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coyote-1 t1_iur0sea wrote

Reply to comment by David_the_Wanderer in Does Science Need History? A Conversation with Lorraine Daston by Maxwellsdemon17

Imagine 20,000 years from now. Humanity has wiped most of itself off the map in a nuclear/biological Holocaust. But a few stragglers, a remote unknown tribe on some remote island remain, essentially untouched. They begin to repopulate the planet. They carry with them only the beliefs of their forefathers.

A few of them get inquisitive. They notice something in the stars, and begin to think on it.

Absent any prior known history of astronomy, they just might end up deducing that the sun does not travel round the earth, but that it is the other way around. They need know nothing of Kepler or Copernicus et al in order to reconstruct the current map of the Universe exactly as it exists today.

Having the history available prevents us from having to re-do all the work all the time, and that’s good. But in addressing the title question: no, science does not need history.

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David_the_Wanderer t1_iur9pmo wrote

Have you read a single word I wrote?

>Absent any prior known history of astronomy, they just might end up deducing that the sun does not travel round the earth, but that it is the other way around.

Knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun isn't history of astronomy - it's just astronomy.

Knowing who and how demonstrated this, and the reactions to such a discovery as well as its effects, is History of Astronomy. Learning from those events is important because it's much more than simple and pedantic sciolism, it means gaining a deeper understanding of social phenomena surrounding science and why our current perception of science is what it is (and thus also be able to challenge it), which is an incredibly useful tool for a scientist, especially when engaging with the public.

>Having the history available prevents us from having to re-do all the work all the time, and that’s good. But in addressing the title question: no, science does not need history.

If you do not understand the difference between science and history of science, how can you make a call on how the latter affects the former?

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