The nature of the natural sciences. [Common sense and science; Empirical tools and empiricism; Organized science; Creative science; The real world]

Boston, Little, Brown, 1963, 1963. Very Good. xix, 406 p. illus. 22 cm. ; LCCN: 63-17432 ; LC: Q175 ; OCLC: 1189283 ; grey cloth ; no dustjacket ; ex-lib, stamps, label, date due, pocket ; "What is science? That question seldom emerges when scientists talk with each other. Most scientists believe they know quite well what science is and, since they all share much the same fundamental presuppositions, their beliefs rarely broach a subject for debate. However..." ; Contents: Common sense and science (From stimuli to constructs, From constructs to concepts) -- Science and common sense (Recurrence and reproducibility) -- Anatomy of science (Principle of intelligibility, Heuristic tools) -- Cosmology and technology (The climate of opinion, cosmology of organized science) -- Colligative relations and scientific laws (The sulfur relation, Boyle's Law, Galileo's law of free fall, A relation of Euclidean geometry, The Bode-Titus Law, Moseley's Law, The Mendelian Laws) -- Empirical tools and empiricism (The operating protocol, Pointer readings, calibration, extrapolation, choice of variables, choice of observables, the myth of method)-- The principles of science (Parsimony, penury, clarity, analogy, energy, atomism, superposition and summation, superposition and explanation, causality as heuristic maxim, quantum mechanics, determinism and causality, learning presupposes error) -- Theories and models (logic and mathematics, abstract formalism and scientific law, the hypothetico-deducticve method, the positivists' theory without superfluity) -- The evolution of scientific terms (the crucial experiment, situations of deadlock, ramified chain of reasoning, totality of what is tested) -- Organized science (The invisible college, normative functions, the super-personal intelligence, complementarity of capacities, complementarity of skills, complementarity of temperaments, complementarity and cancellations of commitments, defective personal commitment, excessive authority) --Creative science (Primacy of hypothesis, detachment, accidental discoveries, focal discoveries, the threshold of impressionability, knowledge and expectation, the birth of insight) -- The real world (naive realism, phenomenalism, illogical cynicism, representationalism, science and prediction, heuristic power, simplicity, the cross-fix, ultimate unintelligibilities). ; VG