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Thagard ... presents a detailed structure for the scientific understanding of disease... [A] valuable work... Recommended. Library Journal This book is remarkable for its clarity and its lack of doctrine. At each stage, Thagard outlines in plain terms precisely what he is trying to explain, and illustrates his explanation ... It is precisely this even-handed and commonsense approach that allows him to give an accurate portrayal of what scientific advance is like. If this is what philosophers can do for science and medicine, we need more help from them. -- Charles Bangham The Times Higher Education Supplement An engaging look at contemporary medical science. -- K. Codell Carter Journal of the History of Medicine For anyone who has practised medicine long enough to wonder how and why some theories become fashionable and others fail to thrive, this book will make an interesting read. Paul Thagard finds both the traditional view of science as logic and the postmodern view of science as power inadequate for understanding how science develops. -- Julia Lowe British Medical Journal This clear and easy to read book is suitable for the general public and students, as well as professional philosophers of science... The general reader will appreciate introductions to the logical, cognitive, and sociological approaches to the study of science... Useful summaries at the end of each chapter allow a quick read of main points. -- Lindley Darden Philosophy of Science

Thagard ... presents a detailed structure for the scientific understanding of disease... [A] valuable work... Recommended. -- Library Journal This book is remarkable for its clarity and its lack of doctrine. At each stage, Thagard outlines in plain terms precisely what he is trying to explain, and illustrates his explanation ... It is precisely this even-handed and commonsense approach that allows him to give an accurate portrayal of what scientific advance is like. If this is what philosophers can do for science and medicine, we need more help from them. -- Charles Bangham, The Times Higher Education Supplement An engaging look at contemporary medical science. -- K. Codell Carter, Journal of the History of Medicine For anyone who has practised medicine long enough to wonder how and why some theories become fashionable and others fail to thrive, this book will make an interesting read. Paul Thagard finds both the traditional view of science as logic and the postmodern view of science as power inadequate for understanding how science develops. -- Julia Lowe, British Medical Journal This clear and easy to read book is suitable for the general public and students, as well as professional philosophers of science... The general reader will appreciate introductions to the logical, cognitive, and sociological approaches to the study of science... Useful summaries at the end of each chapter allow a quick read of main points. -- Lindley Darden, Philosophy of Science

Thagard ... presents a detailed structure for the scientific understanding of disease... [A] valuable work... Recommended. Library Journal This book is remarkable for its clarity and its lack of doctrine. At each stage, Thagard outlines in plain terms precisely what he is trying to explain, and illustrates his explanation ... It is precisely this even-handed and commonsense approach that allows him to give an accurate portrayal of what scientific advance is like. If this is what philosophers can do for science and medicine, we need more help from them. -- Charles Bangham The Times Higher Education Supplement An engaging look at contemporary medical science. -- K. Codell Carter Journal of the History of Medicine For anyone who has practised medicine long enough to wonder how and why some theories become fashionable and others fail to thrive, this book will make an interesting read. Paul Thagard finds both the traditional view of science as logic and the postmodern view of science as power inadequate for understanding how science develops. -- Julia Lowe British Medical Journal This clear and easy to read book is suitable for the general public and students, as well as professional philosophers of science... The general reader will appreciate introductions to the logical, cognitive, and sociological approaches to the study of science... Useful summaries at the end of each chapter allow a quick read of main points. -- Lindley Darden Philosophy of Science

A laborious examination of the evolution of the bacterial theory of peptic ulcers, pointing more generally to how scientific theories evolve. Thagard (Philosophy/Univ. Of Waterloo, Canada) begins by arguing against a traditional view of scientists as individuals conducting objective experiments with no presupposed outcome. The postmodern view of scientists trying to prove a hypothesis that will be most beneficial to them ( largely a matter of politics ) is similarly too simplistic. Thagard interlaces general arguments about the nature of scientists and scientific research with specific details of several scientific theories, such as headline-provoking conditions like mad cow disease and chronic fatigue syndrome. In the meat of the book, the author discusses diseases such as scurvy and his benchmark case, the bacterial theory of ulcers. The history of this theory is elaborated in some detail - we learn, among other things, that one of the reseachers swallowed a live culture of the bacteria to prove his point. Thagard's general discussions of scientific research schemas include many flow-chart-like diagrams that demonstrate possible cause-and-effect relationships, such as how social and psychological explanations of science relate to the science itself. The book tries too hard to explain itself, plodding through each theory step by step, even giving some arguments in outline form. This poor writing tends to obfuscate matters rather than simplify them. Thagard's treatment of complex equations showing causal probabilities, for example, concludes with the obtuse statement that causal reasoning requires the abductive inference that a factor has the power to produce an effect. Once deciphered, this is hardly a profound point. At its best, an engaging description of mysterious diseases past and present, but the book gets bogged down in flow charts, outlines, and equations that will leave the casual reader more frustrated than enlightened. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Paul Thagard is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of Waterloo (Canada). His previous books include Conceptual Revolutions (Princeton) and Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science (MIT Press).

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