P.V. Kokkotas K.S. Malamitsa and

A.A. Rizaki (Eds.) National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

The aims of this book are:

The book is divided in two parts: The first expounds its philosophical and epistemological framework and the second combines theory and praxis, the theoretical insights with their practical applications.

SensePublishers

DIVS

P.V. Kokkotas, K.S. Malamitsa and A.A. Rizaki (Eds.)

• to contribute to professional development of those directly involved in science education (science teachers, elementary and secondary science teacher advisors, researchers in science education, etc), • to contribute to the improvement of the quality of science education at all levels of education with the exploitation of elements from History of Science incorporated in science teaching –it is argued that through such approaches the students’ motivation can be raised, their romantic understanding can be developed and consequently their conceptual understanding of science concepts can be improved since these approaches make science more attractive to them– and • to contribute to the debate about science education at the international level in order to find new ways for further inquiry on the issues that the book is dealing with.

Adapting Historical Knowledge Production to the Classroom

Adapting Historical Knowledge Production to the Classroom

Adapting Historical Knowledge Production to the Classroom

Adapting Historical Knowledge Production to the Classroom

Edited by

P.V. Kokkotas, K.S Malamitsa and A.A. Rizaki National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

SENSE PUBLISHERS ROTTERDAM/BOSTON/TAIPEI

A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6091-347-1 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-348-8 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-349-5 (e-book)

Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands http://www.sensepublishers.com

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All Rights Reserved © 2011 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface.................................................................................................................... vii Section A: Theoretical Framework 1. Teaching the Philosophical and Worldview Components of Science: Some Considerations ......................................................................................... 3 Michael R. Matthews 2. Is the History of Science the Wasteland of False Theories?............................ 17 Stathis Psillos 3. The History of Science and the Future of Science Education: A Typology of Approaches to History of Science in Science Instruction ........................... 37 William F. McComas 4. Textbooks of the Physical Sciences and the History of Science: Α Problematic Coexistence ................................................................................. 55 Kostas Gavroglu 5. Does History of Science Contribute to the Construction of Knowledge in the Constructivist Environments of Learning? ............................................ 61 Panagiotis Kokkotas and Aikaterini Rizaki 6. On the Concept of Energy: History of Science for Teaching .......................... 85 Ricardo Lopes Coelho 7. Troublesome Droplets: Improving Students’ Experiences with the Millikan Oil Drop Experiment ...................................................................... 103 Peter Heering and Stephen Klassen 8. The Antikythera Mechanism: A Mechanical Cosmos and an Eternal Prototype for Modelling and Paradigm Study ............................................... 113 Xenophon Moussas 9. History of Science and Argumentation in Science Education: Joining Forces?.............................................................................................. 129 Gábor Á. Zemplén 10. Integration of Science Education and History of Science: The Catalan Experience ..................................................................................................... 141 Antoni Roca-Rosell v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section B: Praxis 11. Teaching Modern Physics, using Selected Nobel Lectures ........................... 153 Arthur Stinner 12. Classroom Explorations with Pendulums, Mirrors, and Galileo’s Drama ............................................................................................ 159 Elizabeth Cavicchi 13. Developing Greek Primary School Students’ Graph/Chart Interpretation and Reading Comprehension as Critical Thinking Skills: Assessing a Science Teaching Approach which Integrates Elements of History of Science ......................................................................................... 181 Katerina Malamitsa, Michael Kasoutas and Panagiotis Kokkotas 14. Use of the History of Science in the Design of Research-informed NOS Materials for Teacher Education ................................................................... 195 Agustín Adúriz-Bravo 15. Which HPS do/should Textbooks Refer to? The Historical Debate on the Nature of Electrical Fluids....................................................................... 205 Cibelle Celestino Silva 16. A wiki-course for Teacher Training in Science Education: Using History of Science to Teach Electromagnetism.......................................................... 213 Vassilis Koulountzos and Fanny Seroglou 17. Could Scientific Controversies be used as a Tool for Teaching Science in the Compulsory Education?: The Results of a Pilot Research Based on the Galileo – Del Monte Controversy about the Motion of the Pendulum....................................................................................................... 229 Constantina Stefanidou and Ioannis Vlachos 18. Resolving Dilemmas in Acquiring Knowledge of Newton’s First Law: Is the History of Science Helpful? ....................................................... 249 Gyoungho Lee and Arie Leegwater

vi

PREFACE

Over the last decades an intensive interest has been developed related to the incorporation of History and Philosophy of Science in science education curricula. This fact is in direct relation to the organization of national and international scientific conferences, workshops, meetings, summer schools for PhD students etc., the publishing of proceedings, the publishing of the scientific journal ‘Science & Education’ and the creation of the International History, Philosophy Science Teaching Group. This group organizes every two years an International History, Philosophy Science Education Conference in different places of the Planet and the year in between an international workshop of experts is held at a different place in the World. In this context the 7th International History, Philosophy Science Teaching Workshop of Experts, which was entitled “Adapting Historical Science Knowledge Production to the Classroom”, was hosted in Athens 7–11 July 2008. The organization of this workshop gave the opportunity to the experts in History and Philosophy of Science as well as to science educators worldwide to sit together for fruitful discussions and speculations. The result of this exchange of views was a collection of high quality papers dealing with issues of both theoretical and practical interest, which focus and contribute to the discussion and the promotion of the strategic incorporation of History and Philosophy of Science in science teaching. The aims of the workshop were: – the communication and the exchange of views about the introduction and the utilization of History and Philosophy of Science in science teaching, – the osmosis of the views of the experts present at the discussion followed each presentation and – the contribution to the reflections for the improvement of science teaching. Product of the Athens workshop of Experts is the publication of the present book which includes the papers presented and discussed there. Additionally, a number of other papers, relevant to the theme of the conference, are included as they are of interest to the theme of this book since they deal with the use of the History of Science in science teaching. In this sense, the book is more extensive and wide ranging than if it was just a collection of contributions of the workshop. The aims of this book are: (1) to contribute to the improvement of the quality of science education at all levels of education with the utilization of elements from History of Science incorporated in science teaching and (2) to contribute to the debate about science education at the international level in order to find new ways for further inquiry on the issues that the book is dealing with. The book is divided in two parts: The first expounds its philosophical and epistemological framework and the second combines theory and praxis, the theoretical insights with their practical applications. The themes presented in it may attract the interest of the members of the international scientific community specialized either in History and Philosophy of Science or in science education (science teachers and advisors, researchers in science teaching etc) especially those specialists interested vii

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in the use of History and Philosophy of Science in science teaching and its potential to improve the quality of science education at all levels, for the benefit of all students boys and girls worldwide. More specifically, the reader of the book will find some contributions that deal with and develop issues of great interest since all of the issues addressed remain open for further analysis and inquiry or lead to dilemmas. In the chapter Teaching the Philosophical and Worldview components of Science Some considerations, Michael Mathews discusses an important aspect of the contribution of science to culture, namely its role in the development of worldviews in society. A case study of the adjustments to a central Roman Catholic doctrine occasioned by the metaphysics of Atomism which was embraced at the Scientific Revolution is presented. In the chapter Is the History of Science the Wasteland of False Theories?, Stathis Psillos uses the caloric theory of heat, as an example showing the non existence of a completely falsifiable or verifiable theory. On the contrary, he states that, using the example of the Laplace’s caloric theory of heat, past science, although not completely corroborated, is viewed historically a living part of contemporary science. In the chapter The History of Science and the Future of Science Education - A Typology of Approaches to History of Science in Science Instruction, William McComas examines the role to be played in the incorporation of History of Science approaches to the teaching of Nature of Science by discussing the rationales, reviewing prior strategies, considering examples with the ultimate goal of proposing a taxonomy (typology) of History of Science instructional approaches to inform practice, guide future research and provide shared definitions. In the chapter Does History of Science contribute to the construction of knowledge in the constructivist learning environments?, Panagiotis Kokkotas and Aikaterini Rizaki describe the attempts made for the introduction of History of Science in science teaching over the last century and research how from traditional theories of learning we arrived in the modern ones, which are very well rooted in epistemology. Modern theories of learning support the view that knowledge is constructed in individual learning or appropriated in interactive learning environments. So, it is neither transmittable nor discoverable. In constructivist learning environments the use of History of Science is based in two epistemological presuppositions a) the similarity between the conceptions of students’ and of scientists’ or philosophers’ of the past, and b) the parallelism between the development of students’ understanding and the evolution of scientific concepts in History of Science. Furthermore, there are contributions that deal with issues regarding the writing of contemporary science textbooks in which the position and the incorporation of elements of History of Science in science teaching are addressed, and the extent to which this incorporation contributes to the improvement of the quality of science teaching. In the chapter Textbooks of the physical sciences and the history of science Α problematic coexistence, Kostas Gavroglu tries to answer two questions. The first is whether historically informed textbooks play any role in making students understand what History of Science is. The second question is whether pedagogic viii

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expediency is always in tandem with the scholarship of History of Science. Finally, the author wonders “might it be the case that what one wants to achieve in pedagogic terms may be in conflict with what one wants to convey in historical terms?” and he concludes that what, perhaps, we need to attempt is to encourage the writing of historically informed textbooks. In the chapter Which HPS do/should textbooks refer to? - The historical debate on the nature of electrical fluids, Cibelle Celestino Silva asserts the importance of Nature of Science in science teaching and presents Brazilian National Standards which emphasize the social and cultural contextualization as necessary and point some abilities to be developed in physics teaching, recognizing among others: physics as a human endeavor, teaching aspects of its history and its relationship with cultural, social, political and economic contexts, its role in the production system etc. There are some other contributions that deal with science teaching approaches using History of Science, as they have been applied at the tertiary level of education, creating a fruitful field of discussions. In these contributions, based on the experience of the application, the results of the teaching procedures have been described. In the chapter Teaching Modern Physics, using selected Nobel lectures, Arthur Stinner describes the course and a rationale for prospective physics teachers at the University of Manitoba, using a selected number of appropriate Nobel lectures. He decided to give them some enthusiasm and self confidence for the teaching of the ideas and the concepts of modern physics. Based on his prior experience, he was convinced that the conventional approach revisiting the main ideas of modern physics using a textbook would only lead to boredom. His contribution also contains a shortened version of a handout produced by one of his students (in consultation with the instructor) based on the work of J. J. Thomson, as reported in his Nobel lecture. In the chapter Classroom Explorations with Pendulums, Mirrors, and Galileo’s Drama, Elizabeth Cavicchi presents classrooms explorations with Pendulums, Mirrors, and Galileo’s Drama. In this context, while exploring materials, students researched Galileo, his trial, and its aftermath. Questions and experiments evolved continually, differing perspectives on science and authority were exchanged respectfully and students developed as critical explorers of the world. In the chapter Use of the History of Science in the design of research-informed NOS materials for teacher education, Agustin Aduriz Brabo recognizing the NOS as a major component in science teacher education, argues that several programs and materials have been issued, based on NOS research and aim at changing prospective and in-service teachers’ ideas on what science is and how it works. In this study, he describes one possible rationale for an integration, which uses the History of Science as a set (in the theatrical sense) to learn key ideas from 20th century philosophy of science. He also provided a brief overview of the process of derivation of historybased NOS materials using the idea of ‘setting’. In the chapter A wiki-course for teacher training in science education: Using History of Science to teach electromagnetism, Vassilis Koulountzos and Fanny Seroglou present the design and development of the instructional e-material that ix

