Berkeley Colloquia in History of Science and Technology - Fall 2008
Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
Keay Davidson
Former Science Writer for The San Francisco Chronicle, author of Carl Sagan: A Life (1999), and (with George Smoot), Wrinkles in Time (1993)
Who Discovered What, and When, in Modern Cosmology? T.S. Kuhn and the Problematization of the Traditional Notion of Scientific "Discovery"
In an unusually public and sometimes amusing fashion, the astronomical community’s recent furor over whether to define Pluto as a “planet” has exposed how scientists often resort to “non-scientific” arguments in negotiating consensus on ostensibly “scientific” questions. Such non-scientific reasoning and rhetorical practices enliven many scientific debates, especially in astronomy and cosmology, where disputes over classification schemes might be early warning signs of Kuhn-style “paradigm shifts.” This talk will revisit Kuhn’s classic 1962 study Structure of Scientific Revolutions and explain how its premises shed light on the deeper intellectual and cultural dynamics behind modern theories of the universe. The talk will also discuss whether the time has come to revive Kuhn’s prematurely aborted historical project, which was fiercely controversial and incomplete at the time of his death in 1996-a project best expressed in the book’s famous opening line: “History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.”
4:00PM
Monday, October 27, 2008
279 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
