The Role of Historical Revisionism in the Advancement of Science

Steve Fuller (University of Warwick)

One of Thomas Kuhn's most striking claims in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that the version of the history of science that science students are taught -- and the public consumes — is 'Orwellian', by which he meant that it is regularly rewritten so that the past is presented as eventuating in whatever turns out to be current research frontier. Although I have been mainly a strong critic of Kuhn's work, I have always found this to be his most profound insight. In this talk, I will explore several dimensions of this insight about how science relates to its history.