Cultures of Prediction How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools

by Johnson, Ann; Lenhard, Johannes

• ISBN13: 9780262548236
• ISBN10: 0262548232
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780262379052
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-05-07
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• More Book Details

Summary

A probing examination of the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in science and engineering that helps us better understand today’s cultures of prediction.

The ability to make reliable predictions based on robust and replicable methods is a defining feature of the scientific endeavor, allowing engineers to determine whether a building will stand up or where a cannonball will strike. Cultures of Prediction, which bridges history and philosophy, uncovers the dynamic history of prediction in science and engineering over four centuries. Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard identify four different cultures, or modes, of prediction in the history of science and engineering: rational, empirical, iterative-numerical, and exploratory-iterative. They show how all four develop together and interact with one another while emphasizing that mathematization is not a single unitary process but one that has taken many forms.

The story is not one of the triumph of abstract mathematics or technology but of how different modes of prediction, complementary concepts of mathematization, and technology coevolved, building what the authors call “cultures of prediction.” The first part of the book examines prediction from early modernity up to the computer age. The second part probes computer-related cultures of prediction, which focus on making things and testing their performance, often in computer simulations. This new orientation challenges basic tenets of the philosophy of science, in which scientific theories and models are predominantly seen as explanatory rather than predictive. It also influences the types of research projects that scientists and engineers undertake, as well as which ones receive support from funding agencies.

Author Biography

Ann Johnson (1965−2016) was Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Johannes Lenhard holds the Heisenberg Professorship in Philosophy in Science and Engineering at Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University Kaiserslautern-Landau.

Table of Contents

Preface
1 Introduction
2 Hitting the Target With Mathematics: Ballistics and 
the Entangled History of Rational and Empirical Modes of Prediction
3 Engineering Knowledge, Autonomy, and Mathematics
4 Epistemology of Iteration: Predicting the Behavior of Molecules 
from 1927 to 2000
5 Systems Thinking and the Mainframe Culture of Prediction
6 Code is Fluid: How computational models move and 
adapt to new settings and applications
7 A Transformation of Bayesian Statistics: Computation, 
Prediction, and Rationality
8 Engineering Thermodynamics: Prediction and a Merger of Cultures
9 Looking Back and Looking Ahead: Prediction—Both Hybrid and Pure
Notes
References
Index