APS March Meeting 2016
Volume 61, Number 2
Monday–Friday, March 14–18, 2016;
Baltimore, Maryland
Session C14: The Author in Dialogue: Steven Weinberg's 'To Explain the World'
2:30 PM–5:30 PM,
Monday, March 14, 2016
Room: 310
Sponsoring
Units:
FHP FPS
Chair: Joseph D. Martin, Michigan State University
Abstract ID: BAPS.2016.MAR.C14.4
Abstract: C14.00004 : The Diagnosis of Error in Histories of Science
4:18 PM–4:54 PM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
William Thomas
(History Associates, Inc.)
Whether and how to diagnose error in the history of science is a contentious
issue. For many scientists, diagnosis is appealing because it allows them to
discuss how knowledge can progress most effectively. Many historians
disagree. They consider diagnosis inappropriate because it may discard
features of past actors' thought that are important to understanding it, and
may have even been intellectually productive. Ironically, these historians
are apt to diagnose flaws in scientists' histories as proceeding from a
misguided desire to idealize scientific method, and from their attendant
identification of deviations from the ideal as, ipso facto, a paramount
source of error in historical science. While both views have some merit,
they should be reconciled if a more harmonious and productive relationship
between the disciplines is to prevail.
In To Explain the World, Steven Weinberg narrates the slow but definite
emergence of what we call science from long traditions of philosophical and
mathematical thought. This narrative follows in a historiographical
tradition charted by historians such as Alexandre Koyre and Rupert Hall
about sixty years ago. It is essentially a history of the emergence of
reliable (if fallible) scientific method from more error-prone thought.
While some historians such as Steven Shapin view narratives of this type as
fundamentally error-prone, I do not view such projects as a priori
illegitimate. They are, however, perhaps more difficult than Weinberg
supposes.
In this presentation, I will focus on two of Weinberg's strong historical
claims: that physics became detached from religion as early as the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and that physics proved an effective model for
placing other fields on scientific grounds. While I disagree with these
claims, they represent at most an overestimation of vintage science's
interest in discarding theological questions, and an overestimation of that
science's ability to function at all reliably.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2016.MAR.C14.4