About Method – Experimenters, Snake Venom, and the History of Writing Scientifically
Regular price
€40.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Jutta Schickore
advancement
animal
Author_Jutta Schickore
awareness
Category=PDN
Category=PDX
Category=PSVF
controversial
controversy
criticism
digestion
discourse
disease
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
experiment
experimental
historical
history
immobilizations
investigation
medicine
method
methodology
methods
narrative
nature
philosophy
poison
poisonous
poisons
practical
progression
reptiles
research
saliva
science
scientists
snake venom
snakes
treatment
unobservables
viper
zootoxins
Product details
- ISBN 9780226759890
- Dimensions: 6 x 9mm
- Publication Date: 28 Oct 2020
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Scientists’ views on what makes an experiment successful have developed dramatically throughout history. Different criteria for proper experimentation were privileged at different times, entirely new criteria for securing experimental results emerged, and the meaning of commitment to experimentation altered. In About Method, Schickore captures this complex trajectory of change from 1660 to the twentieth century through the history of snake venom research. As experiments with poisonous snakes and venom were both challenging and controversial, the experimenters produced very detailed accounts of their investigations, which go back three hundred years—making venom research uniquely suited for such a long-term study. By analyzing key episodes in the transformation of venom research, Schickore is able to draw out the factors that have shaped methods discourse in science.
About Method shows that methodological advancement throughout history has not been simply a steady progression toward better, more sophisticated and improved methodologies of experimentation. Rather, it was a progression in awareness of the obstacles and limitations that scientists face in developing strategies to probe the myriad unknown complexities of nature. The first long-term history of this development and of snake venom research, About Method offers a major contribution to integrated history and philosophy of science.
About Method shows that methodological advancement throughout history has not been simply a steady progression toward better, more sophisticated and improved methodologies of experimentation. Rather, it was a progression in awareness of the obstacles and limitations that scientists face in developing strategies to probe the myriad unknown complexities of nature. The first long-term history of this development and of snake venom research, About Method offers a major contribution to integrated history and philosophy of science.
Jutta Schickore is the Ruth N. Halls Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine at Indiana University. She is the author of The Microscope and the Eye: A History of Reflections, 1740-1870, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
