State of the field: Paper tools

Paper occupies a special place in histories of knowledge. It is the substrate of communication, the stuff of archives, the bearer of marks that make worlds. For the early-modern period in particular we now have a wealth of studies of ‘paper tools’, of the ways in which archives were assembled and put to use, of the making of lists and transcribing of observations, and so on. In other fields, too, attention has turned to the materiality of information. How far is it possible to draw a stable methodology out of the insights of literary and book historians, bibliographers, anthropologists, and those working in media studies? Do these diverse fields in fact refer to the same thing when they talk of paper, its qualities, affordances and limitations? In attempting to answer these questions, the present essay begins in the rich territory of early-modern natural philosophy – but from there opens out to take in recent works in a range of disciplines. Attending to the specific qualities of paper is only possible, I argue, if it is understood that paper can be both transparent and opaque depending on the social world it inhabits and helps to constitute. Paper flickers into and out of view, and it is precisely this quality that constitutes its sociomateriality.     

An ‘experimental’ instrument: testing the torsion balance in Britain,Canada and Australia

The torsion balance, an instrument that was first developed to demonstrate the high precision of physical science in the laboratory became a different sort of demonstration instrument in its brief vogue in the 1920s. This article considers intersecting stories of acquiring and testing the torsion balance as a field instrument in Canada, Britain and Australia. It examines the purchasing trip and fieldwork of A. H. Miller of the Dominion Observatory in 1928–1931, testing conducted by the British Geological Survey in 1926–1930, and finally the Imperial Geophysical Experimental Survey of 1928–1930 in Australia. These different stories produce a kind of collective biography, illustrating well the variety of material and textual records that accrete around instruments, especially expensive ones. But the trials and travels of the torsion balance also point to large themes. By comparing the different ways an instrument becomes valuable, and to whom, these micro-histories reveal significant features of the developing identity of geophysics. They also show the interaction of different forms of scientific internationalism in the inter-war period.     

21世纪加拿大人才开发战略与政策措施

从高中后教育、人才引进和保留、人才环境改善等方面概述加拿大21世纪人才开发战略和政策措施,并探讨何以加拿大能够在短短十年内成功遏制1990年代出现的加拿大高级人才大量流往美国的势头.     

A rediscovery of scientific collections as material heritage? The case of university collections in Germany

The purpose of this article is twofold: on the one hand, we present the outlines of a history of university collections in Germany. On the other hand, we discuss this history as a case study of the changing attitudes of the sciences towards their material heritage. Based on data from 1094 German university collections, we distinguish three periods that are by no means homogeneous but offer a helpful starting point for a discussion of the entangled institutional and epistemic factors in the history of university collections. In the 19th century, university collections were institutionalized and widely recognized as indispensable in research and teaching. During the 20th century, university collection became increasingly marginalized both on an institutional and theoretical level. Towards the end of the 20th century, the situation of university collections improved partly because of their reconsideration as material heritage.     

Introduction: Reappraising Paul Feyerabend

This volume is devoted to a reappraisal of the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It has four aims. The first is to reassess his already well-known work from the 1960s and 1970s in light of contemporary developments in the history and philosophy of science. The second is to explore themes in his neglected later work, including recently published and previously unavailable writings. The third is to assess the contributions that Feyerabend can make to contemporary debate, on topics such as perspectivism, realism, and political philosophy of science. The fourth and final aim is to reconsider Feyerabend's place within the history of philosophy of science in the light of new scholarship.     

Ptolemy and the meta-helikôn

In his Harmonics, Ptolemy constructs a complex set of theoretically ‘correct’ forms of musical scale, represented as sequences of ratios, on the basis of mathematical principles and reasoning. But he insists that their credentials will not have been established until they have been submitted to the judgement of the ear. They cannot be audibly instantiated with the necessary accuracy without the help of specially designed instruments, which Ptolemy describes in detail, discussing the uses to which each can be put and cataloguing its limitations. The best known of these instruments is the monochord, but there are several more complex devices. This paper discusses one such instrument which is known from no other source, ancient or modern, whose design was prompted by the geometrical construction known as the helikôn. It has several remarkable peculiarities. I examine its design, its purposes, and the merits and shortcomings which Ptolemy attributes to it. An appendix describes an instrument I have built to Ptolemy’s specifications (possibly the first of its kind since the second century bc), in an attempt to find out how satisfactorily such a bizarre contraption will work; and it explains how various practical problems can be resolved.     

Narrow and broad styles of scientific reasoning: A reply to O. Bueno

In a recent paper, Otávio Bueno (2012) introduced a narrower understanding of Hacking's concept of styles of scientific reasoning. Although its ultimate goal is to serve a pluralist view of science, Bueno's proposal is a thought-provoking attempt at outlining a concept of style that would keep most of the original understanding's heuristic value, while providing some analytical grip on the specific details of particular scientific practices. In this reply, I consider solely this latter more proximate goal. More precisely, I assess whether or not Bueno's narrower understanding of styles could provide historians and philosophers of science with a workable unit to investigate particular transformations in scientific practices. While the author's proposal is certainly interesting overall, the usefulness of the unit it describes may be compromised by three shortcomings: 1° the extent to which the unit is meant to be narrower is indeterminate; 2° it does not improve much on the analytical capabilities of Hacking's concept; and 3° like Hacking's concept it is rather powerless to capture the dynamical character of particular scientific practices.     