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has been inspired by History of Science for science teachers e-training. The teachers have been introduced to a variety of activities such as: experiments, role-playing, discussions, and debates. Wiki offers a dynamic environment for in-service teachers to interact with each other, providing a Wiki-course as a promising flexible and expanding character to teacher education. In the chapter Developing Greek Primary School Students’ Graph/Chart Interpretation and Reading Comprehension as Critical Thinking Skills - Assessing a Science Teaching Approach which Integrates Elements of History of Science, Katerina Malamitsa, Michael Kasoutas and Panagiotis Kokkotas discuss the development of sixth grade students’ graph/chart interpretation and reading comprehension skills as critical thinking skills, relatively to the contribution of the integration of aspects of History of Science into instruction. Towards this direction a project on electromagnetism was designed and implemented aiming to engage primary school students in a critical examination of knowledge by generating argumentation and discussion in their classrooms. The results were supportive to the integration of History of Science in science instruction. In the chapter Could scientific controversies be used as a tool for teaching science in the Compulsory Education? - The results of a pilot research, Constantina Stefanidou and Ioannis Vlachos present the results of a pilot research which aimed to introduce aspects of the Nature of Science in physics teaching, based on a historical context. Taking into account that the study of the simple pendulum is included in physics curriculum, they were inspired by the scientific and philosophical controversy between Galileo and Del Monte about the pendulum motion. The intervention was addressed to thirteen high school students and was assessed. The results indicated that scientific controversies may be useful for teaching Nature of Science. The following three contributions refer to Spain, Greece and Slovacia respectively and have their own distinguished contribution to this book. In the chapter Integration of Science Education and History of Science: The Catalan experience, Antoni Roca-Rosell signalizing that the role of History of Science in education ought to provide an alternative view of science and technology placing them in a human context, presents the efforts for the achievement this objective in Barcelona. There are a number of groups working on this objective with two main orientations: first, dissemination of historical content in science education, highlighting the educational value of case studies and second, special courses on history of science and technology at the university level. In the chapter the Antikythera Mechanism - A Mechanical Cosmos and an eternal prototype for Modelling and Paradigm Study, Xenophon Moussas argues that the Mechanism of Antikythera is the oldest, the only and in fact the very best known example of a complex astronomical device, a dedicated analogue astronomical computer, possibly a planetarium, a device made with gears. We know that this type of devices have been used as educational devices in schools. As we read in Cicero and other ancient texts, great scientists and philosophers developed and used such devices either for education, entertainment, or to impress one’s visitors and guests, including state persons during their state visits. The Mechanism is ideal for x

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investigating interdisciplinarity in the sciences, as it covers many fields of traditional disciplines, without taking into account traditional boundaries between academic subjects, so that it helps a pupil and a student, or an adult learner, to think in a way that crosses the borders of established fields and have a holistic view. In the chapter On the Concept of Energy: History of Science for Teaching, Ricardo Lopes Coelho acknowledges that some physicists have pointed out that we do not really know what energy is. He regards as a main aim of the present paper: “How to understand energy thanks to its history”. For this purpose, he proposes that historical topics which constitute the basis of modern approaches in textbooks will be considered and how to interpret Joule’s experiment. The history of science teaches us that energy was discovered in the 1840s. Mayer, Joule, Colding and Helmholtz are generally considered the discoverers. They did not speak of conservation or transformation of energy but rather of force (Mayer, Colding or Helmholtz) or conversion of mechanical power into heat and vice-versa. Studies like the following deal exclusively with either the educational transformation of the science concepts and the construction of educational material or the use of teaching strategies which incorporate History of Science in science teaching. In the chapter On the Concept of Energy: History of Science for Teaching, Ricardo Lopes Coelho acknowledges that some physicists have pointed out that we do not really know what energy is. He regards as a main aim of the present paper: “How to understand energy thanks to its history”. For this purpose, he proposes that historical topics which constitute the basis of modern approaches in textbooks will be considered and how to interpret Joule’s experiment. In the chapter Troublesome droplets - Improving students’ experiences with the Millikan oil drop experiment, Peter Heering and Stephen Klassen argue that the Millikan’s oil drop experiment is among the classic experiments from modern physics and one of the ‘most beautiful’ experiments of all time. They acknowledge that the educational existing concerns for the Millikan’s experiment contrast with the laboratory experience of students and instructors in performing the experiment. So, they started a research project on the Millikan experiment in order to improve its educational potential. In this chapter, they describe the project and the measures that they intend to take to improve the experience of students. In the chapter History of science and argumentation in science education: Joining forces?, Gábor Zemplén presents an important aspect of any educational approach that aims to incorporate History of Science to develop either knowledge and skills on the Nature of Science, citizenship ideas (including ‘socio-scientific issues’ and ‘public understanding of science’), or reflective, critical thinking. Argumentation appears to be a crucial aspect of science, and, as such, also for approaches incorporating history of science in curricula. In spite of this, at the moment mostly desiderata are set in course and curriculum objectives, without providing the necessary time for both history of science and argumentation in science classes, as a recent study concludes. Furthermore, the author outlines a number of limitations and some of the possibilities that research in argumentation in science education suggests in the hope of showing the benefit of these considerations for the incorporation of History of Science in science classrooms. xi

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In the chapter Resolving Dilemmas in Acquiring Knowledge of Newton’s First Lawn - Is the History of Science Helpful?, Gyoungho Lee and Arie Leegwater explore a dilemmas episode of a physics teacher who is confronted by student disbelief in Newton’s First Law of Motion; there is the tension between students’ common-sense knowledge and the formal knowledge of science. Furthermore, they present the historical case of natural motion and its potential for resolving the dilemmas of teaching Newton’s First Law. The Editors Panagiotis Kokkotas, Katerina Malamitsa and Aikaterini Rizaki National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

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SECTION A: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

MICHAEL R. MATTHEWS

1. TEACHING THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND WORLDVIEW COMPONENTS OF SCIENCE Some Considerations1

1. INTRODUCTION

A common feature of contemporary science education curricula is the expectation that as well as learning science content and method, students will learn something about science - its nature, its history, how it differs from non-scientific endeavours, and its interactions with society and culture. Thus as well as disciplinary or technical goals, contemporary science curricula rightly seek to contribute wider educational goals. These have often been called ‘humanistic’, ‘cultural’ or ‘liberal’ goals. The American Association for the Advancement of Science expressed its commitment to cultural or humanistic outcomes of science education in its Project 2061 (AAAS, 1989) publication, and the following year in The Liberal Art of Science: The teaching of science must explore the interplay between science and the intellectual and cultural traditions in which it is firmly embedded. Science has a history that can demonstrate the relationship between science and the wider world of ideas and can illuminate contemporary issues (AAAS, 1990, p. xiv). The unique contribution of the science programme to this more general problemsolving educational goal is the cultivation and refinement of specifically scientific habits of mind. These are meant to ‘spill over’ from the laboratory bench to the home, workplace, community and nation. For the AAAS, the wider ‘planetary’ problems are not just scientific and technical, they are also social, cultural, and ideological; and the conviction is that these problems can be, and perhaps only can be, solved by application of a ‘scientific habit of mind’. The expectations of the AAAS have found their way through to the US National Science Education Standards where there is a separate content strand on ‘History and Nature of Science Standards’ (NRC, 1996) this strand is to be covered in science programmes from kindergarten to year 12. Of this strand, the document says that: Students should develop an understanding of what science is, what science is not, what science can and cannot do, and how science contributes to culture (NRC, 1996, p. 2). P.V. Kokkotas et al., (eds.), Adapting Historical Science Knowledge Production to the Classroom, 3–16. © 2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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And, The standards for the history and nature of science recommend the use of history in school science programs to clarify different aspects of scientific inquiry, the human aspects of science, and the role that science has played in the development of various cultures. (NRC, 1996, p. 107). The liberal or cultural curricular views advanced by the AAAS and evidenced in Norway’s Education Framework have a long history. The hope for a positive ‘spillover’ effect from the learning of science to the improvement of society and culture is a 21st century restatement of the central plank of the European Enlightenment of the 18th century: The Enlightenment thinkers believed that the spread of science would ameliorate many of the enormous physical, social and ideological problems that then beset Europe - terrible religious wars, widespread and gross superstitions, witch crazes, plagues, absolutist and authoritarian monarchical regimes, a domineering and intrusive Roman Catholic Church, and equally domineering Protestant Churches where they had the opportunity, the Inquisition, and so on. In these circumstances it was not surprising that many thought that the method of the New Science that was so manifestly fruitful in the achievements of Newton should be applied more broadly and that it would have flow-on effects for the betterment of culture and society. These curricular statements and Framework pronouncements provide an ‘open cheque’ for the inclusion of history and philosophy of science in science teacher education programmes, and for their utilisation in classrooms. Unfortunately this open cheque is too often not cashed. This paper will discuss an important aspect of the contribution of science to culture, namely its role in the development of worldviews in society; and then how this interaction of science and worldviews can be taught in school programmes. 2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Science raises philosophical questions and requires philosophical commitments: science and philosophy go hand-in-hand2. It is no accident that many of the major physicists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries wrote books on philosophy and the engaging overlaps between science and philosophy - for instance Boltzmann, von Helmholtz, Mach, Duhem, Eddington, Jeans, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, and Bohm3. Many less well known physicists also wrote such books; among the better ones being: Bridgman, Campbell, Margenau, Bunge, Chandrasekhar, Holton, Rabi, Shimony, Rohrlich, Cushing and Weinberg4. A good many chemists and biologists have made contributions to this genre –for instance Haldane (1928), Polanyi (1958), Bernal (1939), Hull (1988), Mayr (1982), Gould (1999), Birch (1990), Monod (1971), and Wilson (1998). One very recent contribution to the genre is by Francis Collins, the geneticist and leader of the Human Genome Project (Collins, 2007)5. 4

WORLDVIEW COMPONENTS OF SCIENCE

The Oxford philosopher, R. G. Collingwood in his landmark study The Idea of Nature wrote on the history of mutual interdependence of science and philosophy and commented that: The detailed study of natural fact is commonly called natural science, or for short simply science; the reflection on principles, whether those of natural science or of any other department of thought or action, is commonly called philosophy. …but the two things are so closely related that natural science cannot go on for long without philosophy beginning; and that philosophy reacts on the science out of which it has grown by giving it in future a new firmness and consistency arising out of the scientist’s new consciousness of the principles on which he has been working (Collingwood, 1945, p. 2). He goes on to write that: For this reason it cannot be well that natural science should be assigned exclusively to one class of persons called scientists and philosophy to another class called philosophers. A man who has never reflected on the principles of his work has not achieved a grown-up man’s attitude towards it; a scientist who has never philosophized about his science can never be more than a second-hand, imitative, journeyman scientist (Collingwood, 1945, p. 2). What Collingwood says about the requirement of ‘reflecting upon principles’ being necessary for the practice of good science, can equally be said for the practice of good science teaching. Liberal education promotes just such deeper reflection and questioning of the basic laws or assumptions of any discipline being taught, including science. 3. SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS

Science not only raises and is intertwined with the foregoing types of ‘routine’ philosophical questions, but these philosophical reflections lead inexorably to metaphysical ones, and finally to questions about worldviews. The phenomena and questions science investigates; the kinds of answers it entertains; the types of entities it recognises as having causal influence; the boundaries, if any, it sets to the domain of scientific investigation; and so on, all begin to touch upon or push against larger metaphysical commitments of an epistemological, ontological, and sometimes ethical kind. Consider the Law of Inertia, the foundation stone of classical physics which is taught to every science student in school. It is usually stated as: ‘bodies either remain at rest or continue travelling in a straight line at a constant velocity unless acted upon by a force’. In better schools it might be ‘demonstrated’ by means of sliding a puck on an air table. In a purely technical science education the law is learnt by heart, and problems worked out using its associated formulae of F = ma. Technical purposes might be satisfied with correct memorisation and 5

