Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I History of the understanding of stratospheric ozone
- Part II Philosophical issues arising from the history
- 9 Prediction in science
- 10 The crucial experiment
- 11 Positive and negative evidence in theory selection
- 12 Branches and sub-branches of science: problems at disciplinary boundaries
- 13 Scientific evidence and powerful computers: new problems for philosophers of science?
- 14 The scientific consensus
- References
- Index
12 - Branches and sub-branches of science: problems at disciplinary boundaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I History of the understanding of stratospheric ozone
- Part II Philosophical issues arising from the history
- 9 Prediction in science
- 10 The crucial experiment
- 11 Positive and negative evidence in theory selection
- 12 Branches and sub-branches of science: problems at disciplinary boundaries
- 13 Scientific evidence and powerful computers: new problems for philosophers of science?
- 14 The scientific consensus
- References
- Index
Summary
Science has expanded enormously over the last century and a half. This applies both to the volume of its subject-matter, and the number of practitioners who would regard themselves as scientists. Science has expanded less by broadening the areas of experience that it addresses, than by uncovering and exploring ever finer detail, and proliferating new phenomena within the general scope of its traditional subject matter. As an almost inevitable result, the working scientist has defined an area of research expertise in ever narrower terms. The chemist of today still has a basic training in the whole of chemistry, and a disciplinary orientation in one of perhaps three to six major subdivisions of the subject (organic chemistry, physical chemistry, etc.). But a claim to familiarity with the frontiers of human knowledge, and/or research expertise, would only extend to one specialised area (or possibly two or three) of perhaps thirty to 100 that would encompass the subject of chemistry.
Right from the outset, unravelling the science of stratospheric ozone was a problem that overlapped several boundaries between traditional disciplines. The Chapman model described ozone formation and removal in terms of the type of mechanism and approach that arises in the chemical sub-discipline of gas kinetics. The correlation of column ozone values with surface weather conditions clearly required a direct tie-in with air circulation and meteorology. And the fact that ozone levels were influenced to some extent by solar activity indicated some role also for solar physics and/or upper atmosphere physics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Ozone LayerA Philosophy of Science Perspective, pp. 149 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001