A new twist to the No Miracles Argument for the success of science

J. D. Trout has recently developed a new defense of scientific realism, a new version of the No Miracles Argument. I critically evaluate Trout's novel defense of realism. I argue that Trout's argument for scientific realism and the related explanation for the success of science are self-defeating. In the process of arguing against the traditional realist strategies for explaining the success of science, he inadvertently undermines his own argument.     

Structuralism and the conformity of mathematics and nature

Structuralists typically appeal to some variant of the widely popular ‘mapping’ account of mathematical representation to suggest that mathematics is applied in modern science to represent the world’s physical structure. However, in this paper, I argue that this realist interpretation of the ‘mapping’ account presupposes that physical systems possess an ‘assumed structure’ that is at odds with modern physical theory. Through two detailed case studies concerning the use of the differential and variational calculus in modern dynamics, I show that the formal structure that we need to assume in order to apply the mapping account is inconsistent with the way in which mathematics is applied in modern physics. The problem is that a realist interpretation of the ‘mapping’ account imposes too severe of a constraint on the conformity that must exist between mathematics and nature in order for mathematics to represent the structure of a physical system.     

The experimenters' regress: from skepticism to argumentation

Harry Collins' central argument about experimental practice revolves around the thesis that facts can only be generated by good instruments but good instruments can only be recognized as such if they produce facts. This is what Collins calls the experimenters' regress. For Collins, scientific controversies cannot be closed by the ‘facts’ themselves because there are no formal criteria independent of the outcome of the experiment that scientists can apply to decide whether an experimental apparatus works properly or not.No one seems to have noticed that the debate is in fact a rehearsal of the ancient philosophical debate about skepticism. The present article suggests that the way out of radical skepticism offered by the so-called mitigated skeptics is a solution to the problem of consensus formation in science.     

我国科研仪器进口依赖的原因分析与对策建议

科研仪器是科研所必需的物质资源,是实现科技自立自强的先行基础和必要前提。我国每年花费大量经费购买国外科学仪器设备,先进精密仪器几乎都是进口。本文探讨了科研仪器进口依赖对科研事业的影响,从环境视角分析了我国科研仪器进口依赖的主要原因,并基于此提出了相应的对策建议。研究发现,当前我国科研仪器存在一定的进口依赖,其原因主要在于国产化环境的缺失,主要包括人才环境、政策环境、市场环境和文化环境四个方面。对此,应加快布局科研仪器研制人才战略,构建鼓励科研仪器自主研制的基础制度体系,搭建全国科研仪器供需对接平台,着力营造科研仪器“研制用”国产化文化环境。     

长江中下游三大湖群近半个世纪演化对比分析

湖泊萎缩是湖泊四大环境问题之一。本文针对长江中下游平原区,在收集大量调查数据和研究成果的基础上,对该区三大湖泊群近半个世纪以来的面积变化及其阶段性特征进行了对比分析。结果表明,长江中下游地区三大湖群的湖泊面积自20世纪70年代以来有增有减,江汉湖群的面积经历了增加和减少的交替,到21世纪初共增加了259．9km^2;太湖流域湖泊群面积一直呈下降趋势,但减幅不大,40年间约减少面积188．9km^2;安庆沿江湖泊群面积在研究期间持续减少且减幅最大,减少面积高迭932．4km^2。江汉湖群面积减少主要在20世纪70年代到80年代和20世纪90年代到2l世纪初两个时期;太湖流域湖泊群面积减少的主要时期是20世纪70年代到80年代;安庆沿江湖泊群面积剧减的时期则主要是20世纪70年代到90年代。各湖群湖泊面积变化趋势和速率与人类活动方向和强度及各湖群湖泊所处的经济社会发展阶段有关,人类活动在现代湖泊演变中起了决定性的作用。     

Theory-ladenness of evidence: a case study from history of chemistry

This paper attempts to argue for the theory-ladenness of evidence. It does so by employing and analysing an episode from the history of eighteenth century chemistry. It delineates attempts by Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier to construct entirely different kinds of evidence for and against a particular hypothesis from a set of agreed upon observations or (raw) data. Based on an augmented version of a distinction, drawn by J. Bogen and J. Woodward, between data and phenomena it is shown that the role of theoretical auxiliary assumptions is very important in constructing evidence for (or against) a theory from observation or (raw) data. In revolutionary situations, rival groups hold radically different theories and theoretical auxiliary assumptions. These are employed to construct very different evidence from the agreed upon set of observations or (raw) data. Hence, theory resolution becomes difficult. It is argued that evidence construction is a multi-layered exercise and can be disputed at any level. What counts as unproblematic observation or (raw) data at one level may become problematic at another level. The contingency of these constructions and the (un)problematic nature of evidence are shown to be partially dependent upon the scientific knowledge that the scientific community possesses.