John has a post about philosophy up (sounding somewhat like a blowhard), and I thought I would repeat/elaborate a few points I made over at his place.
I recall reading a book about the philosophy of biology (attempting too at least) several years back, and the author noted with sadness that at a professional meeting of biologists, historians of science and philosphers of science, though the scientists generally knew the historians by reputation, they had no idea who the philosophers were. I think that anecdote sums up the reality pretty well. Few scientists would recognize names like Lakatos, Feyerabend or Carnap On the other hand, Popper and Kuhn would ring bells. But, I believe that the knowledge of Popper and Kuhn in the scientific community has less to do with the importance of these thinkers in the shaping of the scientific method and the day to day thinking of scientists themselves than the general cultural impact of Popper and Kuhn.
The second point is that almost any time a generalist, or a non-specialist, wades foreign territory they will make something of a mess and fall prey to obvious errors and misperceptions. Many Creationists are engineers who think it their place to lecture evolutionary biologists on the “problems” with their field, while some radical critics of science emerging from what used to be called the social sciences betray a profound ignorance of the structure of scientific thinking with their every utterance. Nonetheless, cross-disciplinary fertilization can also yield rewards. G.H. Hardy assumed he made a trivial observation when he sketched out the basics of the Hard-Weinberg equation to a biologist acquaintance. Whatever particular details mathematicians might miss when they venture into other fields, the benefits have far outweighed the blunders. Erwin Shrodinger’s book What is life helped stimulate the molecular biological revolution, as physicists like Francis Crick brought in a more reductionistic mindset to the life sciences. I will stop here, as I think the examples are myriad. Certainly there is a lot of short term satisfaction to be gained when someone seems to be poaching on your territory, but, you might miss out on some treasures that can only be found on their side of the fence!
Posted by razib at 06:04 PM