Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Experiments Before Science. What Science Learned from Technological Experiments

  • Chapter
The Role of Technology in Science: Philosophical Perspectives

Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology ((POET,volume 18))

Abstract

Systematic experimentation is usually conceived as a practice that began with science, but this assumption does not seem to be correct. Historical evidence gives us strong reasons to believe that the first experiments were not scientific, but instead directly action-guiding technological experiments. Such experiments still have a major role for instance in technology and agriculture and (in the form of clinical trials) in medicine. The historical background of such experiments is tracked down, and their philosophical significance is discussed. Directly action-guiding experiments have a strong and immediate justification and are much less theory-dependent than other (scientific) experiments. However, the safeguards needed to avoid mistakes in the execution and interpretation of experiments are essentially the same for the two types of experiments. Several of these safeguards are parts of the heritage from technological experiments that science has taken over.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For instance in Prioreschi (1994, 145). For a criticism of this usage in current so-called experimental philosophy, see Hansson (2014).

  2. 2.

    More precisely: type of interpretations of experiments.

  3. 3.

    For additional references showing that farmers’ experiments are indeed widespread, see Johnson (1972). On the need to take farmers’ investigative capacities into account in development projects, see Biggs (1980).

  4. 4.

    A few long-term experiments have been performed in modern science. One of the most famous, and possibly the longest running epistemic experiment, is the pitch drop experiment set up in 1927 at the University of Queensland, Australia that is still running. Its purpose is to show that although pitch appears to be a solid it is a high-viscosity fluid. The experiment consists in lettings drops form and fall from a piece of pitch inside a glass container. The eighth drop fell in 2000 and the ninth in 2014. See http://www.smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment and Edgeworth et al. (1984).

  5. 5.

    This insight seems to have been missing in another text from the same century. Su Song wrote: “In order to evaluate the efficacy of ginseng, find two people and let one eat ginseng and run, the other run without ginseng. The one that did not eat ginseng will develop shortness of breath earlier” (Claridge and Fabian 2005, 548).

  6. 6.

    Or to be precise: the interpretations of these experiments.

  7. 7.

    An interesting historical criticism of experimental methodology can be found in Thomas Hobbes (Shapin 1985, 1996, 110–111).

  8. 8.

    Mill adds a second justification, namely that “[w]hen we can produce a phenomenon artificially, we can take it, as it were, home with us, and observe it in the midst of circumstances with which in all other respects we are accurately acquainted.” We can for instance produce in the laboratory, “in the midst of known circumstances, the phenomena which nature exhibits on a grander scale in the form of lightning and thunder”. (382) This is also a very modest defence of experimentation, since it only applies to the phenomena that do not occur spontaneously under the type of circumstances that we are well acquainted with but can nevertheless be transferred to such circumstances.

  9. 9.

    \(\ldots\) les mouvements d’une horloge, ou autre automate, de celle de ses contrepoids et de ses roués (Descartes [1632] 1987, 873).

  10. 10.

    Book of Daniel 1:15, King James Version.

  11. 11.

    The earliest example I am aware of was reported from China in the third century CE. A woman was accused of having murdered her husband and thereafter burning down the house with his body. She claimed that he had burned to death in a fire. The magistrate ordered one dead and one living pig to be burned in a shed. The pig burned alive had a lot of ashes in its mouth whereas the pig previously killed had none. Since the dead man had no ashes in his mouth this was taken as evidence that he had not been burned alive (Lu and Needham 1988).

  12. 12.

    It is commonly claimed that the Danish physician Johannes Fibiger (1867–1928) used it in a trial of diphtheria treatment in 1898. However, in that study yet another, more uncommon method was used: Patients admitted on days 1, 3, 5 etc. of the trial were assigned to one group and those admitted on days 2, 4, 6 etc. to the other (Fibiger 1898; Hróbjartsson et al. 1998).

