[Irtalk] Philip Ball - Science fictions

[Hilton Gibson]

At a time when science is genuinely under threat from religiously,
politically and ideologically motivated antagonists, in climate science,
evolutionary theory and embryo and stem cell research, this wish to enlist
history in the good fight is understandable. But the fact is, as Richard
Westfall implies, by remaking history according to our own presentist
convictions we actually risk sabotaging our aims. We can no longer see the
present so clearly if we keep comparing it to a romanticised past. *And one
can hardly claim to be a champion of evidence-based reason while
demonstrating such indifference to the evidence of history.*

http://aeon.co/magazine/science/philip-ball-history-science/
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