Reviews for Groups, Languages, Algorithms: AMS-ASL Joint Special Session on Interactions Between Logic, Group Theory, and Computer Science, January 16-19, 2003, Baltimore, Maryland

The average rating for Groups, Languages, Algorithms: AMS-ASL Joint Special Session on Interactions Between Logic, Group Theory, and Computer Science, January 16-19, 2003, Baltimore, Maryland based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-23 00:00:00 Ramiro Garcia Despite a terribly daunting title (and a bit of a dense introduction) this book proved to be a really interesting read. Dear sets up the Scientific Revolution as the shift from experience to experiment. The scholastic mode of thought (especially in natural philosophy) moved from presumed universal truths to specifics. In this sort of mind frame, a singular experiment is essentially unhelpful, because it's impossible to induct from one case whether the results could apply universally. Dear traces how this shifts, especially do to the activity in fields of 'mixed mathematics' like astronomy and optics, from universal experiences to scientists attempting to recreate universal experiences (lots of witnesses, lots of repetitions, accounts told in universal passive voice) to Newton, who's presented as the first to really extol the singular experiment as the indicator of a natural truth. I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm not qualified to judge Dear's accuracy in that field. But it's a really interesting book that shines a bit of light on the history of thought.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-12-02 00:00:00 Gunter Schwarz Though I am new to the philosophy and history of science, this book is somewhat of a stand out in the way it tackles how science made the break with Aristotelian methodology. This is both a good and bad thing. Good in that Dear presents a gradual picture of the scientific revolution, and details factors and actants as connected to a larger world rather than portraying "science" as this inner world where people sit around destroying former paradigms (I'm looking at you Kuhn, well not really, but that formative book). Bad in that Dear spends a lot of time talking about Jesuits as if they had no religious context and sort of neglects the impacts of the protestant reformation.