NEW BOOK / NOVEDAD BIBLIOGRÁFICA / NOU LLIBRE: Geophysics, Realism, and Industry
Geophysics, Realism, and Industry
How Commercial Interests Shaped Geophysical Conceptions, 1900-1960
Aitor Anduaga
Oxford University Press, January 2016, 339 p.
ISBN: 9780198755159
https://global.oup.com/
Did
industry and commerce affect the concepts, values and epistemic
foundations of different sciences? If so, how and to what extent? This
book suggests that the most significant influence of industry on science
in the two case studies treated here had to do with the issue of
realism. Using wave propagation as the common thread, this is the first
book to simultaneously analyse the emergence of realist attitudes
towards the entities of the ionosphere and of the earth's crust.
However, what led physicists and engineers to adopt realist attitudes?
This book suggests that a new kind of realism --a realism of social and
cultural origins- is the answer: a preliminary, entity realism
responding to specific commercial and engineering interests, and a
realism that was neither strictly instrumental nor exclusively
operational. The book has two parts: while Part I focuses on the study
of the ionosphere and how the British radio industry affected
ionospheric physics, Part II focuses on the study of the Earth's crust
and how the American oil industry affected crustal seismology.
REVIEWS:
"Anduaga
presents a challenging, deeply informed analysis of the effects of
commercial interest on the content of 20th-century science. The global
sciences of radio propagation and seismic study of Earth's interior
provide the scenes for his critique of realism and its social/cultural
origins in commercial science. This book provides essential background
and tools for historians of modern global science." --Greg Good, American Institute of Physics
"Remote
sensing is a severely underdeveloped fertile ground for historians of
science and technology to explore important philosophical, technical,
conceptual, social, and political issues. Anduaga's Geophysics, Realism,
and Industry breaks the ice and further advances the area by comparing
the development of radio ionospheric propagation with that of crustal
seismology in the twentieth century. For readers interested in the
complex interplay between ontology and industry in light of a new
experimental technology, this book is highly recommended." --Chen-Pang Yeang, University of Toronto, Canada
"Anduaga
takes readers on a journey through important but little-explored realms
of twentieth century geophysics. A must-read for those interested in
the rise of the modern earth sciences." --Ronald E. Doel, Florida State University, USA