Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:32:00.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Uranus Observed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. H. Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the difficulties with which scientific endeavour is fraught is that of maintaining detachment. The scientist's interest in his work will lead him to formulate hypotheses and the hypotheses will lead him to expectations about future observations. Is disinterested investigation then possible? Surely the very formulation of a hypothesis engenders a paternal affection and a desire to preserve it. Knowing this, however, the scientist is able to guard against his expectations influencing his observations, defending thus both his objectivity and his honour. But in cases where discriminations are exceptionally difficult to make, then here perhaps, in spite of fore-knowledge of the danger, and in spite of all precautions, an expectation may influence a judgement.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , June 1967 , pp. 275 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Phil. Trans., lxxi (1781), part ii, 498.Google Scholar

2 The author wishes to thank Professor J. B. Thornton for drawing his attention to this interesting anomaly.

3 Ibid., 492.

4 Ibid., 493

5 Ibid., 494

6 Phil. Trans., lxxiii (1783), part i, 11.Google Scholar

7 The oblateness of Jupiter is easily seen through a small telescope. The measure of oblateness is

8 The last two effects described in personal communication from Professor R. H. Day, Monash University.

9 Personal communication J. R. Trotter, Australian National University.

10 Phil. Trans., lxxi (1781), part ii, 495.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 494.

12 Singer, G., Variables in Suggestibility. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney.Google Scholar