During these five war years science has proclaimed and demonstrated its role as Hercules. It has employed as its loudspeaker the bursting bomb, and as its courier the swift vehicle. Its blows have been instantly lethal.Next, science has shown its skill as the fabricator of useable goods. And, lastly the giant has revealed some of its mild and even compassionate moods as the binder of man's mortal wounds and the healer of his fevers and mental abberations.

Science in film, and usual equivalents such asscience on filmorscience on screen, refer to the cinematographic representation, staging, and enactment of actors, information, and processes involved in any aspect or dimension of science and its history. Of course, boundaries are blurry, and films shot as research tools or documentation also display science on screen. Nonetheless, they generally count asscientific film, andscience inandon filmorscreentend to designate productions whose purpose is entertainment and education. Moreover, these two purposes are often (...) combined, and inherently concern empirical, methodological, and conceptual challenges associated withpopularization,science communication, and thepublic understanding of science. It is in these areas that the notion of thedeficit modelemerged to designate a point of view and a mode of understanding, as well as a set of practical and theoretical problems about the relationship between science and the public. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper analyses a process of co-construction of knowledge and its multiple forms of communication in a country of the European periphery in the early twentieth century. It focuses on Lieutenant Manuel Soares de Melo e Simas, a politically engaged Portuguese astronomer, who moved from amateur to professional during the political transition from the monarchy to the republic. Melo e Simas paralleled his professional career in continuous activity of communicating science to the public in the context of republicanism in (...) a double way, by responding to the agenda of republicanism and by playing an active role in shaping it. He aimed at educating lay audiences in the various ways of astronomy, and he reached out to as many people as possible by exploring a multitude of communication channels, from lectures to articles in newspapers and journals. Voiced often within newly created republican institutions, the praxis and the ideas of Melo e Simas helped to mold the new republican scientific ethos. By going beyond mere emphasis on scientism and positivism, usually taken to be the defining characteristics of the new republican ethos, this paper argues that science and the specificities of its multiple forms of communication were central to the way Melo e Simas shaped the republican ideology. Furthermore, popularization of science was used to legitimize the status of professional scientists at the same time that it helped reinforce their institutional setting, still to be negotiated in the forthcoming decades through a complex process which deserves further historical analysis. (shrink)

3MT presentations, in which students communicate their theses to non-specialist audiences within three minutes, have emerged as an important academic genre, echoing current practices in scientific communication where researchers report their research work to a heterogeneous audience. Although increasing attention has been paid to 3MT presentations, we still lack sufficient knowledge of how presenters should communicate disciplinary knowledge to a wide audience. To address this gap, this corpus-based study investigates the rhetorical organization of moves in 80 3MT presentations from six (...) disciplines. It is found that orientation, rationale, purpose, methods and results are five obligatory moves, among which the results move comprises more than one-fifth of the total length. The rationale and results moves are more often applied in hard sciences than in soft knowledge fields. The findings shed light on advanced academic literacy and how students communicate disciplinary knowledge to a wide audience. (shrink)

Summary Popular science journalism flourished in the 1860s in England, with many new journals being projected. The time was ripe, Victorian men of science believed, for an ?organ of science? to provide a means of communication between specialties, and between men of science and the public. New formats were tried as new purposes emerged. Popular science journalism became less recreational and educational. Editorial commentary and reviewing the progress of science became more important. The analysis (...) here emphasizes those aspects of popular science which have been identified by Frank Turner as ?public science? and by Thomas Gieryn as ?boundary-work?. The religious, intellectual, and utilitarian values claimed for science by editors and contributors in their tasks of persuading the public to support science and of distinguishing science from what they often called ?applied science? are discussed. These values are shown to vary among editors and, for the editors examined here, Shirley Hibberd, Henry Slack, James Samuelson, William Crookes, and Henry Lawson, to differ significantly from those of T. H. Huxley, John Tyndall, and Norman Lockyer, on whom much study of the popularization of science in the 1860s has focused. (shrink)

Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomenon (...) to another? How do we determine which kinds are natural? What is the ontological basis of unity? In this Element, Tuomas Tahko examines these questions from a contemporary perspective, after a historical overview. The upshot is that there is still value in the idea of a unity of science. We can combine a modest sense of unity with pluralism and give an ontological analysis of unity in terms of natural kind monism. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Histories of Japanese science have been integral in affirming the Meiji Restoration of 1868 as the starting point of modern Japan. Vernacular genres, characterized as “premodern,” have therefore largely been overlooked by historians of science, regardless of when they were published. Paradoxically, this has resulted in the marginalization of the very works through which most people encountered science. This article addresses this oversight and its historiographical ramifications by focusing on kyūri books – popular works of science (...) – published in the years following the Restoration, when there was unprecedented public interest in science. It asks, what if we take these kyūri books on their own terms as science books, just as those of the time saw them? This article explores three genres of kyūri books, namely fictionalized formats, such as the epic tale ( monogatari); epistolary guides; and genres, such as the sutra, that drew on religious textual practices. It argues that these literary genres provided interpretive frameworks that shaped readers’ encounters with “modern” science. This exploration underscores the importance of engaging with vernacular genres to understand the emergence of science as a global category in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

