Table of Contents for How We Know: An Exploration of the Scientific Process

PART I: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: What Is Science?
Why Learn Science? 3
Our Definition of Science 6
- Understanding 6
- Generality 6
- Experimental Test 7
Science versus the Humanities 7
The Case Histories 9
The General Principles 10
Mathematics and Science 11
Suggested Reading 11
 
CHAPTER 2: Facts
What Are They? 12
Fooling the Eye 12
Seeing after Blindness 13
Facts Are "Theory Laden" 17
How Facts Are Used 18
How Science Begins 19
Collecting All the Facts 19
The Facts about Motion 20
Which Facts Are Relevant? 21
Science and Public Facts 21
Reference Notes 22
Suggested Reading 22
 
PART II: CASE HISTORIES
CHAPTER 3: Snow on Cholera
Introduction: The Man, the Background 25
The Disease 27
Introduction to the Study 28
- The History of Cholera 29
- Cholera is Contagious 30
- How Does Cholera Spread? The "Effluvia" Theory 31
- Snow's Theory 33
The First Experiment: 1849 37
- The Broad Street Pump 37
- The Pump Handle 40
The Second Experiment: 1853-54 41
- A Controlled Experiment--Where Did They Get Their Water? 41
- The Natural Experiment 42
Being Critical 46
- Objections to Snow's Theory 46
- Other Theories: Effluvia, Elevation, Hard Water, and Soft Water 49
Applications to Other Problems 51
- What about Other Diseases? 51
- What to Do? Measures to Prevent the Spread of Cholera 53
- What Snow Overlooked 54
- The Epidemiology of Cancer 55
Reference Notes 62
Suggested Reading 62
 
CHAPTER 4: Is Heat a Substance?
Introduction 63
- What Is Heat? 63
- The Caloric Theory 64
- The Kinetic Theory 65
- The Usefulness of the Wrong Theory 65
- What Is to Come 66
Measuring Hotness 68
- Making Things Quantitative 68
- Thermometers 70
- The Equilibrium of Heat 74
- Science and Quantification 74
- Exact and Inexact Sciences 75
Heat and Heat Capacity 77
- The Invention of "Caloric" 77
- Conservation of Heat 78
- Joseph Black 78
- Heat versus Temperature 79
- What Will the Final Temperature Be? 80
- "The Capacity for Heat" 82
Latent Heat 86
- Melting Ice 86
- Latent Heat and Caloric 90
- Other Triumphs of the Caloric Theory: The Flow of Heat 91
Rumford: Does Heat Have Weight? 92
- Benjamin Thomson, Count Rumford 92
- Rumford's War against the Caloric Theory 93
- Does Heat Weight Anything? 93
Heat from Friction 98
- The Boring of Cannons 98
- Why Rumford Didn't Win 102
Molecular Motion 103
- Do Atoms and Molecules Move? 103
- Demonstration of the Constant Motion of Molecules 104
- Heat as Molecular Motion 107
Why Caloric Survived 109
- How Does Heat Get through a Vacuum? 109
- What Is Light? 111
- The Objectivity of Scientists 112
Reference Notes 112
Suggested Reading 113
 
CHAPTER 5: Who Is Mad?
Introduction 114
- Who Is Mad? 114
- A Depressed Genius 115
- History 116
Classification as the Starting Point of Science 120
- Classification 120
- Facts and Their Classification 121
- The Kinds of Mental Disorders 123
- The Risks of an Improved Classification 125
- Another Way of Looking at the Same "Collection of Facts" 125
Schizophrenia and Depressive Disorders 126
- Description of Schizophrenia 126
- Description of Depressive Disorders 127
- Comparison of the Two Groups 128
- Diagnosis 129
- Pattern Recognition--Art or Science? 130
The Experience of Madness 131
Theories of the Causes of Mental Disorders 135
- Psychoanalytical Theories 136
- Biological Theories 137
- Interaction of Biological and Psychodynamic Factors 138
An Epidemiological Study 138
- United States and British Rates of Mental Disorder--A Clue to Causes 138
- Explanations 139
- Caution! Discovery or Artifact? 140
- Previous Studies of Reliability of Diagnoses 142
- A Study of Diagnostic Practices 144
- A Thermometer for Mental Disorder? 144
- The Project Diagnosis 145
- The Results 146
- How Good Is the Project Diagnosis? 147
- Other Studies 148
- The Schizophrenia Epidemic in New York State 149
- The Psychiatrists Again 149
- What Have We Learned? 150
The Mental Hospital 151
- Deterioration in Schizophrenia 151
- Institutional Neurosis or Schizophrenia? 157
- The Origin of Institutional Neurosis 158
- The Cure 160
Generalizing a Concept 163
- Focus in Science 163
- A New Discovery? 166
- Total Institutions 166
- What Do Convents and Concentration Camps Have in Common? 167
- The Institution and the Condition 170
- Belief and Evidence 170
- What Have We Learned So Far? 171
- Labeling 172
- Eskimos and Yorubas 173
Genetic Studies 174
- Why Does Schizophrenia Run in Families? 174
- Inheritance 176
- Genetic Studies of Schizophrenia 177
- Implications for Classification of Schizophrenia 182
- Another Classification of Schizophrenia 183
- The "Myth" of Schizophrenia 184
- Implications for the Psychodynamic Approach 184
- Therapeutic Consequences 185
Postscript 186
Reference Notes 186
Suggested Reading 188
 
