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I think history (and philosophy) of science is overlooked by most scientists. However, as a scientist and in my limited experience, histories of scientific fiel
by biomcgary 3y ago
I think history (and philosophy) of science is overlooked by most scientists. However, as a scientist and in my limited experience, histories of scientific fields written by intellectually broad scientists are fundamentally more interesting and useful than histories of science written by historians. For example, Gunter Wagner, an evolutionary theorist that focuses on evolution and development, has written some excellent historical perspectives of the field.
My impression is that scientists with a more theoretical focus (versus narrowly experimental) tend to be more interested in the history of their fields, on average. Theorists are a small fraction of the field in biology, but make up much larger proportions of physics, so I suspect that more physics history exists than biology history (other than the occasionally monomaniacal obsession with Darwin). Part of the challenges with histories of biology is that the field is inherently squishier than physics, which is reflected in the precision of the theories and ideas promulgated. Along with the large number of exceptions in biology to general rules, historical interpretations are going to be inherently messy.