History and Philosophy of Science
Academic Team Leader: Prof. Maurice Amutabi
The history of science reveals how simple observations have led to great speculations, culminating in objective laws of nature. Knowledge about the world around us, which has transformed human life in the last few centuries, has been gained by working with perseverance and an enquiring mind. Scientific knowledge, depicted in the text books that we read, has not been obtained in a straight forward way. Errors were made, and rectified, and this has been an ongoing process. And there are lessons to be learnt from the mistakes made. Philosophy, on the other hand, teaches us how to be vigilant — even in the face of enormous success in scientific endeavors and the technologies that science has birthed. Philosophy of science teaches one to keep the skepticism alive because none of the scientific theories is ‘true,’ beyond a doubt. There is always room for improvement. There is, still, a lot to be learnt about nature.
The department of history and philosophy of science therefore seeks to nurture and produce graduates who are creators of scientific knowledge, not just followers