1. 1. Philip Anderson (which I think one can say
safely that he knows something about how Physics is done http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Warren_Anderson)
“screams” against Nancy Cartwright in
Anderson, P. W. (2001). Science: A ‘dappled world’or a ‘seamless web’?.Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy
of Modern Physics, 32(3),
487-494.
To me the “dappled world” Anderson has Cartwright believe in is very
much like the world of sciences against the world of Science that Latour speaks
about.
Indeed Anderson takes a strong position:
He claims that Cartwright
holds “a very common misconception….
[that] the primary goal of science is prediction, prediction in the sense of
being able (or at least wishing) to exactly calculate the outcome of some
determinate set of initial conditions.
Against this Anderson states that the primary goal of science is:
“to achieve
an accurate, rational, objective, and unified view of external reality.”
In the spirit of negotiations let us see in the article what he really
cares about.
