Omitting experimental data is often considered a violation of scientific integrity. If we consider experimental inquiry as a questioning process, omitting data is seen to be merely an example of tentatively rejecting (‘bracketing’) some of nature’s answers. Such bracketing is not only occasionally permissible; sometimes it is mandated by optimal interrogative strategies. When to omit data is therefore a strategic rather than ethical question. These points are illustrated by reference to Millikan’s oil drop experiment.

While Newton tried to make his telescope into a proof of the supremacy of his theory of colours over older theories, his instrument was welcomed as a way to shorten telescopes, not as a way to solve the problem of chromatic aberration. This paper argues that the image published together with the report on Newton’s telescope in Philosophical Transactions (1672) encouraged this reception. The differences between this visualization and other images of Newton’s telescope, especially that published in Opticks (1704), are (...) discussed. This paper shows that the image in Opticks adopted characteristics of a Cartesian program of visualization of machines and instruments which complemented a rhetoric which attributed primacy to theory over practice. The differences between the images in Philosophical Transactions and Opticks are also considered within the broader institutional context of Newton’s attitude towards the Royal Society. (shrink)

Newton began his optical studies believing in the modification theory, which was still universally accepted at that time, and in the perception of colour as a physiological process—a process in which the eye responds differently to the different velocities of identical globules. His discovery that white light is heterogeneous led him to switch to considering colour in purely physical terms.A century later, Goethe started out by accepting Newton's physical theory. He soon abandoned it, however, finding modification to be more in (...) keeping with his own insights. One beneficial consequence of this was that he developed an awareness of the importance of the physiological aspect of colour perception, and was therefore able to demonstrate that Newton's theory of light and colours is too simplistic; that there is more to colour than variable refrangibility. (shrink)