Mudança científica: modelos filosóficos e pesquisa histórica

The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scientific change. To facilitate this the empirical claims of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Laudan are listed in nontechnical language, both by author and by topic. A bibliography of case studies is included.Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso

Neptunism and transformism:Robert Jameson and other evolutionary theorists in early nineteenth-century Scotland

This paper sheds new light on the prevalence of evolutionary ideas in Scotland in the early nineteenth century and establish what connections existed between the espousal of evolutionary theories and adherence to the directional history of the earth proposed by Abraham Gottlob Werner and his Scottish disciples. A possible connection between Wernerian geology and theories of the transmutation of species in Edinburgh in the period when Charles Darwin was a medical student in the city was suggested in an important 1991 paper by James Secord. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of this important episode in the history of evolutionary ideas and explore the relationship between these geological and evolutionary discourses. To do this it focuses on the circle of natural historians around Robert Jameson, Wernerian geologist and professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh from 1804 to 1854. From the evidence gathered here there emerges a clear confirmation that the Wernerian model of geohistory facilitated the acceptance of evolutionary explanations of the history of life in early nineteenth-century Scotland. As Edinburgh was at this time the most important center of medical education in the English-speaking world, this almost certainly influenced the reception and development of evolutionary ideas in the decades that followed.</p

Cuisine and Empire: What Does Food Tell Us About Culture?

Do you know anyone who is following the paleo diet? How much do they really know about what people ate in our early history? Do you know people who are carb free? If so, what would they say to about the fact that grains have been the centerpiece of almost all human diets? Do you know anyone who loves Chinese food? Well, what makes food Chinese in the first place and why do the Chinese eat so little meat compared to Europeans? This episode looks at the history of cooking and examines its political and, of course, philosophical implications. Rachel Laudan is a food historian with a PhD from the University of London. She has taught history, philosophy, and science at Carnegie Mellon, She is the author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History and the prizewinning book, The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary History. She has served as Scholar-in-Residence for the International Association of Culinary Professionals, written for Saveur, Utne Reader, the Boston Globe, and given keynote addresses for many academic, business, and culinary conferences. After fifteen years in Mexico, she now lives in Austin, Texas.https://commons.und.edu/why-radio-archive/1059/thumbnail.jp

Kuhn e as ciências sociais

No texto, são expostos os motivos básicos pelos quais o vocabulário emprestado de Thomas Kuhn - notadamente o termo paradigma - e o modelo de desenvolvimento científico exposto pelo autor em seu A estrutura das revoluções científicas foram tomados de empréstimo em textos que discutem a epistemologia das ciências sociais. A conclusão é que as supostas aplicações do modelo kuhniano às ciências sociais se baseiam em leitura que não encontra qualquer apoio no autor e, principalmente, obscurecem as implicações mais amplas de sua obra.<br>The article shows for what reasons the vocabulary and the model for scientific growth of Thomas Kuhn were borrowed by epistemologists of the social sciences. The conclusion is that the texts produced in this vein are based in a shallow understanding of the author's main implications