Science and History

Abstract

THE plea for a historical approach in teaching science which Dr. J. B. Conant advanced in his Terry Lectures at Yale University, which have now been published under the title ‘On Understanding Science"*, raises questions of interest to many besides those who are concerned with teaching itself. Dr. Conant is indeed urging the use of case-histories in teaching science, and illustrates his proposal by the specific example of seventeenth-century experiments on the ‘spring of the air' with barometers, air pumps and vacua to show the influence of new techniques, the evolution of new concepts from experiment, the difficulties of experimentation and the significance of the controlled experiment, and the development of science as an organised social activity. These points are further emphasized by a study of the discovery of the electric battery and of the chemical revolution which placed our knowledge of combustion on a sound basis, in which he shows further how an accidental discovery may lead by a series of well-planned experiments to a new technique or a new concept, or both. In exploring a new phenomenon, the experiments may be Well planned without any working hypothesis as to the nature of the phenomenon ; furthermore, a useful concept may even be a barrier to the acceptance of a better one if it be long entrenched in the minds of scientific men. Experimental discoveries, he believes, must fit the times ; facts may be at hand for years without their significance being realized ; the total scientific situation must be favourable for the acceptance of new views.