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Showing 1 - 4 of 4 matches in All Departments
This book presents a case for engagement between the sciences and the humanities. The author, a professional chemist, seeks to demonstrate that the connections between those fields of intellectual activity are far more significant than anything that separates them. The book combines a historical survey of the relationships between science and literature with a number of case studies that examine specific scientific episodes—several drawn from the author’s own research—juxtaposed with a variety of literary works spanning a wide range of period and genre—Dante to detective fiction, War and Peace to White Teeth—to elicit their common themes. The work argues for an empirical, non-theory-based approach, one that is closely analogous to connectionist models of brain development and function, and that can appeal to general readers, as well as to literary scholars and practicing scientists, who are open to the idea that literature and science should not be compartmentalized.
This book presents a case for engagement between the sciences and the humanities. The author, a professional chemist, seeks to demonstrate that the connections between those fields of intellectual activity are far more significant than anything that separates them. The book combines a historical survey of the relationships between science and literature with a number of case studies that examine specific scientific episodes-several drawn from the author's own research-juxtaposed with a variety of literary works spanning a wide range of period and genre-Dante to detective fiction, War and Peace to White Teeth-to elicit their common themes. The work argues for an empirical, non-theory-based approach, one that is closely analogous to connectionist models of brain development and function, and that can appeal to general readers, as well as to literary scholars and practicing scientists, who are open to the idea that literature and science should not be compartmentalized.
In this brief, renowned inorganic chemist Jay Labinger tracks the development of his field from a forgotten specialism to the establishment of an independent, intellectually viable discipline. Inorganic chemistry, with a negation in its very name, was long regarded as that which was left behind when organic and physical chemistry emerged as specialist fields in the 19th century. Only by the middle of the 20th century had it begun to gain its current stature of equality to that of the other main branches of chemistry. The author discusses the evidence for this transition, both quantitative and anecdotal and includes consideration of the roles of local and personal factors, with particular focus on Caltech as an illustrative example. This brief is of interest both to historians of science and inorganic chemists who would like to find out how their field began.
So far the "Science Wars" have generated far more heat than light.
Combatants from one or the other of what C. P. Snow famously called
"the two cultures" (science versus the arts and humanities) have
launched bitter attacks but have seldom engaged in constructive
dialogue about the central issues. In "The One Culture?, " Jay A.
Labinger and Harry Collins have gathered together some of the
world's foremost scientists and sociologists of science to exchange
opinions and ideas rather than insults. The contributors find
surprising areas of broad agreement in a genuine conversation about
science, its legitimacy and authority as a means of understanding
the world, and whether science studies undermines the practice and
findings of science and scientists.
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