gimley reviewed Introducing Philosophy Of Science by Ziauddin Sardar
Review of 'Introducing Philosophy Of Science' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
The title misuses the term "Philosophy of Science" as if it didn't already have a long standing and useful meaning. Though this book is arguably philosophy as applied to science, our language already has terms that describe what it is doing--"cultural studies," or "critical theory," and I say this as someone who is politically in accord with what this book is trying to do.
It treats science as the enemy (which I'll admit it often resembles) but without taking science's actual value seriously. For example, take the quote "In over five decades of science development, most of the Third World countries have nothing to show for it. The benefits of science just refuse to trickle down to the poor." The statement concedes that science has benefits (something that you'd be hard pressed to find in most of the book) though never quite says what they are. I grant you that …
The title misuses the term "Philosophy of Science" as if it didn't already have a long standing and useful meaning. Though this book is arguably philosophy as applied to science, our language already has terms that describe what it is doing--"cultural studies," or "critical theory," and I say this as someone who is politically in accord with what this book is trying to do.
It treats science as the enemy (which I'll admit it often resembles) but without taking science's actual value seriously. For example, take the quote "In over five decades of science development, most of the Third World countries have nothing to show for it. The benefits of science just refuse to trickle down to the poor." The statement concedes that science has benefits (something that you'd be hard pressed to find in most of the book) though never quite says what they are. I grant you that the "Third World" (a phrase from the middle of last century which needs to be updated) has been left behind, often intentionally, from much we in the west take for granted, but I'd blame capitalism and power politics and plain old greed (something which long preceded Galileo) before considering science's role. Science has been developing for way more than five decades and leaving the poor behind for way more as well, so I also wonder about that choice of phrase, which coincidentally matches the age of the term "Third world." There have been several successful attempts to bring, say, medical science to developing nations, even when it can be attributed to eradicating diseases we fear will end up infecting us if we don't do so, and I know of doctors who volunteer time helping the "wretched of the earth" which could be criticized as insufficient salves to guilty consciences but that would ignore the fact that there is good being done.
The real problem with the book is that the author doesn't seem to know any actual science. He takes the second law of thermodynamics as a cultural artifact, and it does presume our culture's ideas of measurement, but I never get the feeling that he knows what it actually is trying to encompass.
It mainly targets the "soft sciences" which are low hanging fruit while never discussing the reasons why they are called "soft."
There are actual things I could learn from this book if I trusted they were being presented without distortion (which I don't).
And to add to the above, I found the graphics a weak feature, uninspiring and unattractive.