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mastery of the quantitative skills - ‘a force of X newtons acts on a mass of Y kilograms, what acceleration is produced?’- but the goals of liberal education cannot be so easily satisfied. Just a little philosophical reflection and historical investigation on this routine topic of inertia opens up whole new scientific and educational vistas. Apart from interesting and important history, basic matters of philosophy arise in any good classroom treatment of the law of inertia: – epistemology - we never see force-free behaviour in nature, nor can it be experimentally induced, so what is the source and justification of our knowledge of bodies acting without impressed forces? If force is measured by acceleration, and if acceleration is a function of measures of time, then the magnitude of a supposedly independent force depends upon our metric of time. – ontology - we do not see or experience force apart from its manifestation, so does it have existence? What is mass? What is a measure of mass as distinct from weight? – cosmology - does such an inertial object go on forever in an infinite void? What happens at the limits of ‘infinite’ space? Were bodies created with movement? These are the sorts of considerations that prompted Poincaré to say: ‘When we say force is the cause of motion, we are talking metaphysics’ (Poincaré, 1905/1952, p. 98). And as every physics class talks of force being the cause of motion, then there is metaphysics lurking in every classroom, just waiting to be exposed. But as well as movement upwards from the study of nature (science) to associated metaphysics, there is of course movement downwards. The study of nature presupposes certain metaphysical and procedural or methodological commitments: first the existence of an external world that is independent of the observer; second the universality of causation in that world, if something happens there is a cause that made it happen; and third the constancy of causation, if an event E has cause C today, then it will have the same cause tomorrow and the same cause in other places. To these three presuppositions might be added epistemological commitments such as: our mind or reason is such that we can come to know the external world. Some might add an additional epistemic presupposition of science: namely that appraisal of alternative beliefs needs to be rational; science is an activity in which evidence is of central relevance in deciding upon truth or falsity, it is thus different from politics or business. These presuppositions, postulates or principles might be labelled Realism, Determinism, Lawfulness, Reason and Rationality. They are not self-evident; not all people and cultures have believed them, some have argued that it was the Christian worldview where God was removed from nature that, contra animism, allowed science to flourish; and some of these principles are disputed by contemporary philosophers of science. The principles are not directly proved by science rather they are the default metaphysical positions for the conduct of Western science. Duhem and Poincaré, at the beginning of the twentieth century, called these principles ‘conventions’. Poincaré wrote that: ‘while these laws are imposed on 6

WORLDVIEW COMPONENTS OF SCIENCE

our science, which otherwise could not exist, they are not imposed on Nature’ (Poincaré, 1905/1952, p. xxiii). And reassuringly for a Realist he added: ‘Are they then arbitrary? No; for if they were, they would not be fertile’ (ibid.). One philosophical question here is how does ‘fertility’ bear upon the truth of the principles of the fertile research programme; another is how does such truth, if truth it be, give grounds for believing in the invisible entities postulated by the principles? Clearly one important task for educators who are exhorted to teach something about science, its impact on culture, and how it is distinguished from other ways of knowing is to reflect on whether philosophy and metaphysics is separate from or a part of science. Either way it is going to need to be taught. If metaphysics and philosophical commitments are an integral part of science, then they clearly need to be fleshed out, articulated and examined; if they are something separate from science, then it will need to be shown just how they are separate. 4. SCIENCE AND WORLDVIEWS

This amalgam of ontological, metaphysics, epistemological and ethical commitments, especially when extended to include religious or irreligious positions can loosely be called a ‘worldview’. A worldview encompasses ideas of nature - its constitution, origins and purposes if any; ideas of our place in nature and in the general ‘scheme of things’; ideas of what entities exist in the world - matter?, spirits? minds? Angels?; ideas about the powers and actions of such existing entities?; ideas of God and how God may or may not interact with the world including answering prayers, performing miracles, making Revelations, and anointing prophets or messengers; ideas of the Sacred; ideas of how knowledge is acquired and tested; ideas of the goodness or badness of human nature; and so on. In the seventeenth century, the new science (natural philosophy) of Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, Boyle and Newton caused a massive change not just in science, but in European philosophy that had enduring repercussions for religion, ethics, politics and culture. All the major natural philosophers of the time rejected Aristotelianism in their scientific practice and in their enunciated philosophy. Overwhelmingly the new philosophy to which they turned was corpuscularian, mechanical and realist - it has rightly been called the ‘Mechanical World View’6. In this new world view, there was simply no place for the entities that Aristotelianism utilised to explain events in the world: hylomorphism, immaterial substances, natures, substantial forms, and final causes were all banished from the philosophical firmament. Galileo reached back to pre-Socratic atomistic sources, and to more recent medieval nominalist sources, for his account of matter. As a student he had read Democritus, Lucretius, and possibly other early atomists such as Leucippus the teacher of Democritus. For them colour and taste were opinions, mere names; what existed in the world was atoms and the void, and atoms had neither colour nor taste. They held a material monist position - all matter was an aggregate of invisible and indivisible ‘atoms’ each of which was made of the same material, and differing 7

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among themselves only in size and shape. It was the particular aggregate of atoms that gave bodies their tangible properties; a body’s properties were not produced or caused by its Form. When new substances are created from different materials, their immutable atoms are just rearranged in different ways; there is no change of Form, because there was no Form to change. This atomistic ontology was so comprehensively rejected by Aristotle in this Physics and his Metaphysics that it disappeared from the philosophical firmament for over a thousand years until it was revived by some thinkers on the margins of medieval philosophy such as William of Ockham and Nicholas of Autrecourt. Galileo makes explicit his atomism, or corpuscularianism, when he says: Those materials which produce heat in us and make us feel warmth, which are known by the general name of ‘fire’, would then be a multitude of minute particles having certain shapes and moving with certain velocities. Meeting with our bodies, they penetrate by means of their extreme subtlety, and their touch as felt by us when they pass through our substance is the sensation we call ‘heat’. …I do not believe that in addition to shape, number, motion, penetration, and touch there is any other quality in fire corresponding to ‘heat’. (ibid) Galileo’s ontology was simply inconsistent with Scholastic metaphysics and thus with the medieval world view built upon it. Galileo’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities was the beginning of the unravelling of this ‘Medieval Synthesis’ and its replacement by the ‘Mechanical World View’ and ultimately the ‘Scientific World View’. Newton, the greatest of all seventeenth-century scientists, was also a champion of the New Philosophy7. Beginning in his student days, Newton embraced Galileo’s mathematical methods, his Copernicanism, his experimentalism, his rejection of Aristotle’s physics, his rejection of Scholastic philosophy, and his embryonic atomism8. In the Preface of the Principia Newton identifies himself with the ‘moderns, rejecting substantial forms and occult qualities’ and endeavours ‘to subject the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics’ (Newton, 1729/1934, p. xvii). Much can be said about Atomism and its role in the Scientific Revolution, but for current purposes it is suffice to repeat Dilworth’s judgement that: The metaphysics underlying the Scientific Revolution was that of early Greek atomism. …It is with atomism that one obtains the notion of a physical reality underlying the phenomena, a reality in which uniform causal relations obtain. …What made the Scientific Revolution truly distinct, and Galileo …its father, was that for the first time this empirical methodology [of Archimedes] was given an ontological underpinning (Dilworth, 2006, p. 201). Whenever atomism was entertained in the medieval and renaissance period it provoked intense theological and religious attention, if not outrage; atomism was a 8

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red-flag to proponents of the established, church-endorsed, philosophical orthodoxy. Peter Gassendi adopted Epicurean atomism in the early seventeenth century, but bent it to the dictates of the Catholic Church in which he was a priest. Thus he said, contra Epicurus that the atoms are not eternal in time, they are not infinite in number, and their initial motion was not sui generis, but rather they were moved by God. The Islamic tradition also decried the new scientific worldview, and its Enlightenment champions. A representative Islamic reaction to the Scientific Revolution can be seen when one contemporary scholar writes that the new science of Galileo and Newton had tragic consequences for the West because it marked: The first occasion in human history when a human collectivity completely replaced the religious understanding of the order of nature for one that was not only nonreligious but that also challenged some of the most basic tenets of the religious perspective (Nasr, 1996, p. 130). Nasr repeats Western religious and romantic laments about the new science when he writes: Henceforth as long as only the quantitative face of nature was considered as real, and the new science was seen as the only science of nature, the religious meaning of the order of nature was irrelevant, at best an emotional and poetic response to ‘matter in motion’ (Nasr, 1996, p. 143). 5. THE ATOMISTIC HERESY

Just as science is associated with one or more worldviews, so too is religion; and both history and contemporary times bear witness to the fact that the worldviews of science and of religion do not always sit easily with each other. Worldview conflicts occasioned by disputes about Creation, Creationism, Teleology, Miracles, the existence of individual souls or spirits, and so on, have been comprehensively written upon, with just the past few years seeing bestsellers devoted to these conflicts (Dennett, 1995; Dawkins, 2006; Hitchens, 2007). A less written upon, but very illustrative, example of debate about compatibility of scientific and religious worldviews concerns atomism, the central ontological plank of the Scientific Revolution. Among the numerous Christian positions that atomism seemingly threatened, the most basic and important one was the revered Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Eastern Uniate teaching on Christ’s presence in the Eucharist; the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Eucharist was the sacramental heart of the Catholic Mass, and the Mass was the devotional heart of the Church. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ, brought into being by the priest’s consecration of the communion host, underwrote devotional practice and doctrinal authority. Denial of the Real Presence was a capital offence. It was a litmus test in the Inquisition, where failure the belief meant a horrible death at the stake. 9

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Scholastic philosophy, with its Aristotelian categories of substance, accidents and qualities could bring a modicum of intelligibility to this central mystery of faith -at consecration the substance of bread changed to the substance of Christ’s body, but the accidents remained that of bread. So Christ became truly present, even though there was no sensible change apparent. Thomas Aquinas formulated the orthodox doctrine as: All the substance of the bread is transmuted into the body of Christ… therefore, this is not a formal conversion but a substantial one. Nor does it belong to the species of natural mutations; but, with its own definition, it is called transubstantiation (Summa Theologica III, q.75, a.4, in Redondi, 1988, p. 212). This Thomist formulation, along with the Aristotelian philosophical apparatus required for its interpretation, was affirmed as defining Catholic orthodoxy at the Council of Trent in 1551. Although Galileo was, in 1615, warned not to hold or teach the Copernican doctrine of a moving earth, it was only after The Assayer and its endorsement of atomism, was published in 1623 that he faced serious theological charges. The charge of Atomism against Galileo with its direct implications of heresy, was publicly made by Father Grassi, a prominent Jesuit professor of mathematics and astronomy at the Collegio Romano. In a book published in Paris in 1626 he wrote: I must now reply to the digression on heat in which Galileo openly declares himself a follower of the school of Democritus and Epicurus. … … I cannot avoid giving vent to certain scruples that preoccupy me. They come from what we have regarded as incontestable on the basis of the precepts of the Fathers, the Councils, and the entire Church. They are the qualities by virtue of which, although the substance of the bread and wine disappear, thanks to omnipotent words, nonetheless their sensible species persist; that is, their color, taste, warmth, or coldness. Only by the divine will are these species maintained, and in miraculous fashion, as they tell me. … Instead, Galileo expressly declares that heat, color, taste, and everything else of this kind are outside [inside?] of him who feels them, and therefore in the bread and wine, just simple names. Hence, when the substance of the bread and wine disappears, only the names of the qualities will remain. In the host, it is commonly affirmed, the sensible species (heat, taste, and so on) persist. Galileo, on the contrary, says that heat and taste, outside of him who perceives them, and hence also in the host, are simple names; that is, they are nothing. One must therefore infer, from what Galileo says, that heat 10

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and taste do not subsist in the host. The soul experiences horror at the very thought (Redondi, 1987, p. 336). Underlining the gravity of this charge against Galileo, Father Grassi adds that Transubstantiation ‘constitutes the essential point of faith or contains all other essential points’ (Redondi, 1987, p. 336). Descartes’ matter theory was likewise condemned in 1671 because its categories did not allow an intelligent rendering of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. John Hedley Brooke, an historian sympathetic to claims about the positive contribution of religion to science, recognized the problem that atomism posed ‘especially for the Roman Catholic Church, which took a distinctive view of the presence of Christ at the celebration of the Eucharist’ (Brooke, 1991, p. 141). He writes: With an Aristotelian theory of matter and form, it was possible to understand how the bread and wine could retain their sensible properties while their substance was miraculously turned into the body and blood of Christ. ….But if, as the mechanical philosophers argued, the sensible properties were dependent on an ulterior configuration of particles, then any alteration to that internal structure would have discernible effects. The bread and wine would no longer appear as bread and wine if a real change had occurred (Brooke, 1991, p. 142). On the face of it the whole influential tradition of Roman Catholic Thomistic and Scholastic teaching, which had enormous cultural and personal impact in Catholic Europe, Latin America, the Philippines, and elsewhere, was in flat contradiction to the worldview of science. Adjustments had to be made on one side or the other. This is a rich, fertile and engaging example of the impact of science on culture, and of culture’s responses and reactions to such impact. 6. OPTIONS FOR RECONCILING WORLDVIEWS

