Philosophy of Science - Social Aspects

Ideas on the Nature of Science

Name: Ideas on the Nature of Science
Author: David Cayley
ISBN: 9780864926920

by David Cayley

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Overview

If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it? Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering, and controlling the world, where everything was subject to science, but science itself has largely escaped scrutiny. In this fascinating collection of interviews, CBC Radio's Ideas producer David Cayley talks to some of the world's most provocative thinkers about how the ideas of science have directed human thought and shaped human society. Contributors include: Steven Shapin, Simon Schaffer, Margaret Lock, Arthur Zajonc, Rupert Sheldrake, Sajay Samuel, Evelyn Fox keller, Richard Lewontin, Ruth Hubbard, Ulrich Beck, David Abram, and many others.

Synopsis

If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it? Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering, and controlling the world, where everything was subject to science, but science itself has largely escaped scrutiny. In this fascinating collection of interviews, CBC Radio's Ideas producer David Cayley talks to some of the world's most provocative thinkers about how the ideas of science have directed human thought and shaped human society. Contributors include: Steven Shapin, Simon Schaffer, Margaret Lock, Arthur Zajonc, Rupert Sheldrake, Sajay Samuel, Richard Lewontin, Ruth Hubbard, Ulrich Beck, David Abram, and many others.

About the Author, David Cayley

David Cayley is a Toronto-based writer-broadcaster. Over the course of his career, he has interviewed some of the leading philosophers, literary critics, historians, social theorists, and scientists of our day.

David Abram is an American philosopher and cultural ecologist and the founder and creative director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics &#40AWE&#41.

Dean Bavington is an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental History at Nipissing University.

Dr. Ulrich Beck is a German sociologist who holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics and, in addition to having published many books, is the editor of the sociological journal Soziale Welt.

Wendell Berry is an American academic, cultural and economic critic, farmer and prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays.

Lorraine Daston is an American historian of science, is the executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science &#40MPIWG) in Berlin, and holds a visiting professorship in The Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Barbara Duden has been on the faculty of the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Pennsylvania State University and is at the Institute for Cultural Studies, Essen, Germany.

Ian Hacking is a Canadian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of science. Hacking was appointed visiting professor at University of California, Santa Cruz for the Winters of 2008 and 2009.

Ruth Hubbard is a professor emerita of biology at Harvard University. She has written on the politics of health care since the early 1970s.