Is The Science of Science As A Field of Study In Its Own Right Alive Or Dead?

[Al Henderson]

Sadly, as President Eisenhower, Newt Gingrich, and many others have pointed out, the motive for scientific inquiry has turned from curious inquiry to how to spend ever more money "doing science" -- rather than achieving scientific results. 

That may seem a matter of policy, but I see it as an observed trend affecting the nature of science and directly on point. 

Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Clifford Miller <cliffordmiller at CLIFFORDMILLER.COM>
To: SIGMETRICS <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
Sent: Sun, Feb 16, 2014 10:06 am
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] Is The Science of Science As A Field of Study In Its Own Right Alive Or Dead?


    
    
 I am trying to identify whether there is a      core field of study in the science of science as a field of        study in its own right and if so what are its main related      works.  I am looking for published work which is the product of      scientific study of science and which is, unlike the      philosophy of science, based on observation and empirical          evidence and is directed to answering the questions "what        is science and the nature of science?".
    
    
    
 There seems to be no shortage of work on the      sociology of science, the history of science, science policy, the      philosophy of science, metascience and epistemology. 
    
    
    
 Or has everyone has given up on the science of      science as a field of study per se following the controversies in      the philosophy of science since Kuhn's "The Structure of        Scientific Revolutions", the disputes which followed      Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery" and the failure of      attempts at demarcation.  There is also a modern view that there      is no particular identifiable scientific method, which of course      makes a scientific approach to classification in a science of      science a little more difficult.
      
      Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is in a      sense a work on the science of science in that it relies on      empirical evidence of Kuhn's experience of what science is and his      knowledge from his work on the history of science.
    
  

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