The Role of History in Science

Author(s): RICHARD CREATH

Source: Journal of the History of Biology , Summer 1010, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Summer 1010),
pp. 207-214
Published by: Springer

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40802740

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Journal of the History of Biology (2010) 43:207-214 © Springer 2009
DOI 10.1007/S10739-009-9208-X

The Role of History in Science

RICHARD CREATH
School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-4501
USA
E-mail: Creathioòasu.edu

Abstract. The case often made by scientists (and philosophers) against history and the
history of science in particular is clear. Insofar as a field of study is historical as opposed
to law-based, it is trivial. Insofar as a field attends to the past of science as opposed to
current scientific issues, its efforts are derivative and, by diverting attention from
acquiring new knowledge, deplorable. This case would be devastating if true, but it has
almost everything almost exactly wrong. The study of history and the study of laws are
not mutually exclusive, but unavoidably linked. Neither can be pursued without the
other. Much the same can be said of the history of science. The history of science is
neither a distraction from "real" science nor even merely a help to science. Rather, the
history of science is an essential part of each science. Seeing that this is so requires a
broader understanding of both history and science.

Keywords: history in science, particular events, uses of the past

Unless you work in a history department and never venture outside it,
you've heard scientists argue against studying history and against
studying the history of science in particular. Insofar as a field of study is
historical as opposed to law-based, it is trivial. Insofar as a field attends
to the past of science as opposed to current scientific issues, our efforts
are derivative and, by diverting attention from acquiring new knowl-
edge, deplorable. So history is not only not "real" science, it's not worth
doing. As a member of a science department, I can assure you that this
argument is made with some regularity even where the historians are
personally well regarded. As a long time member of a philosophy
department, I can assure you that the same argument, with the word
'science' replaced by the word 'philosophy' is just as frequent there.
Happily, in the cases I am familiar with, politeness (or prudence)

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208 RICHARD CREATH

generally prevails, and the argumen

earshot of the historian down the hal
couple of times per year: in the allocati
distribution of merit monies (if any). O
can make for peaceable departments,
tangible to fight over. But the argum
express the view of an important fract
Now as historians, I don't think we
fact that some people disparage history
spend a lot of time finding ingenious w
the expense of colleagues. But I think t
itself seriously. If the case is sound, if
argument is devastating. Unsurprisin
merely wrong, but nearly completely
study of laws are not mutually exclusiv
can be pursued without the other. Hist
distraction from "real" science nor even
history is an essential part of every scien
articulate and confront the threateni
think it sound, but because we need to
will see, the argument has considerable
mount a counter-argument. This coun
that the argument disparaging history
history plays an essential role in anythi
and that includes scientific philosoph
argument that threatens history.

The Argument

While there are many different scien

styles of history, the argument I wa
really depend on those differences. It d
each is common to every flavor of h
with particulars, most notably partic
concerns itself exclusively with the
more to the enterprise of history than
the argument going. I have no intentio
journal what history is or the right sor
Behind the argument is also an attitud
is nevertheless very real. The attitu
dangerous, and it is exemplified by

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 THE ROLE OF HISTORY IN SCIENCE 209

colleague (at another university) is said to have taped

read: "We don't study history, we make it." The line was h
with him, and the story may be apocryphal. But there
he largely shared the attitude it expressed: history is seco
a firewall could be established between science itsel
including the history of science, then the attitude w
defend. If no such firewall is possible, then the attitud
what it is, a prejudice.
Consider first the particularity of history. The Greeks
objects of knowledge with truths that are universa
everywhere every when. This universality seems to sta
trast to the shifting particulars and particular events of h
is still identified, often enough, with the search for
These relations are associated, more than some are no
mit, with general claims. If you have a narrow notion
generalizations may not qualify as laws, but they are still
regularities. Again these regularities do seem to be far rem
particular events that concern the historian.
Thus, on account of its particularity alone, history,
history of science, must seem to be at odds with one of t
of the scientific enterprise - its universality and search
causal structure of the world. And history does in fact of
alien enterprise to a good many practicing scientists an
colleague with the note on his door. This is a serious challe
are to meet it, we must understand it and take it seriou
While history (and history of science) concerns itself w
it also confines itself to the past. Here again this seems to
grain of science. Science makes predictions. That's how
Science also guides us in intervening in the world; it helps
this, science is forward-looking. Its focus is firmly in the
from this that science derives its great utility.
The backward-looking character of history goes again
science in other ways too. Scientists rightly set great stor
and originality. They mean to address new problems,
theories and better ones, and to improve on the past.
think that science is strictly cumulative in order to think
largely succeeded, that our current scientific understa
than it was 100 or 1000 years ago. No, it has not succ
respect, and we will turn out to have been wrong in u
and about some of our most cherished beliefs. But so what if we
sometimes go wrong? We have made progress, and we will make m

