ENGLISH

Making Prehistory

By Derek Turner

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2007
ISBN
052187520X, 9780521875202
Open Library ID
OL22756124M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1218983 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology
Pages
239\239
Topic
History
Library
torrents.ru tech collections 2009-11-14
Scanned
yes
Time added
2010-02-18 13:16:04

Description

Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in current philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike.

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