Real Science : What it Is and What it Means / John Ziman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ziman, J. M. (John M.), 1925-2005.

Series:

Cambridge books online.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Science--Methodology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (412 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

PDF

Summary:

The traditional mode of academic science research is not just a "method": it is a distinctive culture, whose members win esteem and employment by making their findings public. This culture, strictly regulated by established practices such as peer review, comprises highly specialized international communities of independent experts who form spontaneously and generate the type of knowledge we call "scientific". Ziman shows how scientific knowledge is tied closely to the peculiar social relationships of the scientists responsible for it. Unlike most other similar books, this carefully reasoned work on the nature and significance of scientific knowledge describes how academic scientists actually undertake research and communicate their findings.

Contents:

1 A peculiar institution 1

1.1 Defending a legend 1

1.2 Science as it is and does 2

1.3 A peculiar social institution 4

1.4 A body of knowledge 5

1.5 Naturalism in the study of Nature 6

1.6 Keeping it simple 8

2 Basically, it's purely academic 12

2.1 Framing the indefinable 12

2.2 Narrowing the frame 13

2.3 Research as inquiry 14

2.4 Science in the instrumental mode 15

2.5 Basic research as a policy category 17

2.6 Fundamental knowledge as an epistemic category 19

2.7 Out of pure curiosity 22

2.8 Academic science as a culture 24

2.9 Many disciplines in one science 25

3 Academic science 28

3.1 The republic of learning 28

3.2 Elements of the scientific ethos 31

3.3 Communalism 33

3.4 Universalism 36

3.5 Disinterestedness, humility 38

3.6 Originality 40

3.7 Scepticism 42

3.8 CUDOS institutionalized 44

3.9 Specialization 46

3.10 Avocation 49

3.11 Science in society 52

4 New modes of knowledge production 56

4.1 The academic mode 56

4.2 Is science to be believed? 58

4.3 What is happening in science? 61

4.4 The advent of post-academic science 67

4.5 An undramatic revolution 68

4.6 Collectivization 69

4.7 Limits to growth 71

4.8 Exploiting knowledge 72

4.9 Science policy 74

4.10 Industrialization 77

4.11 Bureaucratization 79

5 Community and communication 83

5.1 What sort of knowledge? 83

5.2 What are the facts? 85

5.3 Eradicating subjectivity 87

5.4 Quantification 88

5.5 Instruments 90

5.6 Experiment 93

5.7 Trust 96

5.8 Verification 98

5.9 The personal element 102

5.10 We are not alone 105

5.11 Empathy 107

5.12 Modes of communication 109

5.13 Networking intellectual property 113

6 Universalism and unification 117

6.1 Generalization and abstraction 117

6.2 Classifying the 'facts' 118

6.3 Systematics 122

6.4 Theories as maps 126

6.5 Maps as theories 128

6.6 Formalization 132

6.7 Mathematics 137

6.8 Rationality 141

6.9 Systematization 144

6.10 Models and metaphors 147

6.11 Scientific domains 151

7 Disinterestedness and objectivity 155

7.1 Striving towards objectivity 155

7.2 What makes science 'interesting'? 156

7.3 What makes science reliable? 157

7.4 Interests and values 161

7.5 Social interests in the natural sciences 163

7.6 But who sets the research agenda? 165

7.7 Disinterestedness in the human sciences 166

7.8 Free from interests - or free to be interested? 170

7.9 Problem solving in the context of application 172

7.10 Objectivity or emancipation? 177

8 Originality and novelty 182

8.2 Projects 185

8.3 Specialties 189

8.4 Disciplines and their paradigms 192

8.5 Getting down to fundamentals 198

8.6 Normal science 200

8.7 Who sets the problems? 204

8.8 Interdisciplinarity 209

8.9 Discovery 213

8.10 Hypotheses 218

8.11 Prediction 225

8.12 Hypothetical entities 229

8.13 Constructivism 232

8.14 What do scientists have in mind? 239

9 Scepticism and the growth of knowledge 246

9.1 The agonistic element 246

9.2 Consensus - or just closure 253

9.3 Codified knowledge 258

9.4 Getting things wrong 266

9.5 Mysteries, marvels and magic 269

9.6 Epistemic change 273

9.7 The evolutionary analogy 276

9.8 Complexity and progress 282

10 What, then, can we believe? 289

10.1 Understanding and explanation 289

10.2 Life-world knowledge 292

10.3 The epistemology of the life-world 296

10.4 Cultural contexts 302

10.5 Sciences, religions, and other belief systems 306

10.6 Science and common sense 313

10.7 Realism 316

10.8 Unified by reduction 321

10.9 Post-academic knowledge 327.

Notes:

Title from publishers bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Mar 2012).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9780511541391

9780521772297

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.