Science and Its History: A Reassessment of the Historiography of Science

Joseph Agassi

Sep 2008 · Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science Book 253 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

Professor Joseph Agassi has published his Towards an Historiography of Science in 1963. It received many reviews by notable academics, including Maurice Finocchiaro, Charles Gillispie, Thomas S. Kuhn, Geroge Mora, Nicholas Rescher, and L. Pearce Williams. It is still in use in many courses in the philosophy and history of science. Here it appears in a revised and updated version with responses to these reviews and with many additional chapters, some already classic, others new. They are all paradigms of the author’s innovative way of writing fresh and engaging chapters in the history of the natural sciences.

Ratings and reviews

艾格思科学史观 Chinese Review书评选译 History of Science 科学史 子曰: 丘也幸, 苟有过, 人必知之. The Master said, “I am fortunate! If I have any errors, people are sure to know them.” (Confucian Analects 论语, 7:30.) Agassi says, “It (science) is an endless process of error elimination." 删除错误. 永无终止, 就是科学. (Science and its History 科学与其历史, preface 序, 2007, page xii 页, ) "The aim of this study is to encourage historians of science to write without beautifying, to examine the past without concealment of past errors and failings, especially important ones, and to worry more about engaging their readers in exciting intellectual adventure. From the start of my work on this project, over half a century ago, I could and did make use of wonderful examples. Their number is on the increase, and my hope is that the present work is helpful in helping the trend to grow." (Preface, p. xiv.) 此研究在鼓励科学史家写科学史不要美化, 审察以往科学不要隐藏以往科学的错误和缺点, 尤其是重要的错误和缺点. 不如担心能否引导读者经历刺激兴奋的思维探索旅程. 我从事此研究工作过半世纪, 可以引用, 也实在引用了奇妙的实例, 其数量亦日见增益, 希望此研究有助于这趋势的成长. (序页xiv.) “My main task is to discuss in some detail the distortions repeatedly and systematically disseminated as expressions of admiration for science. Science has no need for these distortions – or for any other. 我主要较详细讨论那些重复且有系统地发散的歪曲报道. 科学不需要这些歪曲, 也不需要任何其他歪曲. When new research is promising, the public is informed about it with much fanfare. If the hope peters out, information about it is allowed to drop out of memory silently. 当新的研究很有希望有所成就时, 就鼓吹热闹地公告世人. 如果希望渐渐消失, 就静悄悄地让人们忘掉其信息. (这样不对.) Let me mention a few examples. 让我举几个例. The discovery of helium was an admirable achievement: it was observed on the sun before it was observed on earth. This is very exciting, as all we have here on earth is the radiation from the sun. Its color revealed the existence of a new element. 氦的发现是令人赞叹的成就: 先在太阳上观察到了, 然后才在地球上观察到. 可真令人兴奋, 因为我们在地球上只有从太阳而来的辐射, 其颜色透露了一个新元素的存在. Now after the discovery of the ability to identify elements by the color of their radiation, astronomers observed more than one element on the sun, but these observations turned out to be mistaken: only helium remained. The concealment of this fact is understandable, yet mentioning it, not from spite, makes it easier to see the daring of those researchers who sought the fingerprints of elements in the solar radiation. 既然发现能够以辐射颜色认出元素, 天文学家在太阳上(错误以为)观察到的元素就不止一个了. 隐藏此(错误的)事实是可以谅解的, 可是提及(这些错误), 非出于鄙视, 却更可见那些研究学者的勇气, 他们要在太阳辐射中寻找元素的指模呢! Similarly, when on theoretical grounds a physicist Hideki Yukawa claimed that there is an elementary particle other than the familiar electron, proton, and neutron, the test of his theory led to the finding of such a particle. It did not fit all that he had expected of it. 同样地, 当物理学家余卡瓦根据理论而声称我们所熟悉的电子,质子,中子以外, 还有另外一个基本粒子. 测验他的理论结果真找到了这样一个粒子. 可是却不完全符合他的预料期望. Usually his success is praised and his disappointment is suppressed—seemingly out of respect for him. He does not need this kind of respect: like Oliver Cromwell, he could ask to be portrayed truthfully, warts

About the author

Joseph Agassi is Professor Emeritus at Tel-Aviv University and at York University, Toronto. He is the author of about twenty books and editor of about ten, as well as author of over 500 contributions to the learned press in the humanities, in diverse natural and social sciences, as well as in law and in education.