Exploring the Scientific Method
Cases and Questions
Edited by Steven Gimbel
512 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2011
From their grade school classrooms forward, students of science are encouraged to memorize and adhere to the “scientific method”—a model of inquiry consisting of five to seven neatly laid-out steps, often in the form of a flowchart. But walk into the office of a theoretical physicist or the laboratory of a biochemist and ask “Which step are you on?” and you will likely receive a blank stare. This is not how science works. But science does work, and here award-winning teacher and scholar Steven Gimbel provides students the tools to answer for themselves this question: What actually is the scientific method?
Exploring the Scientific Method pairs classic and contemporary readings in the philosophy of science with milestones in scientific discovery to illustrate the foundational issues underlying scientific methodology. Students are asked to select one of nine possible fields—astronomy, physics, chemistry, genetics, evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology, economics, or geology—and through carefully crafted case studies trace its historical progression, all while evaluating whether scientific practice in each case reflects the methodological claims of the philosophers. This approach allows students to see the philosophy of science in action and to determine for themselves what scientists do and how they ought to do it.
Exploring the Scientific Method will be a welcome resource to introductory science courses and all courses in the history and philosophy of science.
Review Quotes
“This is a truly unique approach for a textbook. The philosophical positions that Gimbel chooses to focus on are important and the choices of primary source articles are excellent. Exploring the Scientific Method will be attractive to anyone teaching courses on the history and philosophy of science.”—Mara Harrell, Carnegie Mellon University
“The way Gimbel integrates core readings in the philosophy of science with case studies works extremely well. As far as I know, Exploring the Scientific Methodis the first book that does this, and I think this is exactly the approach that is needed to orient new students in the field.”—Mathias Frisch, University of Maryland
Contents
Introduction
How to Use This Book
Syntactic View of Theories
Deductivism
Aristotle from Posterior Analytics and Physics
René Descartes from Discourse on Method
Case Studies
Inductivism
Francis Bacon from Novum Organum
Isaac Newton from Principia
John Stuart Mill from System of Logic
Case Studies
Hypothetico-Deductivism
William Whewell from Novum Organum Renovatum
Rudolf Carnap “Theoretical Procedures in Science”
R. B. Braithwaite from Scientific Explanation
Paradoxes of Evidence
David Hume from Enquiry
Nelson Goodman from Fact, Fiction, and Forecast
Carl Hempel from “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation”
Responses to the Paradoxes of Evidence
Falsificationism
Karl Popper from The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Case Studies
Holistic View of Theories
Pierre Duhem from Aim and Structure of Physical Theory
Thomas Kuhn from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Imre Lakatos The Methodology of Research Programmes
Case Studies
Semantic View of Theories
Marshall Spector “Models and Theories”
Max Black “Models and Archetypes”
Ronald Giere from Explaining Science
Case Studies
Critical Views of Scientific Theories
Paul Feyerabend from Against Method
Ruth Hubbard “Science, Facts, and Feminism”
Bruno Latour “The Science Wars: A Dialogue”
Case Studies
Closing Remarks
Deductivism Case Study Readings
Astronomy Aristotle from On the Heavens
Physics Epicurus from Letter to Herodotus
Chemistry Paracelsus from Hermetic and Alchemical Writings
Genetics Aristotle from On the Generation of Animals
Evolutionary Biology Aristotle from On the Generation of Animals
Geology John Woodward from An Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth
Psychology Hippocrates from The Nature of Man, The Sacred Disease
Sociology Thomas Hobbes from Leviathan
Economics Aristotle from Politics
Inductivism Case Study Readings
Astronomy Ptolemy from Almagest
Physics James Clerk Maxwell from “Molecules”
Chemistry Robert Boyle from The Skeptical Chymist
Genetics Gregor Mendel from Experiments in Plant Hybridization
Evolutionary Biology Carolus Linnaeus from Systema Naturae
Geology James Hutton from “System of the Earth”
Psychology Heinrich Weber from “The Sense of Touch and the Common Feeling”
Sociology Émile Durkheim from Suicide
Economics François Quesnay from “Farmers”
Bibliography
Index
