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Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever by Hal Hellman, 1998. True or False ?. 1. One of the nice aspects of science--in contrast with the humanities and the arts--is that new ideas are testable, so it's easy to determine whether a new idea is valid.
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Great Feuds in Science:Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Everby Hal Hellman, 1998
1. One of the nice aspects of science--in contrast with the humanities and the arts--is that new ideas are testable, so it's easy to determine whether a new idea is valid.
2. Science moves logically and inexorably, if sometimes slowly, from old ideas to new truths.
3. Strained relations between science and religion began with the uneven contest between Pope Urban VIII and Galileo in the 1630s.
4. The modern, peer-reviewed scientific paper was invented in the 19th century specifically as a way of helping researchers to share new discoveries with the rest of the scientific world.
5. Lay challenges to such developments as genetic testing and irradiation of food are a recent phenomenon, and can be explained by the explosion of information technologies.
6. If you can measure and calculate something, you'll always get the right answer.
7. The current interest in dinosaurs owes much to a violent feud between two American fossil hunters of the 19th century.End quiz
The word scientist did not exist prior to 1840.Before 1840, “natural philosophy” = observational or experimental science.
1.Anti-religious implications most jarring.2. Hypothesis is not a fact3. Made “scientific” hypothesis public- published in Italian so all could read. The church could not ignore.
Clincher of his book “Dialogue on the Great World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican (1632):Earth’s waters move---> so Earth moves.Although wrong, he was convincing.
Hobbes was the last of the deductive science.He was a philosopher/scientist.The father of scientific sociology.Wallis a mathematician, formed the Royal Society of London. Began the basis of the calculus.
This debate moved scientists in directions they may not have gone in order to prove/disprove either man. Afterwards, science moved to more inductive and experimental.
Key point: This debate (and feuds 3 and 4) involved a wide-ranging philosopher and generalist vs. a narrower specialist.
Feud 3Newton vs. LeibnizA Clash of Titans-Simultaneous Discovery of Calculus
The Calculus clash spawned the “scientific paper” in order to establish the priority of discovery.
1. Scientific paper is refereed by author’s peers before it can be published.2. Scientific paper includes explicit, clear references to what has been accomplished previously as a way of clearly delineating what the author is actually contributing.
Feud was philosophical, religious and diplomatic.Involved plagiarism.Newton actually discovered first, but published last. He believed that the scientists’ priority was from having done the work- not published it.
Newton became a “great administrator of science” in 1703 at the Royal Society. This began the movement of those who “run” science as opposed to those who “do” science.
Preformationist (Voltaire) vs. Epigenesists (Needham)Epigenesists = vegetative force, penetrating force, internal mold.
Voltaire was the master of the pen and nuance. Both wrote letters back and forth about reputation, not science.
Needham made an error in his experiment that he said proved spontaneous generation. Spallanzani corrected it, but then incorrectly concluded that it proved preformation. This set back thinking for years.
Other issues:Static Universe, Continuous Creation, “A watch demands a watchmaker”
Voltaire got his religion mixed up with his science.Needham used science to defend his religion.
“Unless the creation of living things is assigned to a divine creator, then somehow life did arise from non-life and the concept of Spontaneous Generation has not actually been buried, but rather moved back to an earlier time.”
Thomas Huxley “Evolutionary Science and Religion can coexist”
Many religious people had no problem accepting the basic ideas of natural selection- as long as they continue to believe that God is in there somewhere, most logically at the beginning
---> but then the controversy became “Was it only necessary to set the species going, after which everything took care of itself? Or was periodic intervention necessary in order for smooth operation?”
After 1920’s evolution was taught in schools- but then the willingness to pit evolution against religion may have elicited a sort of counter revolution among a group that just might have learned to accept evolution.
On going feud:new names for both sidesCreationism-->creative science-->Intelligent Design Theory--->Initial Complexity ModelEvolution-->Initial Primitiveness Model
Feud 6Lord Kelvin vs. Geologists and BiologistsAge of the Earth
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) was the first to introduce experiments in his lectures.We owe the field and thinking of “applied science” to Lord Kelvin.
“Can you measure it? Can you express it in figures? Can you make a model of it? If not, your theory is apt to be based more on imagination, than upon knowledge”- Lord Kelvin
By developing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he decided that the Earth was 100 million years old, but this did not support Darwin’s natural selection theory.
Lord Kelvin was wrong about the age…but he was so respected that his reputation never waned.
Competition breeds dispute, debate and plagiarism. The date of publication could not be used- so they used the date on which they shipped off specimens.
Most geologists were embarrassed by the public debate. Each scientist blamed the other for destroying fossils to prevent others from getting them, of stealing fossils from their workrooms and of being mentally unbalanced.
“Much of the funding for science comes from the public…If we scientists increase the public excitement about science, there is a good chance of having more public supporters”-Carl Sagan
Catastrophism vs. UniformitarianismStrong parallel to Galileo’s story
Main Point:“Not in my backyard” negation of outside scientist.
