Science in the Looking Glass

What Do Scientists Really Know?

By E Brian Davies

2003

First Published

4.35

Average Rating

306

Number of Pages

9H20M

Audio Length

In this wide-ranging book, Brian Davies discusses the basis for scientists' claims to knowledge about the world. He looks at science historically, emphasizing not only the achievements of scientists from Galileo onwards, but also their mistakes. He rejects the claim that all scientific knowledge is provisional, by citing examples from chemistry, biology and geology. A major feature of the book is its defense of the view that mathematics was invented rather than discovered. A large number of examples are used to illustrate these points, and many of the deep issues in today's world discussed-from psychology and evolution to quantum theory, consciousness and even religious belief. Disentangling knowledge from opinion and aspiration is a hard task, but this book provided a clear guide to the difficulties.

Avg Rating

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Author

E Brian Davies

Author · 4 books

E. Brian Davies was awarded a first class degree in Mathematics at the University of Oxford in 1965 and a D Phil., also at Oxford, in 1968, when he was also awarded the Senior Mathematical Prize. After two years in the USA, at Princeton and MIT, he took up a permanent position as a Tutorial Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford. From 1973 he was a University Lecturer at the University of Oxford. In 1981 Davies was appointed as Professor of Mathematics at King's College, London, where he remained until his official retirement in 2010. He was Head of Department between 1990 and 1993. He was the founding Editor of the London Mathematical Society Student Texts between 1983 and 1990, and the founding Editor of the Journal of Spectral Theory, published by the European Mathematical Society, from 2010. In March 1995 Davies was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in recognition of his seminal work in spectral theory and particularly on the heat kernels of diffusion equations, of great relevance in quantum theory and other fields. In June 1996 he was elected a Fellow of King's College, London. In June 1998 he was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society. He was President of the London Mathematical Society in 2008 and 2009. As well as over two hundred research papers, Davies has published five monographs and two popular books on the philosophy of mathematics and science.