|9780822946267|A New Ideal for Values in Science|The idea that science is or should be value-free, and that values are or should be formed independently of science, has been under fire by philosophers of science for decades. Science and Moral Imagination directly challenges the idea that science and values cannot and should not influence each other. Matthew J. Brown argues that science and values mutually influence and implicate one another, that the influence of values on science is pervasive and must be responsibly managed, and that science can and should have an influence on our values. This interplay, he explains, must…

|9780822983507|William Whewell is considered one of the most important nineteenth-century British philosophers of science and a contributor to modern philosophical thought, particularly regarding the problem of induction and the logic of discovery. In this volume, Robert E. Butts offers selections from Whewell's most important writings, and analysis of counter-claims to his philosophy.| Robert E. Butts|| Philosophy / General Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects

|9780822984283|Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy|The six essays in this volume discuss philosophical thought on scientific theory including: a call for a realist, rather than instrumentalist interpretation of science; a critique of one of the core ideas of positivism concerning the relation between observational and theoretical languages; using aerodynamics to discuss the representational aspect of scientific theories and their isomorphic qualities; the relationship between the reliability of common sense and the authenticity of the world view of science; removing long-held ambiguities on the theory of inductive logic; and the relationship between the actuality of conceptual revolutions in the history of…

|9780822952251|According to modern physics, many objectively improbable events actually occur, such as the spontaneous disintegration of radioactive atoms. Because of high levels of improbability, scientists are often at a loss to explain such phenomena. In this main essay of this book, Wesley Salmon offers a solution to scientific explanation based on the concept of statistical relevance (the S-R model). In this vein, the other two essays herein discuss “Statistical Relevance vs. Statistical Inference,” and “Explanation and Information.”| Wesley C. Salmon|| Philosophy / General Philosophy / Logic Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects

|9780822984344|Ronald C. Tobey provides a provocative analysis of the movement to establish a national science program in the early twentieth century. Led by several influential scientists, who had participated in centralized scientific enterprises during World War I, the new effort to conjoin science and society was an attempt to return to earlier progressive values with the hope of producing science for society's benefit. The movement was initially undermined by the new physics, and Einstein's theories of relativity, which shattered traditional views and alienated the American public. Nationalized research programs were tempered by the conservatism of corporate donors. Later, with the…