For fifteen years, from 1662 until his death in 1677, Henry Oldenburg served the Royal Society as second Secretary and was charged with almost the entire burden of its correspondence, domestic and foreign. During this time he acted as a centre for the communication of scientific news, searching out new sources of information, encouraging men everywhere to make their work public, acting as an intermediary between scientists and, through the Philosophical Transactions, providing a medium for the publication of short scientific (...) papers. Oldenburg's contribution to scientific communication was unique in the seventeenth century, not least because he represented the Royal Society and served all its members impartially. It is not too much to say that he invented the professions of scientific administrator and scientific journalist. (shrink)

Ian Hacking here presents a philosophical critique of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference and the growth of this new family of ...

In this 1974 book a practising scientist and gifted expositor sets forth an exciting point of view on the nature of science and how it works.

A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research (...) is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". (shrink)

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.