Examination of the Atomism heresy might seem arcane, but there are benefits to be derived; some issues, relationships and tensions are more obvious when viewed in the calmer light of history than in the often partisan glare of the present. The Atomism versus specifically Roman Catholic and Orthodox religious debate of the seventeenth century brings into focus a number of enduring philosophical, religious and cultural issues, among which are at least the following: 1. Does the Christian religion, make metaphysical claims? And are such claims best expressed in any particular philosophical system? 2. Is there a need for religious claims to be made intelligible or reasonable? 3. How adequate is Scholastic Thomism for the interpretation of Christian doctrine? 4. Should philosophical systems be judged by their theological adequacy or compatibility? 5. Does the Church have the authority to proscribe philosophical systems? 11

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These issues were argued within the Christian churches; they were debated in the Enlightenment; and are still debated9. For example, the author of one work titled Christian Metaphysics straightforwardly argues that: The thesis which I submit to the critical examination of the reader is that there is one Christian philosophy and one only. I maintain, in other words, that Christianity calls for a metaphysical structure which is not any structure, that Christianity is an original metaphysic. ...[it is] a body of very precise and very well-defined theses which are properly metaphysical … (Tresmontant, 1965, pp. 19–20). Such a position might be labelled ‘privileged’ in as much as the metaphysics comes from outside of science, not from within. This was the situation mentioned above when Gassendi modified the atomism of Epicurus to have it accord with Christian belief. Privilege for such metaphysical positions is usually is derived from Revelation, Theology, Philosophy, Intuition or perhaps Politics. Such privileged metaphysical views can be found enunciated by advocates of Judaic, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and a host of lesser religions; as well as of indigenous belief systems. These traditions would formulate the above five issues in their own terms. And if ‘Marxism-Leninism’ is substituted for ‘Thomism’, and ‘The Central Committee’ is substituted for ‘Church’ then the above list of issues is applicable to the situation that pertained in the Soviet Union and its satellites; with the Lysenko case being the most public and scandalous reminder of how enduring are the issues10. Where there is such incompatibility between scientific and religious metaphysics and worldviews - as in the case of Atomism developed above - the options usually taken to reconcile the differences are to claim that: 1. Science really has no metaphysics; that it makes no metaphysical claims. This is the option made famous by the Catholic positivist Pierre Duhem. 2. The metaphysics of science is false; at least any such purported metaphysics that is inconsistent with religious beliefs. This is the option advocated by the Scholastic tradition discussed above; by Tresmontant and Nasr who are quoted above; and by philosophical theologians such as Plantinga (2000), Mascall (1956), and numerous others. 3. There can be parallel, equally valid, metaphysics. This is an old option given recent prominence by Stephen Gould in his NOMA formulation (Gould, 1999). All these options have their problems, but this is not the place to elaborate them; they are fully elaborated by contributors to the Science & Education special issue devoted to ‘Science, Worldviews and Education’ (Vol. 18, Nos. 6–7, 2009). As far as education is concerned, the important thing is to have students first recognise what are the options, and second carefully examine them and their implications and ideally take up a personal, if provisional, position on the matter. 12

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7. CONCLUSION

Science has contributed immensely to our philosophical and cultural tradition, this is part of the ‘flesh’ of science; too often, unfortunately, science teaching presents just the ‘bare bones’ of science –this is one reason why, notoriously, advanced ‘technical’ science is so often associated with religious and ideological fundamentalism and bigotry. The cultural flesh needs to be part of any serious science programme, and indeed this is now required in many contemporary curriculum statements. These requirements present an open cheque for historical and philosophical studies in science education; but for the cheque to be cashed teachers need the relevant knowledge, interest and enthusiasm for such studies. Unfortunately they are poorly covered in teacher education programmes. In a good liberal education students will learn about the philosophical dimensions of science, beginning with the routine matters listed early in this paper - matters of conceptual analysis, epistemology, ethics and so on. They will also learn about the metaphysical, especially ontological, dimensions of science, some of which have been discussed above. They should also be introduced to, and hopefully make decisions about the constitution and applicability of the scientific outlook, habit of mind or the scientific temper - is a scientific outlook required for the solution of social and ideological problems? And finally students should engage with the questions of science and worldviews, and study options for reconciling seeming conflicts in this area. All of this makes science classes more intellectually engaging, it promotes ‘minds-on’ science learning, and it might help inoculate students against snake-oil merchants who peddle various ‘metaphysical’ schemes and wonders –if students have all ready engaged with serious metaphysical questions and debates, and have been exposed to genuine wonders about the world and science’s coming to know something about it– they might be less likely to fall for whatever passing fantasies are doing the internet and television rounds. In these three areas –philosophy, metaphysics and worldviews– teachers will need to guide and inform students, provide them with materials, and structure discussion and debate. These educational goals should not just be the responsibility of the science teacher; they should be realised by informed and competent curricula coordination across the subjects of science, philosophy and history. But it does not mean that students should learn the correct options, or that teachers should give them correct answers. Immanuel Kant famously said that the motto of the Enlightenment was ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’ (Kant, 1784/2003, p. 54). A century earlier, John Locke expressed this motif as a principle for liberal education in his 1689 Enlightenment classic, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, where he said: The floating of other men’s opinions in our brains makes us not one jot more knowing, though they happen to be true. What in them was science is in us but opiniatertry, whilst we give up our assent only to reverend names, and do not, as they did, employ our own reason to understand those truths which gave them reputation. 13

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And then proceeded memorably to say: Such borrowed wealth, like fairy money, though it be gold in the hand from which he received it, will be but leaves and dust when it comes to use (Locke, 1689/1924, p. 40). The same advice is applicable today. NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10

This paper is based on a longer version that is to appear in Science & Education, vol.18, nos. 5–6, 2009. The special issue is devoted to ‘Science, Worldviews and Education’. Some useful studies on the philosophical dimension of science are Smart (1968), Wartofsky (1968), Buchdahl (1969), Amsterdamski (1975), Trusted (1991), and Dilworth (2006). See for instance: Boltzmann, Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems (1905/1974), Helmholtz’s Science & Culture (1995), Mach’s The Science of Mechanics (1893/1960), Duhem’s The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906/1954), Planck’s Where is Science Going? (1932), Eddington’s The Philosophy of Physical Science (1939), Jean’s Physics and Philosophy (1943/1981), Bohr Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958), Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy (1962), Schrödinger My View of the World (1964), Born My Life & My Views (1968), and Bohm Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980). See for instance: Bridgman Reflections of a Physicist (1950), Margenau The Nature of Physical Reality (1950), Rabi Science the Centre of Culture (Rabi, 1967), Bunge Philosophy of Science (Bunge, 1998), Chandrasekhar Truth and Beauty (Chandrasekhar, 1987), Campbell What Is Science? (Campbell, 1921/1952), Holton Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought (Holton, 1973), Cushing Philosophical Concepts in Physics (Cushing, 1998), Rohrlich From Paradox to Reality (Rohrlich, 1987), Shimony Search for a Naturalistic World View (Shimony, 1993) and Weinberg Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (Weinberg, 2001). Beyond the substantial and careful writers listed above it needs to be acknowledged that there is a veritable legion of insubstantial and careless writers whose books are nevertheless best sellers. These authors simply muddy the waters, and bring discredit to the programme of understanding the overlap of science and philosophy. For historical and philosophical elaboration of the mechanical world view see Dijksterhuis (1961/ 1986), Harré (1964), and Westfall (1971). Numerous works are available on Newton’s philosophy and metaphysics, among them are McMullin (1978), Stein (2002), McGuire (1995) and Hughes (1990). Although an atomist, Newton distanced himself from Descartes’ interpretation of the theory. For Newton’s early scientific and philosophical formation see Herivel (1965). For representative literature on this topic of ‘Christian Philosophy’ see Trethowan (1954) and Tresmontant (1965). For discussion of the suitability of Thomism as a vehicle for the interpretation of Christian doctrine, see McInerny (1966) and Weisheipl (1968). See Graham (1973), Joravsky (1970), Lecourt (1977), and Soyfer (1994).

REFERENCES American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (1989). Project 2061: Science for all Americans. Washington, DC: AAAS. (Also published by Oxford University Press, 1990) American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). (1990). The liberal art of science: agenda for action. Washington, DC: AAAS. Amsterdamski, S. (1975). Between experience and metaphysics. Dordrecht: Reidel. Bernal, J. D. (1939). The social function of science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 14

WORLDVIEW COMPONENTS OF SCIENCE Birch, L. C. (1990). On purpose. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the implicate order. London: Ark Paperbacks. Bohr, N. (1958). Atomic physics and human knowledge. New York: Wiley. Boltzmann, L. (1905/1974). Theoretical physics and philosophical problems. Dordrecht: Reidel. Born, M. (1968). My life & my views. New York: Scribners. Bridgman, P. W. (1950). Reflections of a Physicist. New York: Philosophical Library. Brooke, J. H. (1991). Science and religion: Some historical perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buchdahl, G. (1969). Metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bunge, M. (1998). Philosophy of science (2 Vols.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Campbell, N. R. (1921/1952). What is science? New York: Dover. Chandrasekhar, S. (1987). Truth and beauty: Aesthetics and motivations in science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collingwood, R. G. (1945). The idea of nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collins, F. S. (2007). The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief. New York: Free Press. Cushing, J. T. (1998). Philosophical concepts in physics: The historical relation between philosophy and scientific theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawkins, R. (2006). The God delusion. London: Bantam Press. De Wulf, M. (1903/1956). An introduction to scholastic philosophy: Medieval and modern (P. Coffey, Trans.). New York: Dover Publications. Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meanings of life. London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press. Dijksterhuis, E. J. (1961/1986). The mechanization of the world picture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dilworth, C. (2006). The metaphysics of science. An account of modern science in terms of principles, laws and theories (2nd ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Duhem, P. (1906/1954). The aim and structure of physical theory (P. P. Wiener, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Eddington, A. (1939). The philosophy of physical science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gould, S. J. (1999). Rock of ages: Science and religion in the fullness of life. New York: Ballantine Books. Graham, L. R. (1973). Science and philosophy in the Soviet Union. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Haldane, J. S. (1928). The sciences and philosophy. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Harré, R. (1964). Matter and method. London: Macmillan & Co. Heisenberg, W. (1962). Physics and philosophy. New York: Harper & Row. Helmholtz, H. von. (1995). Science and culture: Popular and philosophical essays (C. David, Ed.). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Herivel, J. (1965). The background to Newton’s ‘Principia’. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hitchens, C. (2007). God is not great: How religion poisons everything. New York: Hachette Book Group. Holton, G. (1973). Thematic origins of scientific thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hughes, R. I. G. (1990). Philosophical Perspectives on Newtonian Science. In P. Bricker & R. I. G. Hughes (Eds.), Philosophical perspectives on Newtonian science (pp. 1–16). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hull, D. L. (1988). Science as a process: An evolutionary account of the social and conceptual development of sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jeans, J. (1943/1981). Physics and philosophy. New York: Dover Publications. Joravsky, D. (1970). The Lysenko affair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kant, I. (1784/2003). What is Enlightenment? In P. Hyland (Ed.), The enlightenment: A sourcebook and reader. London: Routledge. Lecourt, D. (1977). Proletarian science? The case of Lysenko. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Locke, J. (1689/1924). An essay concerning human understanding (A. S. Pringle-Pattison, Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mach, E. (1883/1960). The science of mechanics. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company.

