The Challenges for Science.

Education for the Twenty-First Century

Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 104, Vatican City 2002
www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv104/sv104-maldame.pdf

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION

JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

What we call ‘scientific knowledge’ has two distinct facets. In the first
place, the term ‘science’ refers to a collection of known facts which taken
together give mankind a great power over nature. This is the side of sci-
ence which is at once most visible and best-known. It allows us to carry
out a vast range of projects, and it is thus part of the foundation of the
modern global economy. Science in this sense has a place at the heart of
our civilisation, a place which it will without doubt retain in the century
which is before us.
The second aspect of science is something less well-known to politicians
and to the public at large, but of great importance in the formation of sci-
entists, namely, the scientific method. The scientific method is what allows
science to develop successfully and to be put to practical use. Thus it is not
enough for trainee scientists to gain a knowledge of what has already been
scientifically established; they have above all to gain an understanding of
the methods which will permit them to establish new truths and to envis-
age new technological applications of what they already know. This means
developing a certain mentality, which we can call the scientific mind. A per-
son with a scientific mind will know how to make the most of his rational
gifts, yet at the same time be able to evaluate critically the use which he
does in fact make of them.
This is the background to the remarks I shall be making about intel-
lectual formation. There is one point in particular which needs to be
stressed, namely the place which history must have in the teaching of
science. The history of science is a branch of history which should not
be neglected.
238 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

1. WHAT IS THE ‘HISTORY OF SCIENCE’? 1

1. The study of the history of science developed very significantly dur-

ing the 20th Century. The work that has been done in this area allows us to
determine more precisely what we mean by the history of science, and what
ground this discipline covers. It is in practice the history of the natural sci-
ences plus the history of mathematics. It is only rarely that the human sci-
ences come into consideration in this connection. Some people would give
the term ‘history of science’ a stricter sense, and mean by it just the history
of the natural sciences. Nevertheless, the human sciences and mathematics
share a common method with the natural sciences inasmuch as they are
also rational acticivities.
The history of science as it has developed in the 20th century has two
principal concerns. The first is to understand the way in which scientific
knowledge progresses. The second is to understand the notion of science
itself, which involves the questions of what methods are truly scientific and
what kind of knowledge science actually offers us.
The studies that have been carried out in this field show how hard it is
to separate the history of science from other branches of history. For exam-
ple, medicine is at once a science, a technique and an art, and its history is
bound up with the development of many different sciences.
2. The history of science obviously includes many different facts about
things which happened at various times in the past. Yet simply compiling a
list of such facts does not suffice for genuine history. For this, it is necessary
to bring out the relationships between facts, indicating where there is conti-
nuity and where there is a break with the past. The history of science has thus
to take into consideration the process by which science comes into being,
that’s to say, the various stages of its development. It’s sometimes necessary
in this connection to take into account the personalities of scientists them-
selves, in order to understand how they came to their various conclusions.
Not only must the history of science talk about ‘facts’, it must also talk
about ‘results’, or about the diffusion within the wider scientific communi-
ty of a particular piece of research. What happens here is that something
which was the property of one individual becomes a sort of ‘common good’,
and in the process gains a certain ‘objectivity’. As soon as a result is pub-
lished, it no longer belongs exclusively to the man who discovered it: it is
now in the public domain.

1
Cfr. François Russo, Nature et méthode de l’histoire des sciences, Paris, 1983.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION 239

What does this imply? It implies that other people may now find a sig-
nificance of their own in what was discovered. They can adopt a given
result for their own purposes and put it to uses which were not those of the
original researchers.
3. This gives rise to a third consideration, namely the way in which the
very notion of science changes as its methods evolve. What precisely is the
sort of knowledge at which scientists are aiming?
Studying the history of science makes us see a dimension of intellectu-
al work which is sometimes neglected, namely the cultural and spiritual
context in which work is done. What appears to be insignificant at one
moment can be of great importance later on. Thus Darwin would certainly
have known about the work done by Mendel, but he didn’t take it into
account. Mendel’s work didn’t answer the questions which Darwin was
actually asking, as their approaches to their subject were so different.

