Cathedrals of Science by Patrick Coffey;

Author:Patrick Coffey;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
Published: 2008-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 7-2. Lewis in 1928, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

The Anatomy of Science

Lewis was invited to give the Silliman Lectures at Yale in 1925, which were published under the title The Anatomy of Science.29 The Silliman Lectures, given annually by a prominent scientist, consist of a series of popular talks. Lewis talked about his own philosophy of science, beginning his lectures as follows:

The strength of science lies in its naïveté. Science is like life itself; if we could foresee all the obstacles that lie in our path we would not attack even the first, but would settle down to self-centered contemplation. The average scientist, unequipped with the powerful lenses of philosophy, is a nearsighted creature, and cheerfully attacks each difficulty in the hope that it may prove to be the last. … I take it that the scientific method, of which so much has been heard, is hardly more than the native method of solving problems, a little clarified from prejudice and a little cultivated by training. … I have no patience with attempts to identify science with measurement, which is but one of its tools, or with any definition of a scientist which would exclude a Darwin, a Pasteur, or a Kekulé. … The scientist is a practical man and his are practical aims. He does not seek the ultimate but the proximate. The theory that there is an ultimate truth, although very generally held by mankind, does not seem useful to science except in the sense of a horizon toward which we may proceed.30

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