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MATTHEWS Margenau, H. (1950). The nature of physical reality: A philosophy of modern physics. New York: McGraw-Hill. Martin, R. N. D. (1991). Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and history in the work of a believing Physicist. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Mascall, E. L. (1956). Christian theology and natural science: Some questions in their relations. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McGuire, J. E. (1995). Tradition and innovation: Newton’s metaphysics of nature. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. McInerny, R. M. (1966). Thomism in an age of renewal. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. McMullin, E. (1978). Newton on matter and activity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Monod, J. (1971). Chance and necessity: An essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology. New York: Knopf. Nasr, S. H. (1996). Religion and the order of nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. National Research Council (NRC). (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Newton, I. (1729/1934). Mathematical principles of mathematical philosophy (A. Motte, Trans., F. Cajori, Rev.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Planck, M. (1932). Where is science going? New York: W.W. Norton. Plantinga, A. (2000). Warranted Christian belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Poincaré, H. (1905/1952). Science and hypothesis. New York: Dover Publications. Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Rabi, I. I. (1967). Science the centre of culture. New York: World Publishing Company. Redondi, P. (1988). Galileo heretic. London: Allen Lane. Rohrlich, F. (1987). From paradox to reality: Our basic concepts of the physical world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schrödinger, E. (1964). My view of the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shimony, A. (1993). Search for a naturalistic world view. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smart, J. J. C. (1968). Between science and philosophy: An introduction to the philosophy of science. New York: Random House. Soyfer, V. N. (1994). Lysenko and the tragedy of Soviet science (L. Gruliow & R. Gruliow, Trans.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Stein, H. (2002). Newton’s metaphysics. In I. B. Cohen & G. E. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Newton (pp. 256–302). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tresmontant, C. (1965). Christian metaphysics. New York: Sheed and Ward. Trethowan, I. (1954). An essay in Christian Philosophy. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Trusted, J. (1991). Physics and metaphysics: Theories of space and time. London: Routledge. Wartofsky, M. W. (1968). Conceptual foundations of scientific thought: An introduction to the philosophy of science. New York: Macmillan. Weinberg, S. (2001). Facing up: Science and its cultural adversaries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weisheipl, J. A. (1968). The revival of Thomism as a Christian philosophy. In R. M. McInerny (Ed.), New themes in Christian philosophy (pp. 164–185). South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Westfall, R. S. (1971). The construction of modern science: Mechanisms and mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The unity of knowledge. London: Little, Brown & Co.

Michael R. Matthews School of Education, University of New South Wales, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

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2. IS THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE THE WASTELAND OF FALSE THEORIES?

1. INTRODUCTION

These instructions are intended to provide guidance to authors of Imagine you live in 1823 and you are about to design an advanced course on the theory of heat. About fifty years ago, Lavoisier and Laplace had posited caloric as a material substance —an indestructible fluid of fine particles— which was taken to be the cause of heat and in particular, the cause of the rise of temperature of a body, by being absorbed by the body. No doubt, you rely on the best available theory, which is the caloric theory. In particular, meticulous and knowledgeable as you are, you rely on the best of the best: Laplace’s advanced account of the caloric theory of heat, with all its sophistication, detail and predictive might. You really believe that the best science teaching should be based on the best theories that are available. But you also believe that the best theory that is available is not really the best unless it has a claim to truth (or truthlikeness, or partial truth and the like). For what is the point of teaching a theory about the deep structure of the world unless it does say something or other about this deep structure? The course goes really well. Your notes are impressive. They are soon turned into a textbook with lots of explanatory detail and fancy calculations. Alas! The world does not co-operate. There are no calorific particles among the things there are in it. Heat is destroyed when work is produced. The advanced theory is challenged by alternative theories, anomalies and failed predictions. There is agony, but in your lifetime, the caloric theory gets superseded and is left discredited in the wasteland of false theories. Decades come by. You are not around anymore. Your grandchildren go to school and then to the university; they follow some new-fangled courses on the history of science. And there it is. The once powerful caloric theory of heat is now only a chapter in the history of science textbook. Why is this not the fate of all (or most) of the theories we come up with? Why aren’t current theories, despite their explanatory and predictive successes, just chapters in the hitherto unwritten history of science books? Why is science education not just future history of science education plus some problem-solvers? This might well be a fate we have to live with. Or, we might be able to say something different, viz., that science is a mixture of continuity and change and that there is reason to believe that parts of current scientific theories, like parts of past scientific theories, will survive radical theory-change and form (and keep on forming) a stable network of theoretical principles and explanatory hypotheses that P.V. Kokkotas et al., (eds.), Adapting Historical Science Knowledge Production to the Classroom, 17–36. © 2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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constitute the backbone of our evolving, but by and large true, scientific image of the world. The aim of this paper is to motivate this alternative, especially in connection with issues related to science education. It is an appeal to render science education sensitive to the philosophical issues that can be drawn from a close look at the history of science. Section 2 is a brief outline of the caloric theory of heat. Section 3 is a little note on a methodological principle by means of which theories are judged — use-novelty. Section 4 offers a rather detailed exploration of Laplace’s advanced caloric theory of heat and explains its shortcoming in light of the foregoing methodological principle. Section 5 shows that this kind of criticism of Laplace’s theory has had an actual historical actor —the self-taught physicist John Herapath— and is not, therefore, available only by hindsight. Section 6 raises the question: where is the caloric theory now?; to which it offers the simple but painful answer: in the history books. It then paves the way for the discussion of the Pessimistic Meta-Induction, whose proper analysis and significance are given in Section 7. Section 8 draws on the material presented above to raise another important question: what is wrong with science education? To which it offers the answer that science education seems blind to the fact of theory-change in science and this obscures the importance of change as well as of continuity. History and philosophy of science can certainly help science education to avoid this blindness. 2. THE CALORIC THEORY OF HEAT

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, French scientists, most notably Pierre Simon Laplace and Antoine Lavoisier posited caloric as a material substance — an indestructible fluid of fine particles— which was taken to be the cause of heat (Lavoisier, 1789, p. 1–2). Despite the theory’s success in giving qualitative explanations of several heat phenomena1, the caloric theory faced important experimental anomalies, most notably that caloric seemed to have no weight, and the generation of heat by friction, which contradicted the fundamental assumption of the caloric model, viz., that caloric is an indestructible fluid and that heat per se is a conservative quantity (cf. Davy, 1799, p. 9–23; Thompson (Count Rumford), 1798). Moreover, the caloric theory was not the one and only theory of heat available. According to the proponents of the rival dynamical theory —most notably Humphry Davy and Count Rumford— the cause of heat was not a material fluid but rather, the very motion of the molecules that constitute a substance. In this sense, heat was nothing over and above the motion of the constituents of a body. In fact the dynamical conception of heat was able to explain both major foregoing anomalies that the caloric theory faced (cf. Thompson (Count Rumford), 1799). The caloric theory could cope with these anomalies —for instance, by positing that the calorific particles were superfine and weightless. But as Joseph Black — a Scott advocate of the caloric theory— pointed out, all these attempts were rather ad hoc: their only justification was that they could save the caloric theory from 18

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refutation. In fact, Black (1803, p. 46) gave one of the first elegant accounts of ad hocness in his following remark: Many have been the speculations and views of ingenious men about this union of bodies with heat. But, as they are all hypothetical, and as the hypothesis is of the most complicated nature, being in fact a hypothetical application of another hypothesis, I cannot hope for much useful information by attending to it. A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree with the phenomena. This will please the imagination, but does not advance our knowledge (emphasis added). In his lectures, Black presented both then available theories of heat and, although he stressed that “the supposition” that heat is a material fluid appeared the “most probable”, he (1803, p. 44) added that: neither of these suppositions [i.e. the material and the dynamical] has been fully and accurately considered by their authors, or applied to explain the whole facts and phenomena related to heat. They have not, therefore, supplied us with a proper theory or explication of the nature of heat. Interestingly enough, Lavoisier and Laplace had an attitude similar to Black’s. After presenting both current theories of heat, they suggested that the theory of experimental calorimetry was independent of both theoretical considerations concerning the nature of heat. They noted: We will not decide at all between the two foregoing hypotheses [i.e. material vs. dynamical theory of heat]. Several phenomena seem favourable to the second, [i.e. the mechanical theory] such as the heat produced by the friction of two solid bodies, for example; but there are others which are explained more simply by the other [i.e. material theory of heat] —perhaps they both hold at the same time. So, (...) one must admit their common principles: that is to say, in either of those, the quantity of free heat remains always the same in simple mixtures of bodies. (...) The conservation of the free heat, in simple mixtures of bodies, is, then, independent of those hypotheses about the nature of heat; this is generally admitted by the physicists, and we shall adopt it in the following researches” (1780, p. 152–153). 3. A NOTE ON AD HOCNESS

Recall what Black said above: “A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree with the phenomena. This will please the imagination, but does not advance our knowledge”. This, for all practical purposes, can be taken to be what makes a theory (or a modification of a theory) ad hoc vis-à-vis a set of phenomena that theory is meant to explain. The charge of ad hocness is an epistemic charge. It is meant to illustrate a cognitive shortcoming of a theory —what Black captures by saying that an ad hoc theory “does not advance our knowledge”. An ad hoc theory is not a well-supported theory despite the fact that it may entail the laws that it is meant to explain. 19

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Clearly, there are two ways in which a known fact E can be accommodated in a scientific theory T. (1) Information about E is used in the construction of a theory T and T predicts E. (2) A phenomenon E is known the time that a theory T is proposed, T predicts E, but no information about E is used in the construction of T. Although the Lakatosian school has produced a fine-grained distinction between levels of ad hocness, (cf. Lakatos, 1970, p. 175; Zahar, 1973, p. 101), I shall concentrate on the most general case, namely: Conditions of ad hocness: A theory T is ad hoc with respect to phenomenon E if and only if either of the following two conditions is satisfied: (a) A body of background knowledge B entails the existence of E. Information about E is used in the construction of a theory T and T accommodates E. (b) A body of background knowledge B entails the existence of E. A certain already available theory T does not predict/explain E. T is modified into theory T′ so that T′ predicts E, but the only reason for this modification is the prediction/ explanation of E. In particular T′ has no other excess theoretical and empirical content over T. The key point here is that though theories do get support by explaining already known and established empirical laws, this support is a function of the way the theory is constructed and of the way it is related to the known laws. Simply put, if a known phenomenon E is accommodated within T in the way suggested by (1) above, E does not support T, whilst if it is accommodated in the way suggested by (2) above, E does support T. Following Earman (1992, chapter 4, section 8) we can speak of “use novelty”, where, simply put, a prediction P of a known fact E is use novel relative to a theory T, if no information about E was used in the construction of the theory which predicted it. So use-novelty is sharply distinguished from, and contrasted to, ad hoc accommodation. 4. ENTER LAPLACE

From the early 1780s until his death in 1827, Laplace was the dominant figure in theoretical physics in France. His programme, inspired and guided by Newton’s work, was the provision of a theoretical account of all natural phenomena in terms of attractive and repulsive (central) forces exerted between the particles (cf. Fox, 1974). In early 1820s Laplace was embroiled in a research project, aiming to give a theoretical basis and a quantitative explanation of the empirical laws of gases within the caloric theory of heat. This was a fine test for the caloric theory. Until then, the caloric theory had not been fully articulated mathematically and had not offered quantitative derivations and explanations of the empirical laws of heat. Not only did Laplace’s attempts aimed to show that Newtonianism could conquer one more territory —the thermal phenomena— but also to establish that the caloric theory of heat could offer adequate theoretical explanations of heat phenomena. Laplace first presented his mathematical theory before the French Academy of Sciences in September 1821 and came back to it in December 1822. He then 20