ArgumentGerman twentieth-century history is characterized by stark changes in the political system and the momentous consequences of World Wars I and II. However, instead of uncovering specific kinds or periods of “Kaiserreich science,” “Weimar science,” or “Nazi science” together with their public manifestations and in such a way observing a narrow link between popular science and political orders, this paper tries to exhibit some remarkable stability and continuity in popular science on a longer scale. Thanks (...) to the rich German history of scientific leadership in many fields, broad initiatives for science popularization, and a population and economy open to scientific progress, the media offered particularly rich popular science content, which was diversified for various audiences and interests. Closer consideration of the format, genre, quality, and quantity of popular science, and of the uses and value audiences attributed to it, along with their respective evolution, reveals infrastructures underpinning science communication. Rather than dealing with specific discourses, the conditions of science communication are at the center of this article. Therefore I focus on the institutions, rules, laws, and economies related to popular science, as well as on the philosophical, moral, and national propositions related to it, and also on the interactions among this ensemble of rather heterogeneous elements. This approach allows a machinery of popular scientific knowledge to be identified, in Foucauldian terms adispositif, one which is of a particularly cultural nature. (shrink)

The bulk of this address concerns itself with the extent to which professional scientists were involved in popular science writing in early twentieth-century Britain. Contrary to a widespread assumption, it is argued that a significant proportion of the scientific community engaged in writing the more educational type of popular science. Some high-profile figures acquired enough skill in popular writing to exert considerable influence over the public's perception of science and its significance. The address also shows how publishers (...) actively sought ‘expert’ authors for popular material, but at the same time controlled what was published in accordance with their perception of what would sell. At a more popular level of writing there were many semi-professional authors who, while not active scientists, exploited close contacts with the scientific community. Here there was a strong emphasis on the practical applications of science.The address concludes by suggesting parallels between popular science writing in this period and the present state of popular writing about the history of science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Recruitment into the scientific community is one oft-stated goal of science education—in the post-Sputnik United States, for example—but this obscures the fact that science textbooks are often read by people who will never be scientists. It cannot be presupposed that science textbooks for younger audiences, students in primary and secondary schools, function in this way. For this reason, precollegiate-level science textbooks are sometimes discussed as a subset of literature popularizing science. The high school (...) class='Hi'>science classroom and the textbook are forums for exposing the public to science. The role of governments and educational institutions in regulating the consumption of these texts not only determines which books are used; it influences how they are written, read, and deemed authoritative. Therefore such science textbooks should not be seen as (at best) the disjunction of texts-for-training and books-for-popularization. A changing sense of what “textbooks” are compels a different understanding of their use in the history of science. (shrink)

Philosophers of science widely believe that the hereditarian theory about racial differences in IQ is based on methodological mistakes and confusions involving the concept of heritability. I argue that this "received view" is wrong: methodological criticisms popular among philosophers are seriously misconceived, and the discussion in philosophy of science about these matters is largely disconnected from the real, empirically complex issues debated in science.

ArgumentThis paper analyzes the political dimension of Miguel Masriera's (1901–1981) science popularization program. In the 1920s, Masriera worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich – with Hermann Staudinger, the luminary of polymer chemistry – to later become a lecturer of theoretical and physical chemistry at the University of Barcelona. After living in exile in Paris, at the end of the Civil War he returned to Spain but never recovered his position. Instead, Masriera became an (...) active popular science writer and adapted to the severe constraints of General Franco's military dictatorship (1939–1975). Inspired by the astronomer Arthur Eddington's world view, Masriera wrote and translated popular science books, and published articles in daily newspapers and journals. By examining Masriera's popular works, in particular his program for spreading “atomic culture” in Spain during the Cold War, this paper aims to contribute to the assessment of the role of science popularization in the domestic legitimization of that dictatorial regime and also its use as a vehicle for international recognition abroad. (shrink)

