• Complain

Lee McIntyre - 12 Apr

Here you can read online Lee McIntyre - 12 Apr full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 12 Apr 2019, publisher: The MIT Press, genre: Science. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    12 Apr
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    The MIT Press
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    12 Apr 2019
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

12 Apr: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "12 Apr" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists willingness to change theories on the basis of new evidence.Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isnt settled science, that evolution is only a theory, and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls the scientific attitudecaring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. The history of science is littered with theories that were scientific but turned out to be wrong; the scientific attitude reveals why even a failed theory can help us to understand what is special about science. McIntyre offers examples that illustrate both scientific success (a reduction in childbed fever in the nineteenth century) and failure (the flawed discovery of cold fusion in the twentieth century). He describes the transformation of medicine from a practice based largely on hunches into a science based on evidence; considers scientific fraud; examines the positions of ideology-driven denialists, pseudoscientists, and skeptics who reject scientific findings; and argues that social science, no less than natural science, should embrace the scientific attitude. McIntyre argues that the scientific attitudethe grounding of science in evidenceoffers a uniquely powerful tool in the defense of science.

Lee McIntyre: author's other books


Who wrote 12 Apr? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

12 Apr — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "12 Apr" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Contents
Guide
Pagebreaks of the print version
The Scientific Attitude Defending Science from Denial Fraud and - photo 1

The Scientific Attitude

Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience

Lee McIntyre

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Stone Serif by Westchester Publishing Services. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McIntyre, Lee C., author.

Title: The scientific attitude : defending science from denial, fraud, and pseudoscience / Lee McIntyre.

Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018037628 | ISBN 9780262039833 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: ScienceSocial aspects. | ScienceMethodology. | Pseudoscience.

Classification: LCC Q175.5 .M3955 2019 | DDC 306.4/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037628

For Louisa and James

Contents

List of Illustration

List of Tables

Preface

This book has been a labor of love from the beginning andas with any laborit has taken a while. I remember the exact moment when I decided to become a philosopher of science, as I was reading Karl Poppers enchanting essay Science: Conjectures and Refutations, in the fall of 1981, in one of the upper carrels in Olin Library at Wesleyan University. The issues seemed earth-shattering and the romance was obvious: here was a person who had found a way to defend one of the ideas I believed in mostthat science was special. Popper made it his lifes work to defend the epistemic authority of science and explain why it was superior to its imposters. How could I not want to be involved in that?

Though the issues gripped me, I never fully agreed with Poppers conclusions. I knew Id get back to it someday but, as the professional reward system in academia seemed to favor taking somewhat smaller bites of the apple, I contented myself with spending the first decade of my career writing about the importance of laws and prediction, how to improve the methodology of the social sciences, and why we needed a philosophy of chemistry. Since then I have taken great enjoyment in expanding my reach to write philosophy for a general audience on topics such as science denial, the importance of reason, and whyespecially in this day and ageeven the staunchest philosophical skeptics need to defend the idea that truth matters.

But this is the book that I have always wanted to write. By taking up a topic as important as what is distinctive about science, I hope that it will be of interest to philosophers, scientists, and the general public alike.

For inspiring me to go into philosophy I would like to thank my teachers: Rich Adelstein, Howard Bernstein, and Brian Fay. Although I overlapped with him only toward the end of my college career, Joe Rouse was also an inspiration to me. In graduate school at the University of Michigan, I had the good fortune to learn the philosophy of science from Jaegwon Kim, Peter Railton, and Larry Sklar. I was not always happy in graduate school (who is?), but I look back on my education there as the foundation for all my further work.

Since then, I am grateful to have worked with some of the best in the business: Dan Little, Alex Rosenberg, Merrilee Salmon, and Eric Scerri, all of whom have taught me much through their excellent scholarship and warm colleagueship. My debt to Bob Cohen and Mike Martinboth of whom passed away in recent yearsis enormous, for they gave me a home in the philosophy of science and helped me along at every step of the way. I am glad to say that the same has been true of the new director of the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University, Alisa Bokulich, as well.

For guidance and advice on some of the specific ideas contained in this book, I would like to thank Jeff Dean, Bob Lane, Helen Longino, Tony Lynch, Hugh Mellor, Rose-Mary Sargent, Jeremy Shearmur, and Brad Wray. I was lucky to have been a participant in Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudrys workshop on scientism at CUNY in the spring of 2014, where I heard some extremely stimulating papers by Noretta Koertge, Deborah Mayo, and Tom Nickles, that inspired me to think about writing this book. Rik Peels and Jeff Kichen made pinpoint suggestions about discrete problems that were enormously helpful as well.

My good friends Andy Norman and Jon Haber have done me the honor of reading the complete manuscript of this book in draft and making many helpful suggestions. My friend Laurie Prendergast has once again done yeoman service by helping me with the proofreading and index. I would also like to acknowledge the work of five anonymous referees, whom I obviously cannot thank by name, each of whom made enormous contributions to the content of this book. It goes without saying that any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

My father unfortunately did not live to see the publication of this book, but to him and to my mother I send all my love and gratitude for always believing in me and for their support and guidance over the years. My wife Josephine, and children Louisa and James, each read this book in detail and lived with its ups and downs through many iterations. No man was ever luckier to be married to such a wonderful woman, who wants nothing more than for me to be happy in my life and in my work. I am fortunate also to have not one but two children who majored in philosophy and claim it as their birthright to identify any flaws in the old mans reasoning, which they have done with frightening efficiency. Indeed, my childrens contributions to this book have been so great that I would like to dedicate it to them.

The team at MIT Press is without parallel. As they proved in my last book with themand every day sinceno author is ever successful alone. From copyediting to design, and marketing to editorial, it is my privilege to work with all of them. Here I would like to give special thanks to my tireless and creative publicity team and to my editor Phil Laughlin, who is analytical, succinct, practical, and hilarious all at the same time. Once again they have made it a pleasure to work with MIT Press, in what is now my fourth book with them.

My final debt is an old one, but I see it every day as I look at the framed handwritten letter that I received from Karl Popper in March 1984, in response to a letter I wrote to him as an undergraduate. Popper was brilliant, lucid, defensive, and enlightening. Although I disagree with many of his ideas in the philosophy of science, I could not have developed my own without having had his to react against andin one of the most delightful discoveries of my careerfound that in some ways he had already anticipated the scientific attitude. I never met Karl Popper, but my earliest vision of him stays with me: a young man just starting out in the winter of 1919, realizing the logic of falsification in a lightning flash, then working out its details over the course of his career. I was proud to learn that this book would be published precisely one hundred years after Poppers discovery. It is small tribute to a man who inspired my own and so many other careers in the philosophy of science.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «12 Apr»

Look at similar books to 12 Apr. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «12 Apr»

Discussion, reviews of the book 12 Apr and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.