References

  • Alcorn, J. B., & Toledo, V. M. (1998). Resilient resource management in Mexico’s forest ecosystems: The contribution of property rights. In F. Berkes, & C. Folke (Eds.), Linking social and ecological systems. Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience (pp. 216–249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armitage, P. (1982). The role of randomisation in clinical trials. Statistics in Medicine, 1, 345–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacon, F. ([1605] 1869). In W. A. Wright (Ed.), The advancement of learning [Of the proficience and advancement of learning, divine and human]. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkes, F., Johan C., & Folke, C. (2000). Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological Applications, 10, 1251–1262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biggs, S. D. (1980). Informal R&D. Ceres, 13(4), 23–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bray, W. (2000). Ancient food for thought. Nature, 408(9), 145–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers, I. (2001). Comparing like with like: Some historical milestones in the evolution of methods to create unbiased comparison groups in therapeutic experiments. International Journal of Epidemiology, 30(5), 1156–1164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chandler, P. M. (1991). The indigenous knowledge of ecological processes among peasants in the People’s Republic of China. Agriculture and Human Values, 8, 59–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Claridge, J. A., & Fabian, T. C. (2005). History and development of evidence-based medicine. World Journal of Surgery, 29, 547–553.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collier, R. (2009). Legumes, lemons and streptomycin: A short history of the clinical trial. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 180(1), 23–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. (2011). Trial by accident: Tort law, industrial risks and the history of medical experiment. Journal of Cultural Economy, 4(1), 81–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coover, J. E., & Angell, F. (1907). General practice effect of special exercise. American Journal of Psychology, 18, 328–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dehue, T. (2005). History of the Control Group. In B. S. Everitt & D. C. Howell (Eds.), Encyclopedia of statistics in behavioral science (pp. 2:829–836). Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeLaine, J. (1990). Structural experimentation: The lintel arch, corbel and tie in western Roman architecture. World Archaeology, 21(3), 407–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Descartes, R. ([1632] 1987). Traité de l’Homme. In René Descartes, Oeuvres et lettres. Textes présentés par André Bridoux. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietl, J. (1849). Der Aderlass in der Lungenentzündung. Wien: Kaulfuss Witwe, Prandel & Comp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doll, R. (1998). Controlled trials: The 1948 watershed. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 317(7167), 1217–1220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doyon-Bernard, S. J. (1990). From twining to triple cloth: Experimentation and innovation in ancient Peruvian weaving (ca. 5000–400 BC). American Antiquity, 55, 68–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drake, S. (1981). Cause, experiment, and science: A Galilean dialogue, incorporating a new English translation of Galileo’s Bodies that stay atop water, or move in it. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earls, J. (1998). The character of Inca and Andean agriculture. Essay available at http://macareo.pucp.edu.pe/~jearls/documentosPDF/theCharacter.PDF.

  • Eastwood, B. S. (1968). Mediaeval empiricism: The case of Grosseteste’s optics. Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 43, 306–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edgeworth, R., Dalton, B. J., & Parnell, T. (1984). The pitch drop experiment. European Journal of Physics, 5, 198–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fétis, F.-J. (1868). Biographie Universelle des Musiciens et Bibliographie Générale de la Musique, Tome 1 (2nd ed.). Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, Fils, et Cie.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fibiger, J. (1898). Om Serumbehandling af Difteri. Hospitalstidende, 6(12), 309–325; 6(13), 337–350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, B. D., & Gallo, M. A. (2001). Paré’s law: The second law of toxicology. Toxicological Sciences, 60, 194–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (1968). Erkenntnis und Interesse. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkampf Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (1978). Knowledge and Human Interests (J. J. Shapiro (Trans.), 2nd ed.). London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansson, S. O. (2014). Beyond experimental philosophy. Theoria, 80, 1–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, J., McLoughlin, S. D., & McPhail, D. S. (2004). Radical changes in Islamic glass technology: Evidence for conservatism and experimentation with new glass recipes from early and middle Islamic Raqqa, Syria. Archaeometry, 46(3), 439–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, J., Challis, K., O Hara, S., McLoughlin, S., Gardner, A., & Priestnall, G. (2005). Experiment and innovation: Early Islamic industry at al-Raqqa, Syria. Antiquity, 79(303), 130–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herschel, W. (1831). A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy, part of Dionysius Lardner (Cabinet cyclopaedia). Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, R. (2008). The age of wonder: How the romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science. London: Harper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hróbjartsson, A., Gøtzsche, P. C., & Gluud, C. (1998). The controlled clinical trial turns 100 years: Fibiger’s trial of serum treatment of diphtheria. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 317(7167), 1243–1245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jevons, W. S. (1920). The principles of science: A treatise on logic and scientific method. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, A. W. (1972). Individuality and experimentation in traditional agriculture. Human Ecology, 1(2), 149–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaptchuk, T. J. (1998). Intentional ignorance: A history of blind assessment and placebo controls in medicine. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 72(3), 389–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, U. (1996). Experiment, Spiritus und okkulte Qualitäten in der Philosophie Francis Bacons. Philosophia Naturalis, 33(2), 289–315.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, U. (2005). Experiments at the intersection of experimental history, technological inquiry, and conceptually driven analysis: A case study from early nineteenth-century France. Perspectives on Science, 13, 1–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kucharz, E. (1981). The life and achievements of Joseph Dietl. Clio Medica. Acta Academiae Internationalis Historiae Medicinae Amsterdam, 16(1), 25–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lelas, S. (1993). Science as technology. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44(3), 423–442.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, C.-A. (1993). Franklin and Mesmer: an encounter. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 66(4), 325–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu, G.-D., & Needham, J. (1988). A history of forensic medicine in China. Medical History, 32(4), 357–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malina, J. (1983). Archaeology and experiment. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 16(2), 69–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mark, R. (1972). The structural analysis of Gothic cathedrals. Scientific American, 227(5), 90–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mark, R. (1978). Structural experimentation in Gothic architecture: Large-scale experimentation brought Gothic cathedrals to a level of technical elegance unsurpassed until the last century. American Scientist, 66(5), 542–550.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, G. et al. (1948). Streptomycin treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. A medical research council investigation. British Medical Journal, 2(4582), 769–782.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McEvoy, J. (1982). The philosophy of Robert Grosseteste. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinnis, J. (2003). Scientific methodologies in Medieval Islam. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 41, 307–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mill, J. S. ([1843] 1974). A system of logic ratiocinative and inductive. In J. M. Robson (Ed.), Collected works of John Stuart Mill (Vol. VII). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moropoulou, A., Bakolas, A., & Anagnostopoulou, S. (2005). Composite materials in ancient structures. Cement & Concrete Composites, 27, 295–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pesic, P. (1999). Wrestling with Proteus: Francis Bacon and the ‘Torture’ of Nature. Isis, 90, 81–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Price, H. (1992). Agency and causal asymmetry. Mind, 101, 501–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prioreschi, P. (1994). Experimentation and scientific method in the classical world: Their rise and decline. Medical Hypotheses, 42(34), 135–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quatremère de Quincy, A. C. (1817). Institut de France. Le Monietur Universel (22 Aug 1817, Vol. 234, p. 924).

