Element contents
Scientific Knowledge and the Deep Past
History Matters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2019
Summary
Historical sciences like paleontology and archaeology have uncovered unimagined, remarkable and mysterious worlds in the deep past. How should we understand the success of these sciences? What is the relationship between knowledge and history? In Scientific Knowledge and the Deep Past: History Matters, Adrian Currie examines recent paleontological work on the great changes that occurred during the Cretaceous period - the emergence of flowering plants, the splitting of the mega-continent Gondwana, and the eventual fall of the dinosaurs - to analyse the knowledge of historical scientists, and to reflect upon the nature of history. He argues that distinctively historical processes are 'peculiar': they have the capacity to generate their own highly specific dynamics and rules. This peculiarity, Currie argues, also explains the historian's interest in narratives and stories: the contingency, complexity and peculiarity of the past demands a narrative treatment. Overall, Currie argues that history matters for knowledge.
Information
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108582490Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 15 August 2019
Bibliography
Armstrong, D. M. (1983). What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. C. (2016). Archaeology after interpretation. Returning humanity to archaeological theory. Archaeological Dialogues 23(2), 133–7.Google Scholar
Beatty, J. (2017). Narrative possibility and narrative explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 62, 31–41.Google Scholar
Beatty, J. (2016). What are narratives good for? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 58, 33–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beatty, J. (1997). Why do biologists argue like they do? Philosophy of Science 64, S432–43.Google Scholar
Beatty, J. (1994). Theoretical Pluralism in Biology, Including Systematics. In Grande, L. & Rieppel, O. (eds), Interpreting the Hierarchy of Nature: From Systematic Patterns to Evolutionary Process Theories. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp.33–60.Google Scholar
Bell, M. (2015). Experimental archaeology at the crossroads: a contribution to interpretation or evidence of ‘xeroxing’? Chapman, In R. & Wylie, A. (eds), Material Evidence. New York: Routledge, pp. 42–58.Google Scholar
Benton, M. J. (2010). The origins of modern biodiversity on land. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 365(1558), 3667–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Binford, L (1977). General Introduction. In Binford, L (ed.), For Theory Building in Archaeology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bokulich, A. (2018). Using models to correct data: paleodiversity and the fossil record. Synthese, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-018-1820-x#citeasGoogle Scholar
Bonnin, T. (2019). Evidential reasoning in historical sciences: applying Toulmin schemes to the case of Archezoa. Biology & Philosophy 34(30), 1–21.Google Scholar
Camardi, G. (1999). Charles Lyell and the uniformity principle. Biology and Philosophy 14(4), 537–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, H. (2004). Inventing temperature: Measurement and scientific progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, R., & Wylie, A. (2016). Evidential reasoning in archaeology. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Cleland, C.E. (2013). Common cause explanation and the search for a smoking gun. In V. Baker (ed.), 125th Anniversary Volume of the Geological Society of America: Rethinking the Fabric of Geology, Special Paper 502 (2013), pp. 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleland, C. E. (2011). Prediction and explanation in historical natural science. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62, 551–82.Google Scholar
Cleland, C. E. (2002). Methodological and epistemic differences between historical science and experimental science. Philosophy of Science 69 (3), 447–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colyvan, M. (2015). Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics. In E. N. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/mathphil-indis/Google Scholar
Craver, C. F. (2007). Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, A. (forthcoming). Bottled Understanding: the role of lab-work in ecology. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2018a). Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2018b). The argument from surprise. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48(5), 639–61.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2015). Philosophy of Science and the Curse of the Case Study. In The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 553–72.Google Scholar
Currie, A. (2015). Marsupial lions and methodological omnivory: function, success and reconstruction in paleobiology. Biology & Philosophy 30(2), 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, A. M. (2014). Narratives, mechanisms and progress in historical science. Synthese 191(6), 1163–83.Google Scholar
Currie, A. & Killin, A. (2019). From things to thinking: Cognitive archaeology. Mind & Language 34(2), 263-79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, A., & Sterelny, K. (2017). In defence of story-telling. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 62, 14–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Currie, A & Walsh, K. (forthcoming). Frameworks for Historians and Philosophers. HOPOS.Google Scholar
Desjardins, E. (2011). Historicity and experimental evolution. Biology and Philosophy 26: 339–64.Google Scholar
Dilcher, D. Towards a new synthesis: major evolutionary trends in the angiosperm fossil record.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 2000;97:7030–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dupré, J., & Nicholson, D. (2018). A manifesto for a processual philosophy of biology. Everything flows: towards a processual philosophy of biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, K. C. (2012). Epistemic and methodological iteration in scientific research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43(2), 376–82.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, M. (2014). Species, historicity, and path dependency. Philosophy of Science 81(5), 714–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, Hall, (in prep). Why are some kinds historical and others not?Google Scholar
Franklin-Hall, L. R. (2005), Exploratory Experiments. Philosophy of Science 72, 888–99.Google Scholar
Gaines, R. R., Briggs, D. E., & Yuanlong, Z. (2008). Cambrian Burgess Shale–type deposits share a common mode of fossilization. Geology, 36(10), 755-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallie, W. B. (1964). Philosophy and the historical understanding. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Gero, J. M. (2007). Honoring ambiguity/problematizing certitude. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 14(3), 311–27.Google Scholar
Ghosh, P., Bhattacharya, S. K., Sahni, A., Kar, R. K., Mohabey, D. M. & Ambwani, K. (2003). Dinosaur coprolites from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Lameta Formation of India: isotopic and other markers suggesting a C3 plant diet. Cretaceous Research 24, 743–50.Google Scholar
Glennan, S. (2010). Ephemeral mechanisms and historical explanation. Erkenntnis 72(2), 251–66.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2008) Recurrent, Transient Underdetermination and the Glass Half-Full. Philosophical Studies 137, 141–8.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. B., Buchholtz, E. A., & Johnson, R. E. (1998). Cranial anatomy and diagnosis of Stygimoloch spinifer (Ornithischia: Pachycephalosauria) with comments on cranial display structures in agonistic behavior. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 18(2), 363–75.Google Scholar
Gould, S., & Eldredge, N. (1993). Punctuated equilibrium comes of age. Nature 366(6452), 223.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1980). The promise of paleobiology as a nomothetic, evolutionary discipline. Paleobiology 6(1), 96–118.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1965). Is uniformitarianism necessary? American Journal of Science 263(3), 223–8.Google Scholar
Green, R. E., Braun, E. L., Armstrong, J., Earl, D., Nguyen, N., Hickey, G., … & Kern, C. (2014). Three crocodilian genomes reveal ancestral patterns of evolution among archosaurs. Science 346(6215), 1254449.Google Scholar
Grimaldi, D. (1999). The co-radiations of pollinating insects and angiosperms in the Cretaceous. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 86, 373–406.Google Scholar
Guala, F. (2002). Models, Simulations, and Experiments. In Magnani, L. & Nersessian, N. J (eds). Model-based Reasoning: Science, Technology, Values. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 59–74.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening. (Vol. 279). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C (1954). Archeological Theory and Method: Some Suggestions from the Old World. American Anthropologist 56, 155–68.Google Scholar
Hawley, K. & Bird, A. (2011). What are Natural Kinds? Philosophical Perspectives 25, 205–21.Google Scholar
Havstad, J. (2019). Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bee‑mimicking flies and Bambiraptor. Biology & Philosophy 34(25), 1-25.Google Scholar
Hedges, S. B., Parker, P. H., Sibley, C. G. & Kumar, S. (1996). Continental breakup and the ordinal diversification of birds and mammals.Nature 381:226–9.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. (1942). The function of general laws in history. The Journal of Philosophy 39(2), 35–48.Google Scholar
Horner, J. R., & Goodwin, M. B. (2006). Major cranial changes during Triceratops ontogeny. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 273(1602), 2757–61.Google ScholarPubMed
Hull, D. L. (1975). Central subjects and historical narratives. History and Theory 14(3), 253–74.Google Scholar
Inkpen, R., & Turner, D. (2012). The topography of historical contingency. Journal of the Philosophy of History 6(1), 1–19.Google Scholar
Jackson, F., & Pettit, P. (1992). In defense of explanatory ecumenism. Economics & Philosophy 8(1), 1–21.Google Scholar
Jeffares, B. (2008). Testing times: regularities in the historical sciences. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39(4), 469–75.Google Scholar
Jones, E. (2019). Ancient genetics to ancient genomics: celebrity and credibility in data-driven practice. Biology & Philosophy 34(27), 1-35.Google Scholar
Kehew, A. E., & Teller, J. T. (1994). History of late glacial runoff along the southwestern margin of the Laurentide ice sheet. Quaternary Science Reviews 13(9–10), 859–77.Google Scholar
Kosso, P. (2001). Knowing the past: Philosophical issues of history and archaeology. New York: Humanity Books.Google Scholar
Krause, J., Fu, Q., Good, J. M., Viola, B., Shunkov, M. V., Derevianko, A. P., & Pääbo, S. (2010). The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia. Nature 464(7290), 894.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 84–5.Google Scholar
Laudan, L. (1990). Demystifying Underdetermination. In Wade Savage, C (ed.), Scientific Theories, (Series: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 14), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 267–97.Google Scholar
Leakey, R and Lewin, R. (1992) Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Le Bihan, S. (2016). Enlightening Falsehoods: A Model View of Scientific Understanding. In Grimm, S. R, Baumberger, C & Ammon, S (eds), Explaining Understanding: New Perspectives from Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Routledge, pp 111–35.Google Scholar
Leonelli, S. (forthcoming). The Time of Data: Time-Scales of Data Use in the Life Sciences. Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Leonelli, S. (2016). Data-centric biology: a philosophical study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, G. T., Davis, K. E., Pisani, D., Tarver, J. E., Ruta, M., Sakamoto, M., … & Benton, M. J. (2008). Dinosaurs and the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 275(1650), 2483–90.Google Scholar
Lyell, C. (1837). Principles of Geology: Being an Inquiry How Far the Former Changes of The Earth’s Surface are Referable to Causes Now in Operation (Vol. 1). Philadelphia: J. Kay, Jun & Brother.Google Scholar
McConwell, A. (2019). Contingency’s causality and structural diversity. Biology & Philosophy 34(26), 1-26.Google Scholar
McConwell, A. K., & Currie, A. (2017). Gouldian arguments and the sources of contingency. Biology & Philosophy 32(2), 243–61.Google Scholar
Machamer, P. K., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about Mechanisms. Philosophy of Science 67, 1–25.Google Scholar
Maclaurin, J., & Sterelny, K. (2008). What is biodiversity? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, C. R. (2017). Five palaeobiological laws needed to understand the evolution of the living biota. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1(6), 0165.Google Scholar
Mäki, U. (2005), Models are Experiment, Experiments are Models. Journal of Economic Methodology 12(2), 303–15.Google Scholar
Meredith, R. W., Janecka, J. E., Gatesy, J., Ryder, O. A., Fisher, C. A., Teeling, E. C., … & Rabosky, D. L. (2011). Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg extinction on mammal diversification. Science 1211028.Google Scholar
Millstein, R. L. (forthcoming). Types of Experiments and Causal Process Tracing: What Happened on the Kaibab Plateau in the 1920s. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. S., Roopnarine, P. D., & Angielczyk, K. D. (2012). Late Cretaceous restructuring of terrestrial communities facilitated the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(46), 18857–61.Google Scholar
Mink, L. O. (1978). Narrative form as a cognitive instrument. In Mink, L., Canary, R., & Kozicki, H. (eds), The writing of history: Literary form and historical understanding. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 129–49.Google Scholar
Morgan, M (2005). Experiments versus models: New phenomena, inference and surprise. Journal of Economic Methodology 12 (2), 317–29.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N. J. (2007). Thought experimenting as mental modeling: Empiricism without logic. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7(20), 125–54.Google Scholar
Nersessian, N. (1999) Model-based reasoning in conceptual change. In Magani, L., Nersessian, N., & Thagard, P. (eds), Model-based reasoning in scientific discovery. New York: Kluwer/Plenum, pp. 5–22.Google Scholar
Odenbaugh, J. (2006). Message in the bottle: The constraints of experimentation on model building. Philosophy of Science 73(5), 720–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppenheim, P & Putnam, H. (1958). Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis. In Feigl, H., Scriven, M., & Maxwell, G. (eds),Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume II. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3–36Google Scholar
Oreskes, N. (1999). The rejection of continental drift: Theory and method in American earth science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paleobiology Research Group (accessed 23/11/2018). The Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution. http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/macro/supertree/KTR.htmlGoogle Scholar
