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The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

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The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science THE POLITICS AND RHETORIC OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD AUSTRALASIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE General Editor: R. W. HOME, University of Melbourne Editorial Advisory Board: w. R. ALBURY, University of New South Wales B. D. ELLIS, La Trobe University L. A. FARRALL, Deakin University F. R. JEVONS, Deakin University R. JOHNSTON, University ofWollongong H. E. LE GRAND, University of Melbourne A. MUSGRAVE, University of Otago D. R. OLDROYD, University of New South Wales 1. RONAYNE, University of New South Wales J. J. C. SMART, Australian National University VOLUME 4 THE POLITICS AND RHETORIC OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD Historical Studies Edited by JOHN A. SCHUSTER I hpartment of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Wo/longong, Australia and RICHARD R. YEO School of Humanities, Griffith University, Australia D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER / TOKYO Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Politics and rhetoric of scientific method. (Australasian studies in history and philosophy of science; 4) Includes index. Contents: The Galileo that Feyerabend missed / Alan Chalmers - Cartesian method as mythic speech / John A. Schuster - Steady as a rock­ methodology and moving continents / H. E. Le Grand - [etc.] 1. Science-Methodology. 2. Science-History. 3. Science- Philosophy. 4. Science-Social aspects. I. Schuster, John A., 1947- . II. Yeo, Richard R., 1948-- . III. Series. Q175.3.P65 1986 502.8 86--6578 ISBN-13: 978-94-010-8527-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-4560-9 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-4560-9 Puhlished by D. Reidel Puhlishing Company, P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland. Sold and distrihuted in the U.S.A. and Canada hy Kluwer Academic Publishers, 190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distrihuted by Kluwer Academic Puhlishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland. All Rights Reserved © 19H6 hy D. Reidel Puhlishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1986 No part ofthe material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD Vll INTRODUCTION ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xxxix ALAN CHALMERS / The Galileo that Feyerabend Missed: An Improved Case Against Method 1 JOHN A. SCHUSTER / Cartesian Method as Mythic Speech: A Diachronic and Structural Analysis 33 H. E. LE GRAND / Steady as a Rock: Methodology and Moving Continents 97 T. D. STOKES / Methodology as a Normative Conceptual Problem: The Case of the Indian 'Warped Zipper' Model of DNA 139 JAN SAPP / Inside the Cell: Genetic Methodology and the Case ofthe Cytoplasm 167 w. R. ALBURY / The Order of Ideas: Condillac's Method of Analysis as a Political Instrument in the French Revolution 203 DA VID PHILIP MILLER / Method and the 'Micropolitics' of Science: The Early Years of the Geological and Astronomical Societies of London 227 RICHARD R. YEO / Scientific Method and the Rhetoric of Science in Britain, 1830-1917 259 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 299 INDEX OF NAMES 301 FOREWORD The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively early - though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint­ ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia and in New Zealand. "Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues, however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further­ more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour­ aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. R. W. HOME General Editor Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy ofScience vii INTRODUCTION Since the seventeenth century, belief in the existence of a single, transferable method responsible for the progress of scientific knowl­ edge has been a major element of the Western intellectual tradition. Bacon and Descartes proposed formal methodologies which claimed to elaborate rules and procedures capable of accounting for the achieve­ ments of the 'new science' and facilitating its further growth. Other major natural philosophers of the period, such as Galileo, Gassendi, Boyle, Hooke and Newton also offered models of proper scientific method. Not surprisingly, there was no agreement as to the detailed nature of the method of science and differing views quickly proliferated: from the inductivism of Bacon and the strict deductivism of the young Descartes, to the more probabilist and hypothetico-deductively col­ oured views of the mature Descartes and the natural philosophers of the next generation, down to the creation of a specifically Newtonian inductivism in the works of the master and his British and Dutch followers. I During the eighteenth century, belief in the idea of a single, effica­ cious method continued to flourish. Appeals to the supposed use of method became an important means of distinguishing between 'scien­ tific' and 'non-scientific' approaches to the natural world, and, in the Enlightenment, between 'rational' and 'irrational' approaches to the ordering of the human world of politics and social institutions. By the nineteenth century there was wide agreement inside and outside the scientific community about the existence of a scientific method which made natural science the most secure form of knowledge, and consid­ erable effort on the part of both practising scientists and philosophers was devoted to its systematic elaboration. Since at least the early twentieth century, disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthro­ pology and linguistics have often justified their claims to 'scientific' status by attempting to emulate what was taken to be the method of physics, chemistry or biology. Similarly, in this century, 'methodology', IX 1. A. Schuster and R. R. Yeo (eds.), The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method, ix-xxxvii. © 1986 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. x INTRODUCTION the systematic analysis and exposition of the supposed scientific method, has been a major concern in the increasingly specialized fields of philosophy and history of science. Scientific method, usually construed in terms of assumptions about the rules of procedure in the physical sciences, continues to be widely treated as the epitome of reason and portrayed as an instrument capable of producing objective knowledge wherever it is properly applied. Other forms of inquiry, which themselves admit that they do not follow this method, or which can be portrayed as not following it, are held to be less trustworthy and objective: their lack of method renders them vulnerable to such distorting variables as passion, sub­ jectivity, prejudice, political bias and socio-economic interest.2 Scientific method is thus identified with the highest standards of intellectual rigour and the most reliable procedures for gaining and assessing knowledge, and it is contrasted with those modes of investigation which prevail in hermeneutic disciplines such as history, philosophy or literary criticism. From this perspective, therefore, to speak of the political and rhetorical aspects of scientific method would be an abuse of terms and perhaps a contradiction, since rhetoric and politics are usually thought to involve just those elements of subjectivity, ideology and irrational persuasion supposedly excluded, or very much minimized, by adher­ ence to scientific method. At best, to study the rhetoric and politics of scientific method would be to inquire into the abuse, misuse and misapplication of that doctrine. Over the last two decades, however, the traditional belief in the existence of a single, transferable, efficacious scientific method has been challenged. This has opened a range of questions about the actual roles played by methodological doctrines in the development of science and in the social dynamics of scientific communities. Although re­ presenting somewhat divergent intellectual programmes, the work of both Alexandre Koyre and Thomas Kuhn cast considerable doubt on the relevance of general doctrines of methodology to any historical understanding of scientific practice and its development. Both writers stressed the particularity of the conceptual, procedural, evaluative and metaphysical elements which constitute any given tradition of scientific inquiry, and they indicated the variety of such traditions in the history of science. No single method could grasp or explain the internal dynamics of any
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