Scientific mythology

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Scientific mythology comprises a collection of anecdotes that inform the public understanding of the history of science and the history of technology. Some of these anecdotes are factually established, some are of questionable repute, and some are known to be false among scholars. Historians use the term "myth" to describe these popular accounts of the past that are not supported by current historical research. These mythological accounts have permeated the history of science.

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[edit] Limitations of using dramatic historical stories to teach science

Commentators on the history of science, such as James Burke, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend[1] have pointed out the limitations of using dramatic historical stories to teach science. In the attempt to fit the history of science into a tale with a moral lesson, there is a tendency to simplify complex historical realities, and this tends to give the general public a false impression about what scientists do and how the process of science works.

For example, historians of science and scientific educators often point out that scientific myths often contain an inspired heroic genius, and this obscures the role of social communication and collaboration in the scientific process as well as contributes to the perception that science is too hard for mere mortals to undertake. Also, scientific myths often contain an evil establishment, and this obscures the fact that there are often good reasons why the establishment believes what it does and that in many cases, the established view turns out to be correct. Scientific myths also tend to either overstate or understate the role of chance in scientific discovery, and to emphasize the dramatic while ignoring the incremental progress that constitutes most scientific advancement.

Also in the effort to create a dramatic story, scientific myths tend to reduce theory verification to one dramatic experiment which is claimed to prove a theory (for example, the Michelson-Morley experiment, disproving luminiferous aether). This leads to the misperception that scientific theories are fragile in that they are based on a few crucial facts, when in fact most scientific theories are robust in that they are based on many independent lines of evidence and can withstand cases in which some interpretations of data later turn out to be incorrect.

[edit] Some major myths in the history of science

[edit] Myths regarding discoveries and inventions

  • Isaac Newton's apple, making him understand gravitation
  • Galileo Galilei's cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and some stories about his persecution by the Catholic Church. The leaning-tower story originated with Galileo's own student Vincenzo Viviani but is not generally accepted.
  • Archimedes' "Eureka", upon discovering a measuring method for volumes of irregular bodies
  • Christopher Columbus's discovery of The Americas, or the round Earth (it was well known to be round, though the exact size was a subject of debate).
  • That Sigmund Freud discovered the unconscious, when many philosophers preceding Sigmund Freud, such as Leibniz, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, in the West, as well a the Vedic and Sufi Traditions predating Freud by millennia, had similar concepts. This myth has been used to allocate modern psychology a special place in understanding human action marking its beginning with Freud or Wilhelm Wundt, and dismiss 'pre-modern' or non-Western psychological models as mythology.

[edit] Myths regarding Copernicus

  • That Copernicus's theory drastically simplified the Ptolemaic system, and many other details about his theory. Much of what has been attributed to Copernicus was in fact developed by later scholars advocating views which diverged sharply from his relatively conservative changes. In particular:
  • That Copernicus's universe was infinite, unlike Ptolemy's (Copernicus's was larger, but still finite)
  • That Copernicus put the sun in the center of universe (he put it in the center with respect to the planets, but located it near the center of the universe, not precisely in the center)
  • That Copernicus abolished the Ptolemaic celestial spheres (he was ambiguous as to their nature, however)
  • That Copernicus drastically simplified the Ptolemaic system (Copernicus eliminated some epicycles, but needed to add new ones in order to compensate for getting rid of Ptolemy's "equant". Whether it was simpler or not was a matter of debate).
  • That Copernicus's theory provided a strong and immediately compelling alternative to Ptolemy's system (it did not, in his formulation, provide any new observations or predictions)

[edit] Myths regarding science and religion

Many 'conflict between science and religion' myths come from the work of some nineteenth century historians who advocated the view known today as the "conflict thesis". The most influential exponents of the conflict thesis were John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. However the historical works of both are heavily criticized today. As the contemporary historian of science Colin Russell writes: "Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship".[2]

  • That the Church attempted to ban human dissection during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and that Vesalius was persecuted by the Inquisition. In fact dissection had occurred, even under Church auspices, for many centuries before Vesalius. Attitudes towards dissection varied regionally throughout the medieval period.
  • That most people believed in a Flat Earth in medieval times. While during some periods in history, certain groups have advocated theories of a flat earth, the knowledge that the Earth is likely a sphere of some sort dates back at least to Aristotle. According to historian Jeffrey Burton Russell, this myth has been used to encourage the dichotomy of science and religion. (An extension of the mythology, invented by Washington Irving, helps to glorify the achievement of Christopher Columbus.) - See also: Flat Earth mythology.
  • Claims about religious opposition to the use of lightning rods. Historians do cite evidence of widespread religious objections among the people of Boston, as well as the continuing practice in Catholic countries of ringing church bells during storms to ward off lightning. But some writers suggest that Catholic dogma condemned Franklin's invention, when in fact it did not.[3] Others claim that a lawsuit by Robespierre gave M. de St. Omer the right to have a lightning rod on top of his house despite the religious objections of his neighbors. J Riskin mentions no such religious motives in "The Lawyer and the Lightning Rod".[4]

[edit] Other myths

  • Medieval stained glass windows as "proof" that glass is really a liquid, not a true solid, since the fact that the bottom edges of the glass pieces are thicker than the tops "proves" that the glass has flowed (albeit slowly) over the centuries. The truth most likely is that 1) medieval glass-making techniques did not produce glass with uniform thickness (this is known), and 2) the window artisans installed the glass pieces with the thicker edge toward the bottom. However, glass is properly referred to as a non-crystalline solid, because it has the characteristic of solids that its atoms or molecules vibrate about a mean position rather than having the translational freedom they have in a liquid.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against Method. London: Verso.
  2. ^ Colin Russell: The Conflict of Science and Religion in Encyclopedia of the History of Science and Religion, New York 2000, (p. 15)
  3. ^ For both points, see IB Cohen "Popular Prejudice against the Introduction of lightning Rods" (Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. 253, pp. 393 - 440, 1952).
  4. ^ J Riskin "The Lawyer and the Lightning Rod". Science in Context, vol. 12, pp. 61-99, 1999).

[edit] External links