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published his researches in two articles in the Connaissance des Temps and reproduced them (with minor revisions) in the 12th book of his Traite de Mécanique Céleste in the early 1820s. The central assumption of Laplace’s account was that the so-called ‘repulsive power’ of heat —the power of heat in virtue of which a gas expands when heated— is due to repulsive forces among the particles of caloric. In particular, each molecule of ordinary matter attracts particles of caloric that form a caloric atmosphere around it. Yet, these caloric atmospheres repel one another. These repulsive forces tend to detach some quantity of caloric from each molecule and to create radiant caloric, which generates the repulsive power of heat (cf. 1823, p. 111–112)2. Contrary to these repulsive forces act the attractive forces between the molecules of matter, which are inversely proportional to the distance between two molecules. However, as we are about to see, Laplace took it that these attractive forces are insensible in gases and vapours. Using these central assumptions Laplace suggested that the force law between two molecules of a gas is H c2 φ(r) where c is the quantity of caloric retained by each molecule, H is a gas-specific constant depending on the repulsive force of heat and φ(r) is the attractive force exerted between the two molecules, where φ(r) ∝ 1/r (1821, p. 278). He then calculated the repulsive force exerted on an envelope of a gas and equated it with the pressure P exerted by this envelope on surrounding layers of the gas. He found that P=2πHKρ2c2

(1)

where 2πHK is a constant and ρ is the density of the gas (op.cit., p. 280). Laplace had thereby managed to correlate the quantity of caloric contained in a gas with the macroscopic parameter of pressure and hence to provide a potential mechanism that connects variations in the macroscopic quantity of pressure with variations in the microscopic structure of heat and matter. The next problem was to specify a connection between the quantity of caloric contained in a gas with the macroscopic parameter of temperature (op.cit., p. 281). Laplace suggested that the quantity of caloric rays received at a surface, at a given instance, is solely a function of the temperature of the gas, and independent of the nature of surrounding bodies. Call this function Π(T). The quantity of radiant caloric detached from a molecule m —due to the repulsive forces between the caloric c of the molecule m and the caloric atmospheres of neighbouring molecules— is ρc2, that is, it is proportional to the quantity ρc of the caloric of surrounding molecules and the quantity c of the caloric retained by molecule m. Since at any given moment, there is thermal equilibrium in the gas, it follows that qΠ(T) = ρc2

(2) 21

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where q is a proportionality constant depending on the molecules of the gas. Incidentally, in arriving at this equation, Laplace neglected the quantity of free caloric emanated by surrounding bodies, since as he noted, its extreme velocity renders it insensible (1821, p. 281). Be that as it may, by means of (2) Laplace had managed to connect the macroscopic parameter of temperature with the microscopic structure of caloric. Given that temperature and pressure determine the macroscopic behaviour of gases, Laplace could now show how the observable behaviour of gases is caused by the micro-structure of caloric. Using (1) and (2), Laplace was ready to derive — within the framework of the caloric theory of heat— the laws of gases’ and in particular the Boyle-Marriotte’s law, Gay-Lussac’s law and the equation of the state. So far, so good. But there is a catch, which is relevant to the philosophical conclusions we might draw from this case. The catch is that there are certain respects in which Laplace’s derivation was ad hoc. Let us see why. Laplace’s derivation of the laws of gases rested on two explicit assumptions: First, the attractive force between two molecules of a gas located at insensible distances from each other is very small; in fact, negligible. Second, the only operative force is the repulsive force between the caloric atmospheres of the molecules of the gas (cf. 1821, p. 285). The first assumption enabled Laplace to get rid of the factor φ(r) and hence to derive equation (1) with no problem. This assumption is relatively uncontroversial. The second assumption however is by no means innocent. According to Laplace’s theory, the action between two molecules of a gas is actually the product of the following four forces: 1. The mutual repulsion of the quantities of caloric contained in caloric atmospheres around each and every molecule. 2. The attraction between the caloric atmosphere of the second molecule and the first molecule. 3. The attraction between the caloric atmosphere of the first molecule and the second molecule. 4. The mutual attraction between the two molecules. Yet, the derivation (and explanation) of the laws of gases rested only on the first force. Even though neglecting the attractive force between molecules may have been reasonable, excluding the other two forces (two and three above) was not obvious. Laplace (1821, p. 185) admitted this when he said: Yet, I do not dare assure that the second and third forces are insensible, especially concerning vapours, when a light compression reduces them to the liquid state. To make his model more realistic, Laplace went on to take into account the attractive forces exerted between the caloric atmosphere of a molecule m and the surrounding molecules of the gas, or vapour. However, here is the point where the ad hocness of Laplace’s attempts becomes rather transparent. Imagine, Laplace said, a cylindrical vase with indefinite height, containing a gas (1821, p. 285–286). Suppose also that the gas is pressed by a weight W put on the superior surface of the cylinder. Take, then, an infinitely thin horizontal plane A, at 22

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a distance from the superior surface of the cylinder, and suppose that the molecules of the gas are situated above this plane, at fixed positions. Let m be such a molecule, r its distance from the horizontal plane A, f its distance from another molecule m’ situated underneath the plane A at distance R from it, and s the distance between the points at which the perpendiculars from the two molecules cross plane A (cf. Figure 1).

Weight

m r

a f s

A R m'

Figure 1. Laplace’s model of caloric.

It is then evident that f = √(R+r)2 + s2. Generally, Laplace said, the repulsive action between the quantities of caloric retained by the two molecules m and m′ is Hφ(f), while the attractive action between the caloric atmosphere of m and molecule m′ is Nφ(f). The y-component of the total action between the two molecules will then be (Hc2 – Nc) φ(f) [(R+r)/f] where (R+r)/f is cos(a). Laplace was then able to calculate the repulsive action of the whole gas situated under the plane A on the molecule m and, moreover, the whole action of the gas above plane A on the superior surface of the cylinder. 23

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This action is counterbalanced by the pressure P of the weight placed on top of the superior surface. Hence, he derived P=2πρ2(Hc2 – Nc)K

(1′)

which is similar to (1) above, except that it also takes into account the attractive forces between the caloric atmosphere of a molecule m and the surrounding molecules. Laplace then invented an analogous equation for temperature. Take, he said, the action between two molecules m and m′ at a distance r. If all forces are taken into account, this action will be Hcφ(r)–Nφ(r). Suppose that the calorific radiation of molecule m is proportional to the number of surrounding molecules, their forces — except the negligible φ(r)— and the quantities of caloric contained in each molecule. Then, this radiation will be proportional to ρHc2 – ρNc

(A)

In a state of thermal equilibrium quantity (A) will be equal to the quantity of caloric received at a surface; that is, ρ(Hc2 – Nc) = qΠ(T)

(2′)

This is similar to (2), except that it also takes into account the attractive forces exerted between the caloric atmospheres of molecules and the surrounding molecules. Then, by means of (1′) and (2′), Laplace was able to derive the laws of gases in the more realistic case where the attractive forces exerted between the caloric atmospheres of molecules and the surrounding molecules are taken into account. The similarity between equations (1′) and (1) and (2′) and (2) seems to suggest that the attractive forces between the caloric atmospheres of molecules and the surrounding molecules could be safely neglected as very weak compared to the repulsive forces between caloric atmospheres. However, two points are worth making: 1. In the derivation of (1′), Laplace used the assumption that the attractive forces between the caloric atmospheres of molecules and the surrounding molecules are very weak. As we have seen, he took it that the total force that the molecule m is subjected to when the attractive force between the caloric of m and the molecule m′ is taken into account is repulsive. This means that the attractive forces between the caloric of a molecule and the surrounding molecules are very weak, and in fact negligible compared to the repulsive forces between caloric atmospheres —hence, practically they do nothing to modify or weaken these repulsive forces. 2. In arriving at equation (1′) Laplace neglected —without any reason— the effect on the pressure P of the molecules under plane A. As we shall are about to see, Laplace admitted this in his 1822 article. In fact, the only reason for formulating 24

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the equation of pressure as he did seems to be that (1’) could yield, together with equation (2’), the laws of gases only if it had this particular form. Laplace’s attempt to derive the laws of gases from the more realistic set of assumptions that both the attractive forces between the caloric of a molecule and the surrounding molecules are operative were ad hoc, and with no independent justification: the very fact that the attractive forces between the caloric of a molecule and the surrounding molecules must be negligible in order for the derivation to go through was used in showing that these forces were weak and negligible; and the very fact that the law of pressure must have a specific mathematical form if the laws of gases were to be derived, was used in the construction of this law. As noted already, Laplace returned to his theory a year later (cf. 1822). There, he explained again how equations (1) and (2) are constructed and, therefore, how the laws of gases can be derived within the caloric theory. But he made it clear that the derivation works only on the assumption that the repulsive forces due to the caloric atmospheres are the only forces that operate (1822, p. 291). More interestingly, he remarked that in his own derivation of the laws of gases when the attractive forces between the caloric of a molecule and the surrounding molecules are taken into account, he neglected the action of the molecules under the plane A and hence his equation (1′) of the pressure P of the gas was not correct (1822, p. 296). He stressed that if the correct law of pressure is formulated, i.e. the one that, unlike (1’), takes also into account the pressure of the molecules under the plane A, then the three laws of gases cannot be derived (ibid.). How were, if at all, the laws of gases to be derived within the caloric theory? Laplace admitted that the only way to carry out the derivation was to admit beforehand that “the attraction of each molecule of a gas on other molecules and their caloric is insensible” (ibid.). Therefore, Laplace’s conclusion was, in effect, that unless the theory is modified in an ad hoc way, so that some forces are rendered negligible beforehand, the laws of gases could not be proved and explained within the caloric theory. 5. HERAPATH’S CRITICISM

The foregoing observation that Laplace’s constructions were ad hoc is not one merely drawn by hindsight. John Herapath (1790–1868)3, a then unknown physicist and self-taught schoolmaster from Bristol, in a paper that appeared in Philosophical Magazine in 1823, examined in detail Laplace’s constructions, argued against their fundamental assumptions, and criticised them, explicitly, for being ad hoc. In this paper, Herapath gave one of the first clear-cut formulations of what it is for a theory to be ad hoc with respect to a set of laws, as it is clear from his following statement: (...) the equations [Laplace] has produced are more the offspring of a previous knowledge of what they should be from the phenomena, than of that sound reason which his other works usual manifest (1823, p. 65). Herapath noted that Laplace’s equation (2) which connects the quantity of caloric emanated from each molecule with the macroscopic quantity of temperature, is not correct. Laplace, as we have seen, took it that the calorific radiation of a molecule 25

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is ρc2 Yet, Herapath observed, in calculating the calorific radiation of a molecule one must also take into account the intensity of the repulsion of the surrounding caloric. Therefore, the calorific radiation of a molecule must be ρc2∝ ψ(r), where ψ(r) is a function of the intensity of repulsion of a particle of caloric, depending on the distance between the molecules4. In particular, the intensity of calorific radiation in a spherical envelope of radius r surrounding the radiating molecule will be ψ3√(α/ρ), where α is a constant. Then, instead of Laplace’s equation (2), Herapath suggested that the correct equation should have been qΠ(t)=ρc2 ψ3√(α/ρ)

(2”)

It is obvious that (1) and (2”) cannot yield the laws of gases, and hence the latter cannot be derived —nor be explained— within the caloric theory of heat, unless some important assumptions are dropped, in an unjustified way. Herapath stressed that Laplace was not justified in neglecting the intensity of calorific radiation ψ3√(α/ρ). In Laplace’s theory the calorific radiation is due to the repulsive forces between the caloric atmospheres of neighbouring molecules. Then, it is obvious that these forces must depend on the distance r between these caloric atmospheres— in fact, on the distance r between molecules. Laplace, Herapath added, did consider the function ψ(r) (cf. Laplace, 1821, p. 287; Herapath, 1823, p. 64). But he subsumed it under the constant q in the equations (2) and (2’) (Herapath ibid.). However, this contradicted Laplace statement that the constant q is a factor dependent only on the nature of the molecules of the gas (1821, p. 281). Herapath concluded that Laplace’s principal and fundamental equations are erroneously deduced form his principles; and consequently that his subsequent conclusions [i.e. the laws of gases] are not consequences of what he first assumed (1823, p. 65)5. Herapath suggested that Laplace’s theory was ad hoc with respect to the known laws of gases. In effect, Laplace knew what he wanted to derive —that is, the known laws of gases— and he ‘cooked up’ the principles of the caloric theory so that these laws would follow suit. The known laws of gases were not use-novel visà-vis Laplace’s theory; they were accommodated within it in an ad hoc way. Herapath put this complaint in the following lengthy, but nice, quotation: Had the principles he [i.e. Laplace] sets out with been given him, namely, that there is such a thing as caloric, which, while strongly repulsive of its own, attracts and is attracted by other matter; which by some means radiates in extremely minute portions with great velocity; which attaching itself in considerable quantities to particles of mater overcomes their mutual attraction, and occasions them to stand at the greatest distance the envelope admits from each other; —had, I say, these things been given him [i.e. Laplace] without any knowledge of what the phenomena require, I would enture to appeal to himself, whether, with his mind so unacquainted, unbiased, and unprejudiced 26

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with the facts in question, his results would not have been very different from what they are (1823, p. 65). Herapath challenged Laplace that had he not known in advance the laws he wanted to derive, the principles of caloric theory would not have been able to yield them. Laplace, in effect, used these laws in the construction of his theory, in the sense that he modified its principles in such a way that they, eventually, yield the laws of gases. As noted earlier, Laplace was aware (in his second paper on the subject) that the attractive forces between the caloric of a molecule and the surrounding molecules had to be rendered negligible if the derivation were to go through. Herapath’s further point was that even if this were granted, the laws of gases could not be derived within the caloric theory, unless of course the latter was ‘forced’ to do so. 6. WHERE IS THE CALORIC THEORY NOW?

