Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method PDF
Preview Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method
This page intentionally left blank EXTENDING OURSELVES This page intentionally left blank Extending Ourselves Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method PAUL HUMPHREYS 1 2004 1 Oxford NewYork Auckland Bangkok BuenosAires CapeTown Chennai DaresSalaam Delhi HongKong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜oPaulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright#2004by Oxford UniversityPress, Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Humphreys,Paul. Extendingourselves : computationalscience,empiricism, andscientificmethod / PaulHumphreys. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-19-515870-9 1.Science—Computersimulation.2.Science—Philosophy. I.Title. Q183.9.H82 2004 5010.13—dc21 2003054939 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper FOR DIANE Felices ter etamplius Quosirrupta tenet copulanecmalis Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citiussolvet amordie. —Horace This page intentionally left blank Preface Thisbookoriginatedinearly1989duringaconversationoverthegarden hedge with my neighbor, Jack Mitchell, who complained that computer simulations were forcing honest experimentalists out of business in solid state physics, an area to which he had made many significant contribu- tions. Coincidentally, I had begun to notice here and there that parts of contemporary science were driven by computational methods and I had occasionally tried, without much success, to fit these new methods into the familiar categories of the philosophy of science. The coincidence revived my interest in the area and led, after some initial papers and a period of time prolonged by various practical distractions, to this book. The influence of computational methods on science today is far more strikingthanwhenthatconversationtookplace,andmanypartsofscience have, as a result, entered a distinctively different phase of their develop- ment. In this and in other areas, human abilities are no longer the ulti- mate criteria of epistemic success. Science, in extending its reach far beyond the limits of human abilities, has rendered anthropocentrism anachronistic. DiscussionsinthoseearlydayswithFritzRohrlichwereoftheutmost value in writing the first papers, aswere, a little later, enjoyable andcon- structiveexchangeswithStephanHartmann.GenerouscontactwithDavid Freedman’s astringent intellect led over the years to a more realistic per- spective on the limits of modeling. Conversations and correspondence with others resulted in significant improvements in the manuscript. I am especially grateful to Peter Achinstein, Jody Azzouni, Bob Batterman, MartinCarrier,HasokChang,AlexanderPruss,RobertRynasiewicz,Tiha von Ghyczy, Mark Whittle, Bill Wimsatt, various academic audiences, and the anonymous referees from Oxford University Press. NSF grants viii Preface DIR-89-11393 and SES-96-18078 provided welcome support, as did two Sesquicentennial Awards from the University of Virginia. The book is dedicated tomy wife, with gratitudefor her helpand forbearance. The book contains in various places ideas that were originally pre- sented in journal articles. All have been heavily reworked and are now, I trust, less tentative and better articulated than in their first appearances. I am, nevertheless, acutely aware of how incomplete is the treatment of many of the subjects discussed here. I wish I could describe the book in the delightfully arch words with which Descartes concluded his work La Ge´ome´trie in 1637: ‘‘But it is not my purpose to write a large book. I am trying rather to include much in a few words, as will perhaps be inferred fromwhat Ihavedone....Ihopethatposteritywilljudge mekindly,not only as to the things which I have explained, but also as to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of dis- covery.’’ But in the present case, one would need to replace ‘‘inten- tionally’’ with ‘‘unintentionally.’’
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