SYMPOSIUM
Beyond the Twilight of Reason:
Rethinking the Western Tradition
Introduction
Following are some of the proceedings of a conference held at Adel–
phi University on March 7 and 8, 1996. For a variety of reasons, we
could not publish it in its entirety. The sessions on the impact of science
and on the future of computers unfortunately are missing. But we
thought that the following comments made on a paper by the distin–
guished biophysicist, E.
o.
Wilson, would nevertheless be of interest to
our readers. The moderator was Karen Burke, a distinguished physician,
philosopher, and member ofAdelphi University's Board of Trustees.
Part One. Scientific Method and the Two CuHures
Karen Burke:
Professor
I.
Bernard Cohen, the Victor Thomas Professor
Emeritus of the History of Science at Harvard University, will comment
on the crucial role technology has played in the advances made by the
SCIences.
I.
Bernard
Cohen
The Role of Technology in the Advance
of Science
Discussions of what is called scientific method and even accounts of how
scientists do their work tend to concentrate on common features of the
vast enterprise of science. In presenting the qualities of science and its
methods of finding and verifying new truths, almost all writers concen–
trate on gross similarities among all the sciences. This has been the
primary feature of every such endeavor from the earliest days of the sci–
entific revolution in the seventeenth century to the present. Such a
delineation of science and its methods was, as a matter of fact, a feature of
the writings of every major scientist of that noble century that produced