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE

One of the benefits of studying the history of science is that it helps to

free us from a naïvely ‘progressive’ understanding of science. According to
this view, science is supposed slowly but surely to have gained possession
of the whole field of human knowledge; everything solid or well-founded in
human knowledge is supposed to have come about thanks to the scientific
method. In fact, history shows us that the development or progress of sci-
ence is far from being a peaceful or uninterrupted affair. It is on the con-
trary an adventure, a human enterprise which is subject to the same vicis-
situdes as any other human endeavour.

2.1. The Development of science: a fitful affair

If the development of science were perfectly regular and harmonious,

it would be a continual advance in which every result allowed one to pro-
ceed still further in the same direction. In reality, we find on closer inspec-
tion that science necessarily implies breaks with the past. This is what
gives rise to the expression ‘scientific revolutions’, though the phrase is
perhaps overly strong. Furthermore there is sometimes a long gap between
the moment when a new discovery is made public and the moment when
it is actually taken into serious consideration. For example, Saccheri pub-
lished his work on non-Euclidean geometry at the beginning of the 18th
240 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

century, but it wasn’t looked at seriously for another hundred years. His
work was easily available and yet it simply failed to generate any interest.
Another aspect of the fitfulness of scientific progress is that some peri-
ods seem much richer than others. During certain periods there is a great
creativity about scientifc research; at other times science seems as it were
to be in hiding. For example, in the first few years of the 20th century, we
find Planck’s work on quanta in 1900, and in 1905 the three principal the-
ses of Einstein, namely those on Brownian motion, special relativity and
photons. Likewise, between 1925 and 1930 we find the development of
quantum mechanics, whilst in 1932 some very successful investigations are
made into the nature of matter, with the discoveries of the disintegration of
matter and of the neutron. What is is that makes one short space of time so
extraordinarily rich? It is hard to say. Sometimes, of course, it can be the
opposite which happens. In the Middle Ages, for example, there was not a
great deal of scientific discovery: that was to come in with the 17th centu-
ry, during which the foundations of modern science were laid.
Again, not all disciplines advance at the same rate. Biology, for exam-
ple, developed much more slowly than physics, and even within a given dis-
cipline, the various parts do not always progress at the same pace.
A final point: the progress of science is also fitful in a geographical sense.
We find that certain great centres of science – Athens, Alexandria, Bagdad,
Seville, Oxford, Paris, Padua etc – flourish for a while and then decline.

2.2. The search for greater precision

Scientific discoveries, when they are first made, are not always so clear-
cut and precise as they may appear to be later when they have found their
place in a well-defined system. This causes problems for the historian of
science. In the initial stages, ideas are often vague and ill-defined, and per-
haps ambiguous, both in the mind of the scientist and in the experimental
application which he makes of them. Yet it is precisely these ideas which
turn out in the end to have been fruitful. Even when they are made more
precise later on, we shouldn’t forget what a rich significance they had orig-
inally, as it was precisely this that led scientists to interest themselves in
them and to benefit greatly as a result.
Now scientific precision is acheived only gradually and often clumsily.
The history of science shows us many a strange mixture of truth and error.
True and false ideas are found together not only in the same science and in
the investigation of a given question, but even sometimes in one and the
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION 241

same scientist. The founders of modern science themselves, men such as

Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz, were not immune from
this law. The erroneous views which they all held on various matters didn’t
stop them from greatly furthering scientific knowledge: but their erroneous
views had eventually to be criticised. Thus Newton, for example, sought to
give a scientific account of the stability of the solar system, but at the same
time put forward a whole host of speculations about divine activity at par-
ticular points in the world. It was not until the end of the 18th century that
Laplace was able to give a fully satisfactory account of the planetary move-
ments. Obsolete ideas can sometimes get in the way of scientific progress –
witness Galileo’s attachment to the idea of circular motion or Sadi Carnot’s
belief that calories were a certain kind of liquid.

