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Are Scientists Dogmatic? (1957-03-02)
About this film
"Tin melts at 450* Fahrenheit." Professor LeCorbeiller, by means of apparatus more complicated than you might imagine, shows that this statement constitutes a scientific fact. In every field of science, he indicates, researchers have built up an enormous backlog of such facts. Reviewing and using these facts, scientists sometimes give the impression of being cocksure of their knowledge of the universe. For example, they may design radio stations on the supposition that there are, at any point in the air between transmitter and receiver, two arrows representing the electric field and the magnetic field. For most of us this seems a dogmatic statement. Has the scientist been measuring these quantities at all points in the air between his transmitter and receiver? And further, as LeCorbeiller points out, "Science has gained for us a number of scientific truths and a great deal of power over nature. But it is clear that these answers and these achievements are not those we are most interested in...the fact remains that precisely the most important statements in love, in art, in religion, do not allow of numerical measurement." Unable to cope with these questions, is the scientist not co…
Directors & creators
WGBH Educational Foundation
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Science, Scientific method, Physics, Chemistry, Melting point, Tin, Measurement, Instrumentation, Thermocouples, Epistemology, Dogmatism, Phase transitions, Temperature, Experimental science, Scientific facts, History of science, Educational television, Empiricism, Chemical purity, Thermodynamics
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