On Understanding Science

Abstract

IN this book the President of Harvard University addresses himself to the problem of preparing suitable university courses (whether for graduates or undergraduates is not clear) for the purpose of producing an understanding of science in those whose future work is not to be scientific. He gives reasons why he thinks this important. By “understanding science” Dr. Conant means the acquiring of the special point of view which the successful investigator in a field of experimental science naturally attains, and he considers that this end can be achieved better by the presentation of selected ‘case-histories’ of particular advances in science than by a philosophical analysis of science as a whole. As illustrations of such case-histories he chooses the investigations of the pressure and elasticity of air in the seventeenth century, the discovery of the galvanic battery, and the development and overthrow of the phlogiston theory. These are outlined, with frequent comments on appropriate digressions which the teacher might make to emphasize salient points. On Understanding Science An Historical Approach. By James B. Conant. (The Terry Lectures.) Pp. xv + 146. (London : Oxford University Press, 1947.) 10s. 6d. net.