2.3. Conflicts of approach

The history of science also shows us that one and the same question can
be approached in quite different ways by different scientists, though this
doesn’t necessarily stop them arriving at the same conclusions. The best
example of this is perhaps that of quantum mechanics. The formalism
worked out by Louis de Broglie was quite different from the one worked
out by Werner Heisenberg, but both of them give the same results. Planck
and Einstein, likewise, approached the question of the quantum from very
different perspectives.
Sometimes this varierty of approach causes conflict. One thinks of the
battles between geocentrism and heliocentrism, or again between the fol-
lowers of Descartes and the followers of Newton. Later on there were the
battles between evolutionists and those who maintained the stability of
species, and later still between the realist view of science and the conven-
tionalist view. This raises the question of how a theory is to be proved.
We find in the development of science two opposing forces. On the
one hand there is the urge to gain a fuller understaning of one’s subject.
On the other hand there is always a certain resistance to what is new. This
resistance to change no doubt arises from the scientist’s own attachment
to certain opinions. He is used to thinking in a given way, and it is diffi-
cult for him to change. Gaston Bachelard describes this as the ‘epistemo-
logical obstacle’.
What can we conclude from these brief remarks on the development
of science? The historical study of science enables us to recognise the lim-
its of scientific work. In particular it shows how science is simply one
242 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

human activity among others: like all human activities, it is exposed to

chances of every kind.
All this leads us to ask more fundamental questions about the nature of
science itself. What makes something ‘scientific’? What precisely do we
mean by a rigorous ‘scientific method’?

3. WHAT IS SCIENCE?

Scientists sometimes give the impression that there is no difficulty

about knowing whether or not a certain piece of research is really scientif-
ic. It might seem that everyone was agreed about what the relevant criteria
are. After all, without some idea of these criteria, we wouln’t be able to talk
about science. Yet in fact our notion of science need to be rendered clear.
As long as it remains ambiguous, it inevitably gives rise to misunderstand-
ings and even to polemic, as happened recently with regard to ‘water-mem-
ory’, or during the Sokal affair.
Why does it sometimes prove difficult to agree on what counts as sci-
ence? It is doubtless because science is made up of a variety of elements,
and, as the history of science reveals, the importance accorded to these
various elements has changed over the years. This also helps us to under-
stand the difficulties which science is currently experiencing in certain
countries: the very notion of ‘science’ is not understood in the same way
in every culture.
A last point: the criteria which render something scientific vary accord-
ing to the various branches of science.

3.1. Science and pseudo-science

Scientists today are sometimes confronted by what they consider to be

pseudo-science. In France last year, this led to a very interesting argument
at a certain university. A student who was known for her astrological pub-
lications submitted a doctoral thesis in sociology in which she described
these publications as scientific. Scientists and other academics protested
vigorously, considering astrology to be no more than a pseudo-science.
In fact, things like astrology have a complicated relationship with sci-
ence. Sometimes they may be examples of a pre-scientific sort of knowl-
edge which can in fact serve as a basis for science itself. It was in this way
that alchemy was related to chemistry or ancient astrology to astronomy.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION 243

But they can also be the result of a hi-jacking of science, as is the case with
certain religious sects which claim the title of science for what they prac-
tise in their healing-sessions or for their vision of the universe. The study of
history enables us to make an impartial judgement of these matters and
helps us to establish sure criteria of what counts as science.

3.2. The basic criteria of science

There are a certain number of criteria about what counts as a truly sci-
entific approach to the world on which the whole scientific community is
agreed.
1. Objectivity. All scientific work pre-supposes a separation between the
scientist and his work. Objectivity is guaranteed by the fact that independ-
ent observers can obtain the same result; observations must be repeatable.
2. Precision. Observations must be precise, as must the words in which
they are described, whether it is hypotheses, concepts, laws or theories
which are in question.
3. Attention to detail. In his analysis of the facts, the scientist must
endeavour not to overlook any aspect of what he observes.
4. Universality. Science does not seek just to ascertain individual facts,
but also to draw from them generally-applicable laws. This requires an
abstract language capable of expressing the ‘models’ which scientists use to
explain their observations.
5. Refusal of occult explanations. The scientific mind does not explain its
observations by recourse to occult causes, for example magic, or agents
which lie outside the natural world, such as spirits, genies, or demons. This
attitude implies a certain detachment from the world of religion, though it
fits well with the acknowledgement of a unique, transcendent God who is
not a part of the universe.
6. Consistency. A given explanation must be susceptible of incorpora-
tion into a more general theory. There can never be contradictions between
the various parts of science. The scientific endeavour implies a desire to
unify human knowledge.
7. Regularity. Science seeks to discover some regular pattern in what
it observes, and it is this pattern which needs to be highlighted by the sci-
entist.
8. Open-mindedness. The true scientist always has a critical attitude
towards what he receives from the past, wishing to verify for himself the
truth of traditional views. An argument from authority is not enough for him.
244 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

9. Desire for constant improvement. To be true to itself, science must

always seek to be more and more closely shaped by the real world.
These criteria of genuine science are of course very general. They apply
not only to the sciences of nature, but to all intellectual endeavour. We
should also add that contemporary science is based on additional criteria,
stricter than the ones just cited.