The fact is that the caloric theory of heat has long been abandoned. Its replacement with what came to be known as thermodynamics —pioneered by Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and foreshadowed by Sadi Carnot— was an intricate and prolonged development. The key episode in this development was the admission that, contrary to what was implied by the caloric theory; heat was not a conservative quantity. After Clausius’s work in thermodynamics, it was established that heat is not a state-function of the macroscopic properties (volume, temperature and pressure) of a gas. On the contrary, when work is produced in a thermal cycle, the quantity of heat involved in this cycle does not uniquely depend on the initial and final states in which the substance undergoing the changes is found. As a result, heat is not conserved in all thermal processes. If heat is not a conservative quantity, its representation cannot be based on an indestructible fluid, as caloric was supposed to be. I have related this story elsewhere (cf. my 1994 and 1999, chapter 6). The point here is not to repeat it, but to answer the question in the section-heading in a straightforward manner: the caloric theory is currently in the history of science books and not in the science textbooks. The caloric theory is not part of the present corpus of established scientific theories; not an element in our evolving scientific image of the world. The world has simply no room for the caloric, despite the fact that a theory about it was the dominant theory for quite some time in the nineteenth century and despite the fact that it enjoyed explanatory and predictive success. Is this case atypical? Is it an one-off case in the history of science? If it were, there would be no cause for concern. If the advanced caloric theory of heat was a historical oddity, its consignment to the history of science books would present no problem to either philosophy of science or to science education. But it is far from a typical. In fact, a well-known argument in the philosophy of science, known as the Pessimistic Meta-Induction on the history of science, suggests that current theories too are likely to be abandoned later on and be replaced by others, which are radically discontinuous with the extant theories. If this is so, there is a special problem for science education —apart form any other philosophical problem they might arise. This is that current science will turn out to be chapters in future history 27

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of science books and hence that the teaching of current scientific theories is not the teaching of a relatively stable and, by and large true, image of the world and of its deep structure, but rather the teaching of born-to-be-abolished failed explanations and hypotheses. Before we examine in this problem for science education, let us take a closer look at the Pessimistic Meta-Induction (PMI). 7. THE PESSIMISTIC META-INDUCTION

Larry Laudan has argued that the history of science is full of theories which were once empirically successful and yet turned out to be false. Laudan’s argument can be summarised as follows (cf. 1981, p. 32–33): The history of science is full of theories which had been empirically successful for long periods of time and yet were shown to be false about the deep-structure claims they had made about the world. It is similarly full of theoretical terms featuring in successful theories which do not refer. Therefore, by a simple (meta-) induction on scientific theories, our current successful theories are likely to be false (or, at any rate, more likely to be false than true). Laudan has substantiated his argument by means of what he has called “the historical gambit”: the following list —which, Laudan says, “could be extended ad nauseam”— gives theories which were once empirically successful and fruitful, yet just false. Laudan’s list of successful-yet-false theories: – the crystalline spheres of ancient and medieval astronomy – the humoral theory of medicine – the effluvial theory of static electricity – catastrophist geology, with its commitment to a universal (Noachian) deluge – the phlogiston theory of chemistry – the caloric theory of heat – the vibratory theory of heat – the vital force theory of physiology – the theory of circular inertia – theories of spontaneous generation – the contact-action gravitational ether of Fatio and LeSage – the optical ether – the electromagnetic ether What is the target of Laudan’s argument? It is the realist explanation of the success of scientific theories in terms of the (approximate) truth of these theories. In particular, the target of PMI is the epistemic optimism associated with scientific realism, viz., the view that science has succeeded in tracking truth. One key view associated with scientific realism is the claim that mature and predictively successful scientific theories are well confirmed and approximately true of the world; hence, the entities posited by them, or entities very similar to those posited, inhabit the world (see my 1999 and my 2009 for a defence). Part of the defence of this epistemic optimism realist has come to be known as the ‘no-miracles’ argument6. 28

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Briefly put, this is an argument that mobilises the successes of scientific theories (especially their successful novel predictions) in order to suggest that the best explanation of these theory-driven successes is that the theories that fuelled them were approximately true —at least in those respects that were implicated in the generation of the successes. But if Laudan is right, then the realist’s explanation of the success of science flies in the face of the history of science: the history of science cannot possibly warrant the realist belief that current successful theories are approximately true. There has been some discussion of the exact structure of PMI. I have argued in detail elsewhere that it is a kind of reductio. The target is the realist thesis that: (A) Current successful theories are approximately true Laudan does not directly deny that current successful theories may happen to be truthlike. His argument aims to discredit the claim that there is an explanatory connection between empirical success and truthlikeness which warrants the realist’s assertion (A). In order to achieve this, the argument compares a number of past theories to current ones and claims: (B) If current successful theories are truthlike, then past theories cannot be Past theories are deemed not to be truthlike because the entities they posited are no longer believed to exist and/or because the laws and mechanisms they postulated are not part of our current theoretical description of the world. Then, comes the ‘historical gambit’: (C) These characteristically false theories were, nonetheless, empirically successful So, empirical success is not connected with truthlikeness and truthlikeness cannot explain success: the realist’s potential warrant for (A) is defeated. No-one can deny that Laudan’s argument has some force. It shows that, on inductive grounds, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is unlikely to be had in science. That is, all scientific theories are likely to turn out to be, strictly speaking, false. This is something that realists —as well as everybody else— have to concede. However, a false theory can still be approximately true or truthlike. These are notions that have resisted a formal explication, but we can say, intuitively, that a theory is truthlike if it describes a world which is similar to the actual world in its most central or relevant features. So, the realist needs to show that past successful theories, although strictly speaking false, have been truthlike. An obvious strategy that realists can follow is to try to reduce the size of Laudan’s list. If indeed only very few past theories make it to Laudan’s list of falsebut-successful theories, the historical gambit loses much of its putative force. One way to reduce the size of the list is to impose stringent criteria as to what theories should count as mature and genuinely successful. It has been argued (see my 1999, chapter 5) that the notion of empirical success should be more rigorous than simply getting the facts right, or telling a story that fits the facts. For any theory can be made to fit the facts —and hence to be successful— by simply ‘writing’ the right kind of empirical consequences into it. The notion of empirical success that realists 29

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should be happy with should such that it includes the generation of novel predictions which are in principle testable. Consequently, it is not at all clear that all theories in Laudan’s list were genuinely successful. The case of the advanced caloric theory of heat we have already discussed in some detail is a case in point. Despite its great sophistication, Laplace’s mature theory enjoyed empirical success only by being, ultimately, tailored to fit the empirical laws. Not only were there no novel predictions issued by the theory, but even the already known facts that it managed to accommodate, it accommodated them in an ad hoc way. The best strategy for blocking PMI is try to meet it head-on, by attacking its crucial premise (B). Without this premise the pessimistic conclusion does not follow, irrespective of the size of Laudan’s list. But how can premise (B) be defeated? In my (1999), I proposed the divide et impera strategy. The key idea is this. To defeat (B), it is enough to show that the genuine successes of past theories did not depend on what we now believe to be fundamentally flawed theoretical claims. Positively put, it is enough to show that the theoretical laws and mechanisms which generated the successes of past theories have been retained in our current scientific image. Accordingly, when a theory is abandoned, its theoretical constituents, i.e., the theoretical mechanisms and laws it posited, should not be (and were not) rejected en bloc. Some of these theoretical constituents are inconsistent with what we now accept, and therefore they have to be rejected. But not all are. Some of them, instead of having been abandoned, have been retained as essential constituents of subsequent theories. The divide et impera move suggests that if it turns out that the theoretical constituents that were responsible for the empirical success of otherwise abandoned theories are those that have been retained in our current scientific image, a substantive version of scientific realism can still be defended. So for the divide et impera move to work, we need to (i) identify the theoretical constituents of past genuine successful theories that essentially contributed to their successes; and (ii) show that these constituents, far from being characteristically false, have been retained in subsequent theories of the same domain. The success of the divide et impera strategy is in the details. One should look at specific past theories that meet the stringent standards of empirical success and show in detail how those parts of them that fuelled their empirical successes were retained in subsequent theories. In my (1999, chapter 6) I engaged in two detailed case-studies concerning the several stages of the caloric theory of heat and of the theories of the luminiferous ether7. A claim that has emerged with some force is that theory-change is not as radical and discontinuous as the opponents of scientific realism have suggested. It has been shown that there are ways to identify the theoretical constituents of abandoned scientific theories which essentially contributed to their successes, to separate them from others that were ‘idle’ —or as Kitcher (1993) has put it, merely ‘presuppositional posits’— and to demonstrate that the components that made essential contributions to the theory’s empirical success were those retained in subsequent theories of the 30

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same domain. Given this, the fact that our current best theories may be replaced by others does not, necessarily, undermine scientific realism. All it shows is that a) we cannot get at the truth all at once; and b) our judgements from empirical support to truthlikeness should be more refined and cautious in that they should only commit us to the theoretical constituents that do enjoy evidential support and contribute to the empirical successes of the theory. Realists ground our epistemic optimism on the fact that newer theories incorporate many theoretical constituents of their superseded predecessors, especially those constituents that have led to empirical successes. The substantive continuity in theory-change suggests that a rather stable network of theoretical principles and explanatory hypotheses has emerged, which has survived revolutionary changes, and has become part and parcel of our evolving scientific image of the world. Both Hasok Chang (2003, p. 910–912) and Kyle Stanford (2006) have challenged the move from substantive continuity in theory-change to approximate truth. It is argued that there is no entitlement to move from whatever preservation in theoretical constituents there is in theory-change to these constituents’ being truthlike. But that’s not quite right. What is right to say is that the mere demonstration of continuity in theory-change does not warrant the realist claim that science is ‘on the right track’. Claiming convergence does not, on its own, establish that current theories are true, or likely to be true. Convergence there may be and yet the start might have been false. But the convergence in our scientific image of the world puts before us a candidate for explanation. The generation of an evolving-but-convergent network of theoretical assertions is best explained by the assumption that this network consists of truthlike assertions. So there is, after all, entitlement to move from convergence to truthlikeness, insofar as truthlikeness is the best explanation of this convergence. Stanford has also claimed that the divide et impera move cannot offer independent support to realism since it is tailor-made to suit realism. According to him, it is the fact that the very same present theory is used both to identify which parts of past theories were empirically successful and which parts were (approximately) true that accounts for the realists’ wrong impression that these parts coincide. He (2006, p. 166) says: With this strategy of analysis, an impressive retrospective convergence between our judgements of the sources of a past theory’s success and the things it ‘got right’ about the world is virtually guaranteed: it is the very fact that some features of a past theory survive in our present account of nature that leads the realist both to regard them as true and to believe that they were the sources of the rejected theory’s success or effectiveness. So the apparent convergence of truth and the sources of success in past theories are easily explained by the simple fact that both kinds of retrospective judgements have a common source in our present beliefs about nature. This objection is misguided. The problem, as I see it, is this. There are the theories scientists currently endorse and there are the theories that were endorsed in the past. Some (but not all) of them were empirically successful (perhaps for long 31