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, P. (1986). Coping with Hunger. Hazard and experiment in an African rice-farming system. London: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, P. (1989). Farmers also experiment: A neglected intellectual resource in African science. Discovery and Innovation, 1, 19–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robison, W. (2008). Hume and the experimental method of reasoning. Southwest Philosophy Review, 10(1), 29–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russell, B. (1913). On the notion of a cause. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 13, 1–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Schlippe, P. (1956). Shifting cultivation in Africa. The Zande system of agriculture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schramm, M. (1963). Ibn al-Haythams Weg zur Physik. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapin, S. (1985). Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapin, S. (1996). The scientific revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Snively, G., & Corsiglia, J. (2000). Discovering indigenous science: Implications for science education. Science Education, 85, 6–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stolberg, M. (2006). Inventing the randomized double-blind trial: The Nuremberg salt test of 1835. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99, 642–643.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sutton, G. (1981). Electric medicine and mesmerism. Isis, 72(3), 375–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiles, J. E. (1993). Experiment as intervention. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44(3), 463–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winston, A. S., & Blais, D. J. (1996). What counts as an experiment?: A trans-disciplinary analysis of textbooks, 1930–1970. American Journal of Psychology, 109, 599–616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe, M., & Mark, R. (1974). Gothic cathedral buttressing: The experiment at Bourges and its influence. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 33(1), 17–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zagorin, P. (1998). Francis Bacon. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zilsel, E. (1941). The origin of William Gilbert’s scientific method. Journal of the History of Ideas, 2, 1–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zilsel, E. (1942). The sociological roots of science. American Journal of Sociology, 47, 544–562.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zilsel, E. (2000). The social origins of modern science (D. Raven, W. Krohn, & R. S. Cohen (Eds.), Boston studies in the philosophy of science, Vol. 200). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zusne, L., & Jones, W. H. (1982). Anomalistic psychology. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Brinellvägen 32, 10044, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sven Ove Hansson

Authors
  1. Sven Ove Hansson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Ove Hansson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden

    Sven Ove Hansson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hansson, S.O. (2015). Experiments Before Science. What Science Learned from Technological Experiments. In: Hansson, S. (eds) The Role of Technology in Science: Philosophical Perspectives. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9762-7_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation