Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas

"Stimulating for someone just beginning to take an interest in the history of scientific thought, and sufficiently scholarly in its material and conclusions to be worth reading by the specialist, too." R. Harr, J. Royal Institute of Chemistry Historiography and science: Until W.W.II, analytical and deductive history of science was the province of philosophers or historians of ancient scientistic writing, 'in order to occupy their retirement' C. Gillispie comments sarcastically. His generation, and Thomas Kuhn, is declared by him to have founded the history of science as a professional field of scholarship. Dazzled by atomic bomb, radar, sonar, science students in the forties, developed a strong interest in history of scientific ideas. Since science must have had an evolution history like art, philosophy, or literature, the study of which could lead to a better analysis of its development and importance in the progress of global civilization. A history of science: In his essay, C. Gillispie portrayed 'The history of modern science' as a logical development of objectivity, through the study of natural phenomena. Gillispie takes us on a masterly tour of the world of scientific ideas, from Galileo's analysis of motion to Twentieth century theories of evolution and relativity. Half a century since its publication, The Edge of Objectivity, initiated what is established now as a full-fledged discipline, although the focus has gradually shifted to social influence of science rather than the dynamics of its progress. Science is more frequently viewed, as a challenging show of power than an integration of knowledge. Gillispie's Objectivity: In the early 1950s, Charles Gillispie, a new lecturer at Princeton started teaching one of the first undergraduate courses offered on the history of science, and in Humanities in the western universities. Gillispie introduced his students to the key ideas and individuals in science from Galileo to Einstein in an 'opinionated, and selective' way. Gillispie's fundamental ideas remain as an analytical account of the sophisticated development of scientific ideas over the last four centuries, by one of the founders of modern study trends of the history of science. Gillispie defends a hardly debated concept of science as the progressive development of a more objective, detached, mathematical ways of viewing and presenting the world. Gillispie managed to effectively capture ideas, history and places, and describes his characters and their ideas around this core. A strong and independent mind, he has evaluated Mendel as superior to Darwin, and rates J. C. Maxwell higher than Faraday, to his evaluation many contemporary scholars agree. An Essay's Reviews: In spite of the great reviews this book rightly deserved, then, I regret the outstanding author was too honest to stick to his description of his genuinely titled book, as 'An Essay,' with less than a dozen sketchy illustrations, reminded me with text books mathema