The choice of scientific problems

pp. 239-252

in: Joseph Agassi, Science and society, Berlin, Springer, 1981

Abstract

The student accustomed to classical philosophy is bewildered at the contemporary scene, no less the student of classical art and science. What I think helps reorient oneself when bewildered, is to try and see the shift in concern and try to understand it and its roots in the older situation. To take one very small example, classical astronomy was increasingly concerned with increased precision of observation and calculation of planetary orbits. This concern has not vanished but become fairly marginal, and, of course, its purpose has changed with the monumental change of status that Newtonian mechanics has undergone since Einstein appeared on the scene. Nowadays the concern with ages of stars and distribution of objects, whether in galaxies, clusters, or space, becomes of great import, which fact could scarcely make sense to classical astronomers.