A Scientist's Voice in American Culture: Simon Newcomb and the Rhetoric of Scientific MethodIn late nineteenth-century America, Simon Newcomb was the nation's most celebrated scientist and—irascibly, doggedly, tirelessly—he made the most of it. Officially a mathematical astronomer heading a government agency, Newcomb spent as much of his life out of the observatory as in it, acting as a spokesman for the nascent but restive scientific community of his time. Newcomb saw the "scientific method" as a potential guide for all disciplines and a basis for all practical action, and argued passionately that it was of as much use in the halls of Congress as in the laboratory. In so doing, he not only sparked popular support for American science but also confronted a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and intellectual issues. This first full-length study of Newcomb traces the development of his faith in science and ranges over topics of great public debate in the Gilded Age, from the reform of economic theory to the recasting of the debate between science and religion. Moyer's portrait of a restless, eager mind also illuminates the bustle of late nineteenth-century America. |
Contents
Interactions with Wright and Peirce | 4 |
The Rhetorical Aspects of Scientific Method | 6 |
NEWwcombs liFE AND THOUGHT | 19 |
Influences of Comte Darwin and Mill | 36 |
Social Progress | 41 |
American Science Scientific Method | 82 |
Social Progress and the Scientific Use | 90 |
Old versus the | 98 |
Challenging | 166 |
Later Years | 183 |
Newcomb and American Pragmatism | 205 |
Pragmatism and Methodological Rhetoric | 224 |
Notes | 239 |
369 | 263 |
41 | 273 |
Select Bibliography | 279 |
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