Parke, E. (2014) Experiments, Simulations, and Epistemic Privilege. Philosophy of Science 81 (4), 516–36.Google Scholar
Peterson, J. E., & Vittore, C. P. (2012). Cranial pathologies in a specimen of Pachycephalosaurus. PloS One 7(4), e36227.Google Scholar
Plutynski, A. (2018). Speciation Post Synthesis: 1960–2000. Journal of the History of Biology, 1–28.Google Scholar
Potochnik, A. (2017). Idealization and the Aims of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Powell, R., & Mariscal, C. (2014). There is grandeur in this view of life: the bio-philosophical implications of convergent evolution. Acta Biotheoretica 62, 115Google Scholar
Roth, P. A. (2017). Essentially narrative explanations. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 62, 42–50.Google Scholar
Roth, P. A. (1988). Narrative explanations: the case of history. History and Theory, 1–13.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M. (1972). The Meaning of Fossils: Essays in the History of Paleontology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M. J. (2014). Earth’s Deep History: How it was Discovered and why it Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Scannella, J. B., Fowler, D. W., Goodwin, M. B., & Horner, J. R. (2014). Evolutionary trends in Triceratops from the Hell Creek Formation, Montana. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201313334.Google Scholar
Scannella, J. B., & Horner, J. R. (2010). Torosaurus Marsh, 1891, is Triceratops Marsh, 1889 (Ceratopsidae: Chasmosaurinae): synonymy through ontogeny. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30(4), 1157–68.Google Scholar
Schott, R. K., Evans, D. C., Goodwin, M. B., Horner, J. R., Brown, C. M., & Longrich, N. R. (2011). Cranial ontogeny in Stegoceras validum (Dinosauria: Pachycephalosauria): a quantitative model of pachycephalosaur dome growth and variation. PLoS One 6(6), e21092.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (1996). Explanatory pluralism in evolutionary biology. Biology and Philosophy 11(2), 193–214.Google Scholar
Sullivan, R. M. (2006). The shape of Mesozoic dinosaur richness: a reassessment. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 35, 403–5.Google Scholar
Sullivan, R. M. (2003). Revision of the dinosaur Stegoceras lambe (Ornithischia, Pachycephalosauridae). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23(1), 181–207.Google Scholar
Tucker, A. (2011). Historical science, over-and underdetermined: A study of Darwin’s inference of origins. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62(4), 805–29.Google Scholar
Turner, D. (2017). Paleobiology’s uneasy relationship with the Darwinian tradition: stasis as data. In Delisle, R. G. (ed.), The Darwinian Tradition in Context. Basel: Springer, pp. 333–52.Google Scholar
Turner, D. (2016). A second look at the colors of the dinosaurs. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 55, 60–8.Google Scholar
Turner, D. (2013). Historical geology: Methodology and metaphysics. Geological Society of America Special Papers 502(2), 11–18.Google Scholar
Turner, D. (2007). Making prehistory: Historical science and the scientific realism debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, D. (2005). Local underdetermination in historical science. Philosophy of Science 72(1), 209–30.Google Scholar
Walsh, K. (forthcoming). Newton’s Scaffolding: the instrumental roles of his optical hypotheses. Vanzo, A and Anstey, P (eds.), Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy, Routledge.Google Scholar
Weisberg, M. (2007). Three kinds of idealization. The Journal of Philosophy 104(12), 639–59.Google Scholar
Wigner, Eugene (1960). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications On Pure and Applied Mathematics vol XIII, 1–14.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (2007). Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings: Piecewise approximations to reality. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. (2011). Critical distance : stabilising evidential claims in archaeology. In Dawid, P., Twining, W. & Vasilaki, M. (eds), Evidence, Inference and Enquiry. OUP/British Academy.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. (1999). Rethinking unity as a “working hypothesis” for philosophy of science: How archaeologists exploit the disunities of science. Perspectives on Science 7(3), 293–317.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. (2017). How archaeological evidence bites back: strategies for putting old data to work in new ways. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 42(2), 203-25.Google Scholar
Wylie, C. D. (2015). ‘The artist’s piece is already in the stone’: Constructing creativity in paleontology laboratories. Social Studies of Science 45(1), 31–55.Google Scholar
Wylie, C. D. (2019). Overcoming the underdetermination of specimens. Biology & Philosophy 34(24), 1-18.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this element is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.
- 42
- Cited by