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periods of time). They were empirically successful irrespective of the fact that, subsequently, they came to be replaced by others. This replacement was a contingent matter that had to do with the fact that the world did not fully co-operate with the then extant theories: some of their predictions failed; or the theories became overly ad hoc or complicated in their attempt to accommodate anomalies, or what have you. The replacement of theories by others does not cancel out the fact that the replaced theories were empirically successful. Even if scientists had somehow failed to come up with new theories, the old theories would not have ceased to be successful. So success is one thing, replacement is another. Hence, it is one thing to inquire into what features of some past theories accounted for their success and quite another to ask whether these features were such that they were retained in subsequent theories of the same domain. These are two independent issues and they can be dealt with (both conceptually and historically) independently. One should start with some past theories and —bracketing the question of their replacement— try to identify, on independent grounds, the sources of their empirical success; that is, to identify those theoretical constituents of the theories that fuelled their successes. When a past theory has been, as it were, anatomised, we can then ask the independent question of whether there is any sense in which the sources of success of a past theory that the anatomy has identified are present in our current theories. It’s not, then, the case that the current theory is the common source for the identification of the successful parts of a past theory and of its (approximately) true parts. Current theories constitute the vantage point from which we examine old ones —could there be any other?— but the identification of the sources of success of past theories need not be performed from this vantage point. 8. WHAT IS WRONG WITH SCIENCE EDUCATION?

These instructions are intended to provide guidance to authors of Bluntly put, it is that it is oblivious to the complex philosophical lessons that can be drawn from the history of science. Unless we resolve for the view that current science teaching is future history-of-science teaching, science education should be sensitive to the fact that science as we know it is a mixed bag of continuity and change. Science education seems blind to the fact of theory-change in science and this obscures the importance of change as well as of continuity. The responses to PMI outlined above suggest that the current scientific image of the world (which is what science teaching is about) is a hard-won image which has emerged out of a clash between truth and falsity; continuity and break. The continuity depicted in the current scientific image of the world is indeed hard-won, amidst false starts, failed hypotheses, idle and ad hoc explanations. This continuity represents whatever elements of past theories have a right to be called truthlike by having essentially contributed to the successes of otherwise abandoned theories and by having been retained in subsequent theories. This continuity signifies (at least on the realist reading suggested above) that what nowadays is taught in science courses is not destined to be part of the history of science books in two or three centuries from now. 32

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What are science students being taught now? It’s not enough to say they are being taught our best current guess about the deep-structure of the world. Laplace did not think of his theory as his best guess! He, like us today, thought of his theory as unveiling the deep and unobservable structure of the world. Guesses come and go. Theories are based on evidence and are meant to describe the world as it, more or less, is. An alternative would be to think of what is now taught as a set of practical recipes or problem-solvers; a rack filled with tools, as Pierre Duhem once put it. But this instrumentalist approach to science faces a number of problems, most of which are well-known. For one, it does not tally with the very idea that science has pushed back the frontiers of ignorance and error; for another, it does not even start to account for the fact that theories yield successful novel predictions and are used as premises in explanations of singular events. The question remains: what is taught now? Is it practical recipes + future chapters of the history of science books? Or is it chapters of an evolving-but-changing scientific image of the world? This kind of question (or dilemma) was first raised in a serious way in the dawn of the twentieth century, just before the two major revolutions that shook up physics. It took the form of the ‘bankruptcy of science’ debate in France. In his address to the 1900 International Congress of Physics, Henri Poincaré (1902, p. 173) put the point thus: The man of the world is struck to see how ephemeral scientific theories are. After some years of prosperity, he sees them successively abandoned; he sees ruins accumulated on ruins; he predicts that the theories in vogue today will in a short time succumb in their turn, and he concludes that they are absolutely in vain. This is what he calls the bankruptcy of science. But he went on to correct the view of ‘the man of the world’. Poincaré says: “His scepticism is superficial; he does not understand none of the aim and the role of scientific theories; without this he would understand that ruins can still be good for something”. What then are ruins good for, apart from reminding us the glorious past and days of bygone splendour? There are two options, really. One: If theories are merely instruments for the co-ordination of empirical laws and the prediction phenomena, it is no problem that their theoretical parts might well be mere speculations which subsequently get abandoned and are destined to be chapter in hitherto unwritten history-of-science books. As Poincaré put it, after all, “Fresnel’s theory enables us to [predict optical phenomena] as well as it did before Maxwell’s time”. Two: There is continuity in theory-change and this is not merely empirical continuity; substantive theoretical claims that featured in past theories and played a key role in their successes (especially in novel predictions) have been incorporated (perhaps somewhat re-interpreted) in subsequent theories and continue to play an important role in making them empirically successful. This is the option that Poincaré himself favoured8. The key point is that option number two is not only living, but actually the one that renders science teaching intelligible and compelling. 33

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How exactly science education should accommodate the philosophical lessons drawn from the history of science is itself a complex matter that I cannot discuss here. I will only suggest that part of the very idea of science education should be the cultivation and development of what might be called scientific conscience. This is not more theoretical or practical knowledge, but rather a set of methodological skills that constitute the scientific spirit: critical appraisal of one’s own theory; sensitivity to the strengths and limitations of scientific inquiry; openness to criticism and correction; responsiveness to epistemic values and theoretical virtues; sensitivity to the historical complexity and the philosophical implications of the scientific enterprise. Here is a case where scientific conscience becomes transparent. When we think about scientific theories and what they assume about the world we need to balance two kinds of evidence. The first is whatever evidence there is in favour (or against) a specific scientific theory. This evidence has to do with the degree on confirmation of the theory at hand. It is, let us say, first-order evidence, say about electrons and their having negative charge or about the double helix structure of the DNA and the like. First-order evidence is typically what scientists take into account when they form an attitude towards a theory. It can be broadly understood to include some of the theoretical virtues of the theory at hand (parsimony and the like) —of the kind that typically go into plausibility judgements about theories. The second kind of evidence (let’s call it second-order evidence) comes from the past record of scientific theories and/or from meta-theoretical (philosophical) considerations that have to do with the reliability of scientific methodology. It concerns not particular scientific theories but science as a whole. (Some) past theories, for instance, were supported by (first-order) evidence, but were subsequently abandoned; or some scientific methods work reliably in certain domains but fail when they are extended to others. This second-order evidence feeds claims such as those that motivate the Pessimistic Induction. Actually, this second-order evidence is multi-faceted —it is negative (showing limitations and shortcomings) as well as positive (showing how learning from experience can be improved). This is a philosophical problem. But science education won’t educate good scientists unless it makes them aware that in judging scientific theories, they should try to balance these two kinds of evidence. And this means that science education won’t train good scientists unless it trains them in history and philosophy of science. NOTES 1 2

3 4

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For a detailed account of the causal role that the caloric was called to play, see Fox (1971). According to Chang (2004, 72) this Laplacian assumption modified considerably Lavoisier’s original picture of the caloric. For a brief account of Herapath’s contribution to the kinetic theory of gases, see Mendoza (1961). Herapath uses φ(r) for this function, but this notation has been also used for the attractive force between two molecules of the gas. Herapath did also object to Laplace’s equation (1), which connected the pressure of a gas with the quantity of caloric upheld by its molecules. His chief point was that (1) unjustifiably neglects the attractive forces in virtue of which each molecule attracts its own caloric (1823, p. 62).

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7

8

It is based on Putnam’s claim that realism ‘is the only philosophy of science that does not make the success of science a miracle’. Chang (2003) has challenged some of the details of my case-study of the caloric theory. The discussion of Laplace’s advanced theory presented above is meant, among other things, to meet some of Chang’s criticisms concerning the actual historical development of the caloric theory. Though Poincaré took it that that there is an inherent limitation in what of the world can be known: its structure as opposed to how things are in themselves. This limitation was the child of Poincaré’s adherence to some form of empiricism and some form of neo-Kantianism. It has been known as structural realism and need not concern us here (see my 2009).

REFERENCES Black, J. (1803). Lectures on the elements of chemistry (J. Robison, Ed.). Edinburgh — all page references are from Roller (1950). Chang, H. (2003). Preservative realism and its discontents: Revisiting caloric. Philosophy of Science, 70, 902–912. Chang, H. (2004). Inventing temperature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davy, H. (1799). An essay on heat, light, and the communication of light. In The collected works of H. Davy (Vol. 2, pp. 1–86). London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Cornhill (1839). Earman, J. (1992). Bayes or bust? A critical examination of bayesian confirmation theory. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Fox, R. (1971). The caloric theory of gases. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fox, R. (1974). The rise and fall of Laplacian physics. In R. McCormmach (Ed.), Historical studies in physical sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Herapath, J. (1823). Observations on M. Laplace’s communication to the Royal Academy of Science, “Sur l’Attraction des Sphères et sur la Répulsion des Fluides Élastiques”. Philosophical Magazine, 62, 61–66. Kitcher, P. (1993). The advancement of science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge University Press. Laplace, P. S., & Lavoisier, A. (1780). Mémoire sur la Chaleur. Ouevres Complètes de Laplace (Vol. 10). Paris: Gauthier-Villars. Laplace, P. S. (1821). Sur l’Attraction des Sphères et sur la Répulsion des Fluides Élastiques. In Connaissance des Temps pour l’année 1824 —reprinted in Ouevres Complètes de Laplace (Vol. 13, pp. 273–290). Paris: Gauthier-Villars. Laplace, P. S. (1822). Développement de la Théorie des Fluides Élastiques et Application de Cette Théorie a la Vitesse du Son. In Connaissance des Temps pour l’année 1825 —reprinted in Ouevres Complètes de Laplace (Vol. 13, pp. 291–301). Paris: Gauthier-Villars. Laplace, P. S. (1823). Sur l’Attraction des Sphères et sur la Répulsion des Fluides Élastiques. In Traite de Mécanique Céleste (Livre XII, Chapitre II) —reprinted in Ouevres Complètes de Laplace (Vol. 5). Paris: Gauthier-Villars. Laudan, L. (1981). A confutation of convergent realism. Philosophy of Science, 48, 19–49. Lavoisier, A. (1789). Traite Elémentaire de Chimie. Paris —English trans. as Elements of chemistry, by R. Kerr (1790), reprinted by Dover (1965). Mendoza, E. (1961). A sketch for a history of the kinetic theory of gases. Physics Today, 14, 36–39. Poincaré, H. (1902). La science et L’Hypothèse. (1968 reprint). Paris: Flammarion. Psillos, S. (1999). Scientific realism: How science tracks truth. London: Routledge. Psillos, S. (2009). Knowing the structure of nature. London: Palgrave. Roller D. (1950). The early development of the concepts of temperature and heat: The rise and the decline of the caloric theory. In J. B. Conant (Ed.), Harvard case histories in experimental science. Harvard University Press.

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PSILLOS Stanford, P. K. (2006). Exceeding our grasp: Science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, B. (Count Rumford) (1798). An inquiry concerning the source of the heat which is excited by friction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 88, 80–102. Thompson B. (Count Rumford) (1799). An inquiry concerning the weight ascribed to heat. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 89, 179–194. Zahar, E. (1973). Why did Einstein’s programme supersede Lorentz’s. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 24, 95–123, 223–262.

Stathis Psillos Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens Panepistimioupolis (University Campus), Athens 15771, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

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