ArgumentStudies of Helmholtz’s popular lectures on science have concentrated on reconstructing his vision of the scientific enterprise, of its nature, its benefits, and its “civilizing power.” This paper offers a different perspective by focusing on Helmholtz’s attempts to expose his own scientific work to a wider public. Drawing on recent discussions about how to study science popularization, it analyzes how he made his work on sensory physiology accessible to various audiences. It is argued that the exposition of (...) the theory of vision comprises a complex, multilayered transformation of epistemic messages, which includes the recasting of arguments, recontextualizations, shifting emphasis, and significant changes in style. The popular writings on vision were directed to several different audiences, and, as such, manifest a delicate balance between conflicting agendas. An analysis of the texts indicates that neither the traditional two-step model of science popularization nor the more recent attempt to regard popularization as an “expository continuum” provides appropriate historiographical frameworks to study the popularization of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Sociology of Science: A Critical Canadian Introduction provides an overview of how sociology approaches science and, to a lesser extent, technology. It examines how science developed as a set of theories about both what we know and how we know. The book provides a succinct critical examination of the current state of science studies with a particular emphasis on research conducted by Canadian scholars. Hird illustrates that science studies offers useful perspectives on current and ongoing (...) sociological debates, such as the strengths and limitations of social constructionism, as well as popular public debates, such as the ethics of stem-cell research. Using examples from throughout history and with a focus on the Canadian context, the book provides students with an examination of influential science studies concepts, theories, and debates and situates these theories and debates within contemporary field of sociology. (shrink)

The very idea of a general philosophy of science relies on the assumption that there is this thing called science —as opposed to the various individual sciences. In this programmatic piece I make a case for the claim that general philosophy of science is the philosophy of science in general or science as such. Part of my narrative makes use of history, for two reasons. First, general philosophy of science is itself characterised by an (...) intellectual tradition which aimed to develop a coherent philosophical view of science, qua a part of culture with distinctive epistemic features and a distinctive relation to reality. But, second, this tradition went through some important conceptual shifts which re-oriented it and made it more sensitive to the actual development of science itself. The historical narrative focuses on three such moments: the defining moment, associated with Aristotle, and two major conceptual turns, related to Kant and Duhem. The pressures on the very idea of a general philosophy of science that followed the collapse of the macro-models of science that became popular in the 1960s, the pressures that lay all of the emphasis on fragmentation and not on integration, can be dealt with by a new synthesis within general philosophy of science of the constitutive and the historical, in light of the intellectual tradition that has defined it. (shrink)

In the late 1940s in Spain, a group of young scholars, most of them newly appointed university lecturers, gained control of Arbor, the promotional journal of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, the institution that General Franco had founded after the Spanish Civil War to organize Spanish science. This group constituted the intellectual core of the more reactionary, Catholic traditionalist faction of Franco’s regime, and they coveted greater political power, in competition with other factions of the regime. Lacking the (...) opportunity to launch an overt political campaign within a dictatorship, the group started a fight for the cultural conquest of Spain. In this cultural struggle for hegemony, journals, magazines, cultural associations, publishing houses, newspapers, and cultural centers became their weapons. By analyzing this faction’s views on and activities within the popularization of science, particularly regarding theories of evolution, this article argues that popular discourse on science played a critical role in the cultural struggle both as a “safe” channel in which to forward their claims and as a tool to gather popular attention through topics of general interest. A covert political campaign was conducted through the popularization of science and this, in turn, fueled the construction of a public sphere for science in a dictatorial context. Scientific popularization became a much-appreciated tool to achieve cultural hegemony and, as such, it also became a central element in constructing and legitimating the ideological foundations of Franco’s regime. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to defend (the possibility of) reductionism in the neuroscience--cognitive science case. This is done in three steps. First an ontological and methodological picture is presented which acknowledges the level structure of reality but claims that because every higher level is evolutionarily preceded by the lower level(s), reductionism is as viable strategy as anything else. Secondly, a direct challenge to the two popular doctrines, namely emergentism and supervenience, is presented, the point being that (...) we don't have clear conception of what "emerging" is or how specifically to explain what something's "depending on" something or "determining" something is (in the case of supervenience). In the third part the so-called modified structuralist framework (from the structuralist philosophy of science) is proposed as an alternative model to the old Nagelian one, a model which can serve reductionistic purposes well because it admits many kinds of reduction, from approximate to very strict ones. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works of (...) Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

