E-Book Overview
This new edition of Chalmers's highly regarded and widely read work-translated into fifteen languages-is extensively rewritten and reorganized, reflecting the experience of the author, his colleagues, and correspondents in twenty years of teaching from the previous edition. Significant additions are new chapters on the Bayesian approach to science, the new experimentalism, the nature of scientific laws, and the realism/anti-realism debate. An ideal introduction to scientific method, Chalmers's work is both accessible to beginners and a valuable resource for advanced students and scholars.
E-Book Content
r! r. i .1 I AlE Chalmers What is this thing called Science? third edition Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis / Cambridge ~ .. Copyright © 1976, 1982, 1999 by A. F. Chalmers Reprinted from the 1999 third edition, University of Queensland Press Box 42, St. Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Typeset by University of Queensland Press Printed in the United States of America Co-published in North America by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937, Indianapolis, IN 46244-0937 04 03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5 678 Library of Congress Catalog card Number: 99-71498 Paper ISBN 0-87220-452-9 Cloth ISBN 0-87220-453-7 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984. 9 "Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened." Clea Lawrence Durrell Con