Science As a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations Series) - Hardcover

Hull, David L.

 
9780226360508: Science As a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations Series)

Synopsis

Hull applies an evolutionary model of selection processes to scientists and their work, showing that competition and cooperation among scientists result in the selective retention of new scientific ideas. As a model he offers a detailed history of theoretical struggles during the last two decades in systematic zoology, a field with which he's intimately acquainted. Hull shows that bias, personal commitments, and self-interest are the norm in science. He argues that scientific knowledge grows not in spite of these seeming flaws but because of them. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

David L. Hull (1935-2010) was Dressler Professor in the Humanities Emeritus at Northwestern University and a leading philosopher of biological science. He received the first Ph.D. awarded by the History and Philosophy of Science department at Indiana University and thentaught at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee fortwenty years before moving to Northwestern. He was editor of the Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series from the University of Chicago Press.

From the Back Cover

The scientists I have studied investigate such things as fruit flies, fossil fish, and slime molds. As diverse as these organism are, they have one thing in common: they cannot read the conclusions published about them. My subjects can. One of my goals in this book has been to present a fair and balanced estimate of the influence of various factors, including professional allegiances and alliances, on the course of systematic and evolutionary biology.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title