For the general reader with an active curiosity, and/or a troubled fear of the hegemony of modern science, twelve...

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WHAT IS SCIENCE?

For the general reader with an active curiosity, and/or a troubled fear of the hegemony of modern science, twelve world-famous scientists and philosophers have contributed essays to this symposium. They are concerned with ""the nature of scientific knowledge"", ""scientific method"", ""science as an intellectual pursuit"", and ""the bearing of science on society"". Achievements are reviewed, historical growth sketched; there are some casual auguries of scientific destiny; but mainly the emphasis falls on the outlook of science, its social and intellectual conspectus, its rigors and ideals. The authors include Bertrand Russell, who relates modern science to human values; Sir Edmund Taylor Whitaker, with a model exposition of the nature of mathematical reasoning; Hermann Bondl, an emerging wizard in the broad field of astronomy and the special province of cosmology; Julian Huxley, anatomizing evolutionary and genetic theory; Edward Condon, physics; John Read, chemistry; Ernest Baldwin, biochemistry; Warder Clyde Allee, biology; Edwin G. Boring, psychology; Erich Fromm, psychoanalysis; Clyde Kluckhohn, anthropology; and Jacob Brownowski on the question of ""Science as Foresight"", a chapter which deals brilliantly with progress in completing controls and devices... Individual chapters make a splendid introduction to special fields, and there is a list of suggested reading.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1955

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