3.3. Some more specific criteria

In addition to the nine criteria given above, there are others which gov-
ern a more precise scientific method. It is in recent years that these stricter
criteria have been clearly expounded. Thus:
1. Experiments are possible which modify nature to a significant
degree.
2. All concepts used are subject to a full analysis, so that they may be
‘operational concepts’.
3. Principles, ideas and theories must be capable of being measured
against real facts. Thus Popper introduced the negative notion of falsifia-
bility to explain what counts as genuine verification.
4. Knowledge is not to be understood as yielding certitude – this is a
Cartesian ideal. Instead, it gives us greater or lesser degrees of probability.
5. The kind of measurement used has to be precise and clear.
6. Many notions hitherto the preserve of theology and metaphysics
have to be considered objects of scientific thought. Examples include the
formation of the universe, the formation of living species, the generation
of living things. These facts which were previously explained theologically
are now objects of scientific study. At the same time, it’s important to
recognise that such study is just one of the activities of man’s intelligence,
and that it doesn’t exclude other approaches to these problems.
7. The notion of final causality is to be excluded from scientific dis-
course.
8. The process of mathematisation must be allowed to increase and
become ever more refined. Mathematical objects, in fact, are no longer lim-
ited by the ideas and images implied by Euclidean geometry.
9. Experiments may be more various than was previously the case.
There is a place, for example, for so-called ‘thought-experiments’.
10. Statistical laws are to be accepted on the same footing as the strict
laws of classical mechanics. It seems that theoretical physics, dominant as
it is, leaves a place for the sciences of life.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION 245

This brief discussion of what counts as genuine science shows how use-
ful the study of the history of science is. It enables us to see how scientific
criteria have gradually become more precise, and how these criteria may be
variously arranged and emphasised, thus giving rise to various ways of
thinking. The distinction of science and pseudo-science is particularly
important in the formation of the scientific mind.

4. HUMAN FORMATION

The remarks we have made about the scientific mind show how the study
of the history of science can help promote a well-rounded human formation.

4.1. Relations between various branches of knowledge

What has been said about the training required by the scientist, in par-
ticular the distinction between science and pseudo-science, may serve as a
general invitation for us all to consider what is the exact relation of our own
discipline to other disciplines. It can be humbling for us to have to admit
how very limited our own discipline inevitably is; yet in so doing we become
more ready to learn from others, and to accept other points of view. We also
become more cautious about demarcating the various parts of human
knowledge too absolutely. History shows us the troubles that can be caused
by inadequate definitions of different disciplines. One need only think in this
connection of the arguments put forward in the name of religion on such
questions as geocentrism, the history of the world, the gradual development
of each human being, the evolution of living things and the origin of
mankind. Unfortunately, as the influence of various fundamentalist move-
ments demonstrates, the arguments in question are still to be found today.
Again, history helps us to avoid the mistake which is sometimes termed
‘scientism’, a philosophy according to which only scientific knowledge is
truly worthy of the name of knowledge. History shows us how much the
criteria of what counts as science have changed over the years. This should
dissuade us from supposing that science holds a monopoly on the truth.

4.2. The just appreciation of one’s own area of expertise

The foregoing remarks about the history of science may not only
prompt us to revise certain opinions about scientific work; they can also
246 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

bring us to a better understanding of our own field of expertise, whatever

that may be. The scientist, after all, is well aware that his knowledge is
always in a somewhat precarious condition. He knows that he mustn’t
treat it as something absolute. This doesn’t mean that he lessens its
value, simply that he sees it as a part of a wider scientific effort. In this
way, he is better able to appreciate the science which is still in the
process of development, as well as the science which has already estab-
lished definite results. The development of science is far from being a
purely deductive affair – it calls for imagination and creativity, and even
for that sort of ‘contemplativeness’ which is to be found wherever there
is a genuine desire for knowledge.
History shows us that to judge of the truth of a given scientific propo-
sition, we need to be able to place it in a broader context. In the life of the
mind, there are certain fundamental options which govern everything else.
An awareness of this allows us to see more clearly what intuitions and con-
victions have guided a particular piece of research.

