, either; but, Popper was a kind of McLuhanistic figure, at least to my way of thinking. So, I had a chat with Him and He said:
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