History and Philosophy of Science as a Continuation of Science by Other Means

History and philosophy of science can serve the function of investigating scientific questions that are excluded by science itself. Because many things need to be protected from questioning and criticism in specialist science, its demonstrated effectiveness is also unavoidably accompanied by a loss of knowledge and a degree of dogmatism. History and philosophy of science can ameliorate this situation by working as a shadow discipline complementing specialist science in the production of knowledge about nature. In this enterprise the connection between philosophy of science and history of science is essential, since the questions that get consigned to the realm of philosophy are often, and not accidentally, the same ones buried in the historical record of past science. Some examples are given illustrating the complementary mode of history and philosophy of science, and its relations to other modes of study in history of science and philosophy of science are also examined.     

Turning an undergraduate class into a professional research community

I describe here an ongoing pilot project aimed at a full integration of teaching and research at the undergraduate level. Our chief innovation is the mechanism of inheritance: each year students receive a body of work produced by the previous group of students and make improvements and additions to it; this process can be repeated until publishable materials are produced. This is part of a system of learning that enables students to function as a real and evolving community of researchers.     

How Historical Experiments Can Improve Scientific Knowledge and Science Education: The Cases of Boiling Water and Electrochemistry

I advance some novel arguments for the use of historical experiments in science education. After distinguishing three different types of historical experiments and their general purposes, I define complementary experiments, which can recover lost scientific knowledge and extend what has been recovered. Complementary experiments can help science education in four major ways: to enrich the factual basis of science teaching; to improve students?? understanding of the nature of science; to foster habits of original and critical inquiry; and to attract students to science through a renewed sense of wonder. I illustrate these claims with my own recent work in historical experiments, in which I reproduced anomalous variations in the boiling point of water reported 200 years ago, and carried out new experimental and theoretical work arising from the replication of some early electrochemical experiments.     

When water does not boil at the boiling point

Every schoolchild learns that, under standard pressure, pure water always boils at 100 degrees C. Except that it does not. By the late 18th century, pioneering scientists had already discovered great variations in the boiling temperature of water under fixed pressure. So, why have most of us been taught that the boiling point of water is constant? And, if it is not constant, how can it be used as a 'fixed point' for the calibration of thermometers? History of science has the answers.