During three of my four years of high school I took various forms of a biology class, beginning with “Biology Honors” my freshman year and moving on to “IB Biology HL I” in my junior year, followed by “IB Biology HL II” senior year. I recall freshman year paying little to no attention to the lectures I received in class. Instead, I’d write down song lyrics in my biology notebook and talk to the friends sitting next to me. Every exposition on photosynthesis or Latin nomenclature sailed through one ear, rattling in my brain for a short moment for later recollection on a test or quiz, before leaving my active mind forever. Everything in the class seemed so distant to me due to my inattention. It seemed almost arbitrary. How did we even know these
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The IB program which I took part in much more strongly emphasized the importance of experimentation and even required me to design and carry out my own set of experiments. In this new way of learning about biology, claims I had memorized regarding diffusion and the electron transport chain now had somehow been deepened by the greater emphasis placed on the explanation of the experimental means by which biological claims are deduced. This deepening gave me greater comfort in the acceptance of biological knowledge. And yet some unease still remained, a sort of cloud which is not so significant as to obscure the heavens in its totality, but at the same time blocks out the sun. In Ian Hacking’s 1981 essay “Do We See Through a Microscope”, Hacking explores the sort of concerns from which my cloud may have found its genesis. Specifically, Hacking explores the nature of the reliability of scientific experimentation with increasingly advanced experimental apparatuses through a discussion of microscopy, which he considers to be an oft-ignored part of scientific apparatuses so far as philosophy of science is …show more content…
For one thing, the expectations one brings to the observation are formed, at the very least in the case of the microinjection Hacking uses as example, by previous observations with a microscope. The tiny glass needle was observed in its construction under a microscope and the cells too have been viewed under microscope before the microinjection. The consistency of the expectations of these two ideas when interacting brought to the microinjection serves as evidence of the veracity of these expectations if and only if we assume some realism about the observations from which these expectations were synthesized. And that cuts down to the very issue at hand. Essentially, Hacking is, though hidden, in some way assuming the realism about microscopy (and advanced scientific apparatuses generally) that he seeks to prove in his
The IB program which I took part in much more strongly emphasized the importance of experimentation and even required me to design and carry out my own set of experiments. In this new way of learning about biology, claims I had memorized regarding diffusion and the electron transport chain now had somehow been deepened by the greater emphasis placed on the explanation of the experimental means by which biological claims are deduced. This deepening gave me greater comfort in the acceptance of biological knowledge. And yet some unease still remained, a sort of cloud which is not so significant as to obscure the heavens in its totality, but at the same time blocks out the sun. In Ian Hacking’s 1981 essay “Do We See Through a Microscope”, Hacking explores the sort of concerns from which my cloud may have found its genesis. Specifically, Hacking explores the nature of the reliability of scientific experimentation with increasingly advanced experimental apparatuses through a discussion of microscopy, which he considers to be an oft-ignored part of scientific apparatuses so far as philosophy of science is …show more content…
For one thing, the expectations one brings to the observation are formed, at the very least in the case of the microinjection Hacking uses as example, by previous observations with a microscope. The tiny glass needle was observed in its construction under a microscope and the cells too have been viewed under microscope before the microinjection. The consistency of the expectations of these two ideas when interacting brought to the microinjection serves as evidence of the veracity of these expectations if and only if we assume some realism about the observations from which these expectations were synthesized. And that cuts down to the very issue at hand. Essentially, Hacking is, though hidden, in some way assuming the realism about microscopy (and advanced scientific apparatuses generally) that he seeks to prove in his