The famous gulf between the arts and the sciences comes from the current pervasiveness of scientific illiteracy. The resultant increased fragmentation of science threatens scientific research; the resultant increase of the portion of the population of the advanced world that shows general ignorance of science threatens Western culture and democracy, and thus science itself. Historians and popularizers of science can help reduce this gulf. Introducing science historically can help solve many acute social and political problems. (...) Historians of science can try to bring this about. Discussions of the social role of intellectuals require a great deal of a sense of proportion, since most people are still barely educated, hardly familiar with science, much less with its history. Science nonetheless influences lives. Current increased inaccessibility of science boosts the prevailing excessive scientific specialization that scientific and technological progress have imposed. Consequently, the search diminishes severely for comprehensive overviews of the world and even of specific parts of it, leading to disorientation that imperils even the normal functioning of science. There is then a vital need for a search for remedy. Philosophers and historians and popularizers of science can help develop the tools necessary for this vital search. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnalysing the contents of magazines published with the stated intention of conveying information about science and technology to the public provides a mechanism for evaluation what counted as ‘popular science’. This article presents numerical surveys of the contents of three magazines published in inter-war Britain and offers an evaluation of the results. The problem of defining relevant topic-categories is addressed, both direct and indirect strategies being employed to ensure that the topics correspond to what the editors and publishers (...) took to be the principal areas of science and technology of interest to their readers. Analysis of the results of the surveys reveals different editorial policies depending on the backgrounds of the publishers and their anticipated readerships. The strong focus of the two most populist magazines on applied science and ‘hobbyist’ topics such as natural history, radio and motoring is noted and contrasted with the very limited coverage of theoretical science. In conclusion, a survey of changes in the contents over the periods of publication is used to identify trends in the coverage of science during this period. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The paper is aimed at identifying the ways of scientist’s influence on the development of modern society as compared to those of intellectuals. _Theoretical basis._ The socio-anthropological approach to the role of scientists in post-industrial society shows the leading role of people of science as a social group in present-day society. However, philosophical axiology reveals that scientists in today’s society do not have the appropriate social status: neither in state governance nor in the sphere of forming public opinion. (...) The classical doctrine concerning intellectuals has suffered a crisis in recent decades, which is due to the growing gap between the group of intellectuals recognized by society and the sphere of science. A new theoretical approach to determining the role of present-day research scientists as intellectuals is necessary. _Originality._ Successful development of modern society in conditions of growing social turbulence necessitates the access of research scientists to the sphere of public communication. This is required both by the needs of science advancement itself – to receive its adequate funding and win wide public recognition, and by society’s needs – as it is scientists who can provide reliable diagnostics of social problems and formulate well-grounded programs for overcoming them. _Conclusions._ For overcoming social barriers and getting access to public space, scientists themselves have to recognize themselves as a destitute social group – those who are unfairly deprived of making principal decisions in today’s society. For that, scientists should become modern intellectuals. Unlike media intellectuals, scientists are to interact not with social masses but, first and foremost, with public elites. The scientist has to gain his/her independent status by achieving the recognition of his/her own ideas among social elites rather than by winning wide personal popularity. Hence, scientists must aim at obtaining the status of the elite for elites – this would reveal in scientists the deepest potential of a modern man. (shrink)

Charles Peirce’s Illustrations of the Logic of Science is an early work in the philosophy of science and the official birthplace of pragmatism. It contains Peirce’s two most influential papers: “The Fixation of Belief” and “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” as well as discussions on the theory of probability, the ground of induction, the relation between science and religion, and the logic of abduction. Unsatisfied with the result and driven by a constant, almost feverish urge to (...) improve his work, Peirce spent considerable time and effort revising these papers. After the turn of the century these efforts gained significant momentum when Peirce sought to establish his role in the development of pragmatism while distancing himself from the more popular versions that had become current. The present edition brings together the original series as it appeared in Popular Science Monthly and a selection of Peirce’s later revisions, many of which remained hidden in the mass of messy manuscripts that were left behind after his death in 1914. (shrink)

ArgumentSociologists and historians of science, such as Richard Whitley and Stephen Hilgartner, identified a culturally dominant discourse of science popularization in the broader society. In this dominant view, a clear distinction is maintained between scientific knowledge and popularized knowledge. Popularization of science is seen as the process of transmitting real science to a lay public. This discourse on science popularization was criticized by Whitley and Hilgartner as an inadequate simplification. Yet, the battered (...) traditional model of popularization remains remarkably resistant to these theoretical attacks. In this paper I will argue, based on research of the output of the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari, and more specifically, his opinion on the role of government in economic life, that the boundary between science and popularization in political economy is not clear and that the status of scientists fluctuates over time and in different contexts. It is therefore impossible for historians or economists to distinguish science from popularization based on the essential characteristics or intrinsic quality of the work. De Molinari's ideas are followed through the different media of science and journalism. Although de Molinari himself differentiated between his scientific and “popular” work, the boundary between science and popularization proves to be highly permeable, in both directions. (shrink)