The Mass-Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis

Couverture
William Glen
Stanford University Press, 1994 - 370 pages
This book is the first to examine the arguments and behavior of the scientists who have been locked in conflict for a decade over two competing hypotheses for the cause of the mass extinction, some 65 million years ago, of most of life on earth, including the dinosaurs. These papers - by historians, sociologists, philosophers, and participating scientists - provide an exceptional opportunity to observe firsthand the workings of science that in quieter times are hidden from view. The book concludes with an overarching discussion by a balanced panel of embattled scientists and scholars.
 

Table des matières

Introduction
1
Are About
7
How Science Works in the MassExtinction Debates
39
Conditions
92
Science or Dogma?
121
Or How Research
132
A View from the Trenches
145
Comets in History and Science
152
Chaos Number and
170
Uniformitarianism vs Catastrophism in
217
Fact or Fallacy?
230
Stephen Jay Gould
253
A Panel Discussion on the MassExtinction
268
Endnotes
289
Index
351

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