4.3. The foundations of science

We can appreciate the greatness and the fruitfulness of science only

when we truly understand its limits. The first of these limits comes from
within science itself. For the exactitude and objectivity of science, and the
clarity at which it aims, presuppose that the constitutive elements of a given
scientific endeavour are properly defined. Yet when we seek rigorous defini-
tions of all relevant terms, it becomes clear that science relies on certain
notions which it is not able to define by itself – such things, namely, as force,
space, time, matter, energy and so on. All these notions come to science from
outside. They depend upon certain basic intuitions, upon that ‘first philoso-
phy’ which is coaeval with thought itself and of which we are all the heirs.
In this way, science discovers its own foundations, and is thus also
brought into contact with philosophy. Just as there was once a time when
cetain great thinkers, men such as Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz, could
be both scientists and philosophers, so even today every scientist has
some philosophy upon which all his research is founded. The study of the
history of science makes one aware of this link between science and phi-
losophy. It is interesting in this respect to compare these earlier periods
in the history of scientific thought with scientific education today, where
the aim is generally to pass on those results which will help the student
to gain a professional competence.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN INTELLECTUAL FORMATION 247

A scientific training which takes into account the various stages in the
history of science thus enables the student to situate his discipline more
successfully. He can learn to see what relation it has to the philosophy of
nature, to the study of man himself, and to God.

4.4. Science and reality

The wish to come into contact with the real world is an important part
of any scientific endeavour. As the criteria of what counts as genuine sci-
ence show, particularly those which have to do with objectivity and experi-
mental observation, the aim of the scientific method is to give us a more
complete understanding of what exists independently of man. No doubt the
object of science is something constructed by the mind: the scientist must
not take the object with which he has to do, and which he represents by
mathematical language or by general concepts, for reality itself. But his
intention is always to come into contact with the real world, the existence
of which he takes for granted.
Science thus aims at truth: and truth is defined by philosophical tradi-
tion as the agreement between knowledge and the world exterior to the one
who is seeking to know. The scientific endeavour is therefore a movement
towards a horizon which cannot be crossed.

Conclusion

In the context of this symposium of the Pontifical Academy of Science,

which has education for its theme, it was important to stress that scientif-
ic training involves some intellectual elements and some practical ones.
Nor should we forget the relations between the people who carry out the
work of science, of which work education itself is one part.
Although teaching obviously includes the passing on of information, its
aim is also broader than this. This fact is well-reflected by a change in offi-
cial nomenclature that took place in France recently. What was formerly
the ‘Ministry of Public Instruction’ has become the ‘Ministry of National
Education’. In other words, the formation given to children and teenagers
is not simply to be reduced to a handing-on of items of knowledge; it must
have a broader aim. Education has to foster all the various human qualities
which will make for an adult life worthy of the name.
The study of science will obviously have an important rôle to play in
this context. To complete what has already been said: a place must be found
248 JEAN-MICHEL MALDAMÉ

for the history of science within the teaching of the sciences themselves.
This seems to me vital if the abstract and theoretical knowledge contained
in the sciences is to be communicated in a way that takes into account the
student’s need for a well-rounded human formation. It is not during histo-
ry lessons or philosophy lessons that this teaching should take place, but
actually as a fundamental part of the scientific teaching itself.
Such an undertaking would seem to me to have a twofold value. In the
first place, it would help students to gain a more accurate understanding of
the true nature of scientific propositions. Secondly, it would give them a
new relation to the scientific knowledge which they possess. One can add
also that the study of history, whilst it may ‘relativise’ knowledge, neverthe-
less helps the student to develop a certain sympathy with what is unfamil-
iar. In this way he is better able to appreciate realities which encompass or
transcend his own limited area of expertise.
Thus the remarks which I’ve made in this communication about the
importance of the historical point of view are not limited solely to the his-
tory of the natural sciences. They also apply to the human sciences, and
they have implications for the way that we relate to any branch of knowl-
edge. This is particularly true for theology, for the progress which this has
made in modern times is bound up with our understanding of history, as
the case of biblical studies shows. It is the historical method which allows
Christians to read the fundamental texts of their faith in a way that bene-
fits not only their intelligences, but also their moral and spiritual lives.