The appendix on intellectual cratsmanship is a treat, it would be great to find it on line

The philosophy of science in the US is dominated by logical empiricism which is a waste of space. http://www.the-rathouse.com/2009/TheCostOfPositivism.html

Feynman is essentially a Popperian in his practice.

“…C Wright Mills who described conferences as junkets to permit professors to pursue their feuds and vendettas in exotic locations while younger players scramble for positions in the academic marketplace.”

Thanks. I didn’t know he’d said that.

If science students leave college thinking, as they usually do, that science offers a full, accurate, and literal description of man and Nature; if they think theories spring from facts and that scientific authority at any time is infallible, and if they think that science steadily and automatically makes for a better world then they have wasted their time in the science lecture room and they are a plain menace to the society they live in.

That is a sweeping exaggeration as many of Barzun’s opinions seem to be. I’d sooner go with Richard Feynman: “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”

The scientist graduate just gets on with the job, either submitting papers for peer review and potential falsification, or else designing widgets and potentially finding they don’t work. A bit of context wouldn’t do anybody any harm but scientists get along without it and “plain menace” is silly.

Creationism is the result? Only in America.