Real science : what it is, and what it means / John Ziman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

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

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Science--Methodology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 399 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Scientists and 'anti-scientists' alike need a more realistic image of science. The traditional mode of research, academic science, is not just a 'method': it is a distinctive culture, whose members win esteem and employment by making public their findings. Fierce competition for credibility is strictly regulated by established practices such as peer review. Highly specialized international communities of independent experts form spontaneously and generate the type of knowledge we call 'scientific' - systematic, theoretical, empirically-tested, quantitative, and so on. Ziman shows that these familiar 'philosophical' features of scientific knowledge are inseparable from the ordinary cognitive capabilities and peculiar social relationships of its producers. This wide-angled close-up of the natural and human sciences recognizes their unique value, whilst revealing the limits of their rationality, reliability, and universal applicability. It also shows how, for better or worse, the new 'post-academic' research culture of teamwork, accountability, etc. is changing these supposedly eternal philosophical characteristics.

Contents:

A peculiar institution

Basically, it's purely academic

Adademic science

New modes of knowledge production

Community and communication

Universalism and unification

Disinterestedness and objectivity

Originality and novelty

Scepticism and the growth of knowledge

What, then, can we believe?

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 356-383) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11963-4

0-511-15137-3

0-511-04974-9

0-521-77229-X

0-511-54139-2

0-511-31058-7

1-280-42130-4

9786610421305

0-511-17255-9

OCLC:

437063367