================= HES POSTING ================= Dear HESers, Steve Fuller has written a paper on "Who's Afraid of the History of Contemporary Science?" that relates to issues brought up in the editorial and the ensuing discussion. Below is an abstract he sent me of the paper. The full-length version of the paper is available, with Steve Fuller's permission, at http://cs.muohio.edu/~HisEcSoc/Resources/Editorials/Weintraub/Fuller.shtml As a reminder, if you would like to read all the replies to the editorial, connect to http://cs.muohio.edu/~HisEcSoc/Resources/Editorials/Weintraub/discussion.shtml This site is updated at least once a day. Sincerely, Esther-Mirjam Sent HES co-editor ********************************************** Abstract of WHO'S AFRAID OF THE HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE? Steve Fuller, Dept of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Durham, UK (E-mail: [log in to unmask]) (To appear in T. Soederqvist, ed., The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology (Reading UK: Harwood, 1996). In "Who's Afraid of the History of Contemporary Science?", I argue that the history of contemporary science offers historians a unique opportunity to re-establish their relevance to the disciplines they write about. I observe that even though the history of science enjoys unprecedented financial and moral support from the scientific community, it is also completely irrelevant to the popular histories that scientists write to justify their activities to novices and the wider public. It would seem that a Faustian bargain (one endorsed by Thomas Kuhn) has been struck, whereby the price paid for the history of science's autonomy from science is its contemporary irrelevance. Consequently, a very powerful source of science critique has been lost. The irrelevance of history to critiques of contemporary science was first felt early in this century in the wake of the Planck-Mach debates over the form that physics education should take. Mach believed that past sins should revisit successive generations of physicists until they are properly addressed, whereas Planck believed in a statute of limitations for holding current research programs accountable for past sins -- namely, once the programs had registered enough substantial results in their own terms. Planck's view has clearly won, but historians of the social sciences -- by remaining affiliated primarily to their home discipline rather than the history of science -- keep alive the Machian vision of the relevance of critical-historical inquiry to the growth of science. ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________ Department of Economics 426 Decio Hall University of Notre Dame (219)631-6979 (O) Notre Dame, IN 46556 (219)631-8809 (F) http://www.nd.edu:80/~esent mailto:[log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________