PART III: GENERAL PRINCIPLES
CHAPTER 6: Science--Search For Understanding
Understanding as a Common Experience 191
The Dancing Atoms 192
A Sense of Exhilaration 194
Religion, Poetry 195
- ...Alcohol 196
- ...and Insanity 196
Science Is a Consensus 197
Reference Notes 197
 
CHAPTER 7: Science The Goal of Generality
What It Is 198
Einstein's Generalization 199
Cholera and the Germ Theory 199
The Price of Generality 199
The Loss of Individuality 201
Science and Maps 201
Is History a Science? 202
Reference Notes 203
 
CHAPTER 8: Science--The Experimental Test
Testing Theories 204
The Development of the Experimental Method 204
The End of Authority 206
Repeatability 207
Quantity Rather Than Quality--The Faith in Mathematics 208
Testing--Planned and Unplanned 209
The Experiment Must Make a Difference 209
An Awareness of Alternatives 210
Women Drivers and the Lisbon Earthquake 210
Refutability 211
You Cannot Prove a Theory Right 212
You Cannot Prove a Theory Wrong 213
Indirectness of Experimental Tests 213
Generality and Indirectness 214
What Do We Test, and When? 215
Appendix 215
- The Experimental Method in the Humanities 215
- Images as Facts 216
- A Controlled Experiment 216
- Results 217
Reference Notes 219
Suggested Reading 219
 
CHAPTER 9: The Experimenter and the Experiment
The Uncertainty Principle 221
A Useful Metaphor 222
The Smart Mice 223
Placebo Pills in Drug Trials 223
Blind and Double Blind 224
The Lively Flatworms 225
Mental Telepathy 226
The Clever Horse 226
Interviewers and Interviewees 227
Rumford's Mistake 228
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 229
Reference Notes 230
 
CHAPTER 10: Measurement and Its Pitfalls
Measurement and Science 231
Reliability and Validity 232
Precision 232
- Accuracy 233
- When to Stop 234
- The Fall of a Leaf 235
The Point of Diminishing Returns 235
Counting 236
How to Fool People 236
How to Fool Oneself 237
- The Speed of Light 237
- The Crime Problem 238
- The Teenage Widowers 240
- The Bulgarian Pigs 241
Reference Notes 241
 
CHAPTER 11: Where Do Hypotheses Come From?
We All Make Them 242
The Moment of Insight 244
Poetry Also 247
Folk Wisdom 247
Chance 249
The Lost Keys 250
The Collective Unconscious 251
The Tactics of Science 252
Reference Notes 253
Suggested Reading 253
 
CHAPTER 12: The Dispassionate Scientist
The Myths 254
The Reality 254
- For Example: Isaac Newton 255
- Freud Also 256
Why Scientists Care So Much 257
The Depersonalization of Discovery 258
Reference Notes 259
Suggested Reading 259
 
CHAPTER 13: The Cultural Roots of Science
The Subjective Element 260
The Tacit Component 261
The Belief in Witchcraft 262
Arguing with the Azande 263
Carelessness and Witchcraft 264
Why? and How? 266
The Poison Oracle 267
The Confirmatory Test 269
Dealing with Contradictory Results 270
Science versus Witchcraft 271
Cultures and Subcultures 272
Scientific Subcultures 273
Breaking Through 273
Reference Notes 275
Suggested Reading 275
 
PART IV: MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE
CHAPTER 14: Logic and Mathematics
Introduction 279
The Nature of Logic 280
Probable Inference 281
Logical Difficulties and Fallacies 282
An Example of Logical Reasoning 283
The Nature of Mathematics 285
The Rules of the Game 287
The Truth of Mathematics 287
The Use of Mathematics in Science 288
The Reasons for Mathematics 289
- Economy of Effort 291
- Precision 291
- Another Kind of Precision 292
How Many Prime Numbers Are There? An Example of Mathematical Reasoning 295
Mathematics without Quantities--The Bridges of Koenigsberg 298
A Nontrivial Problem: The Nature of the Universe 301
Appendix 307
Galaxies 307
Energy Received from a Star 307
Solid Geometry of the Problem 308
Reference Notes 309
Suggested Reading 310
 
CHAPTER 15: Probability
How to Deal with Uncertainty 311
How to Gamble and Win 311
Heads or Tails? 312
- Numerical Magnitudes 313
- Are Tosses Independent? 313
- The "Law of Averages" 313
- Sequences of Tosses 314
- A Proof of the Obvious 316
- The Familiar Bell-Shaped Curve 317
- Another Paradox 318
- The Law of Averages Justified 322
- Uncertainty Remains 322
- Black Balls and White Balls 323
Another Meaning of Probability 326
Appendix: Applications of Probability Theory to Molecular Diffusion and Genetics 327
- Introduction 327
- Molecules in Motion 327
- Genetics 334
Reference Notes 340
Suggested Reading 340
 
CHAPTER 16: Statistics
The Problem Turned Around 341
How Tall Is the Average Person? 342
Is the Drug Effective? 343
Random versus Nonrandom 344
Another Meaning of "Statistics" 345
How Good Is an Average? 346
Statistics and Science 347
Reference Note 348
Suggested Reading 348
 
Index 349