Geophysics, realism, and industry : how commercial interests shaped geophysical conceptions, 1900-1960 /
Did industry and commerce affect the concepts, values and epistemic foundations of different sciences? If so, how and to what extent? This book suggests that the most significant influence of industry on science in the two case studies treated here had to do with the issue of realism. Using wave pro...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford :
Oxford University Press,
[2016]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Did industry and commerce affect the concepts, values and epistemic foundations of different sciences? If so, how and to what extent? This book suggests that the most significant influence of industry on science in the two case studies treated here had to do with the issue of realism. Using wave propagation as the common thread, it simultaneously analyses the emergence of realist attitudes towards the entities of the ionosphere and of the Earth's crust. However, what led physicists and engineers to adopt realist attitudes? This book suggests that a new kind of realism - a realism of social and cultural origins - is the answer: a preliminary, entity realism responding to specific commercial and engineering interests, and a realism that was neither strictly instrumental nor exclusively operational. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780191071386 0191071382 9780191816529 0191816523 |