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210 RICHARD CREATH

precisely because science is constantl

refine and replace wherever possible
entist with a deep commitment to or
ment, the work of the historian of sci
contact with scientific ideas (and that
seem derivative rather than origina
ideas rather than creating new ones
rather than striving for its improve
enterprise deflects attention and eff
creative task at hand.
We need not accept this argument. But we cannot pretend that it is
not being made, so we ignore it at our peril. It has a kind of rhetorical
plausibility, and even some of your best friends are attracted to it. There
are even historians who are attracted to the idea that history, including
the history of science, on the one hand and science on the other are just
two wholly different realms. This suggestion is rather like Stephen Jay
Gould's proposal for non-overlapping magisteria for science and reli-
gion.1 I suspect that even there 'magisteria' is not the right word, and
that even if it were, Gould's idea would be unsound. The idea that
religion and science don't sometime make claims that overlap seems
flatly false. And separating religion and science into wholly different
realms seems bad for both.
But why not, nevertheless, borrow Gould's idea for the issue at hand
and just accept the claim that history and science are just in separate
realms, that history is neither a science nor a part of science and that
(real) science is not historical? For one thing the separation claim is
flatly false, as I shall show in a few moments. Perhaps less important is
that a true separation would discourage fruitful interchanges between
the fields generally. There are other reasons too. Let's assume that
science can justify both its own existence and substantial public support
in practical terms. If we cut history off from science, then we will have to
find some other justification for our work as historians. The connection
with science is too convenient to discard lightly. Is history of only
antiquarian interest? Is it of no practical utility? Be careful how you
answer. Lynn Cheney, when she was the head of the US National
Endowment for the Humanities back in the Reagan administration, was
happy to support history - so long as it carried the right (politically
right) sort of message about America. But assuming you don't want to
make that a priority, some other account will be needed to get the
granting officer, or the state legislature, or the tight-fisted members of

1 Gould, 1997.

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 THE ROLE OF HISTORY IN SCIENCE 211

the board of trustees to part with enough scarce fund

your work. I know we may pursue history for its own
day-to-day work we do. A similar claim can be made fo
well. It is even perfectly reasonable for us to do what we
sake. But can we expect other people to support it just
doing it? The connection with science is too conven
lightly.
Finally, John Beatty has in recent years called attention to certain
historical aspects of biology.2 Without judging his overall thesis, his
thesis that there are historical aspects of biology seems to be right. But I
don't want his correct observation about biology to be used as the basis
of an argument that thereby gives biology second-class status. If history
pervades all the sciences, then the historical aspects of biology will put it
in the best of company. (I realize that biology may already be the best of
company. But those we need to convince may not be aware of it.) So
let's turn to the second part of my remarks to see how large a role
history plays in all the sciences.

History in Science

The two characteristics of history that have appeared to run against the
grain of whatever we take real science to be were (1) a concern for the
particular and (2) attention to the past. Now I want to show that those
two features are everywhere inseparable from such science. I doubt that
I shall tell you anything that you don't know already. Even so, judging
from what I read in the journals and hear in the hallways, these com-
mon facts are seldom looked at in just this way. But before I get to that I
want to be very clear about what I will not be claiming.
First, I am not claiming that history is a science. Perhaps in some
broad sense it is, though a special sort of one, but here I remain agnostic
on that subject. Second, I do not deny that history is and will remain a
humanistic enterprise in whatever full-blooded sense. Third, 1 am cer-
tainly not claiming that history as we know it is to be subsumed within
the sciences as we know them. In fact, I make no claim about history as
a discipline (except of course for its concern with particular events of the
past). Finally, I am not comparing one science with another. Many of
my examples will be drawn from biology. But I claim neither that
biology differs from other sciences nor that it is just like other sciences in
all important respects. I have views, but here I remain agnostic. I do

2 Beatty, 1998. See also Maienschein et al., 2009.

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212 RICHARD CREATH

think that most of my remarks will ap

purportedly non-empirical enterprise
insofar as they can be called sciences
My positive claim is simply that his
have characterized it, plays an essenti
within science. Once this is established it will be obvious that the
arguments considered earlier, the ones that disparaged history a
history of science in comparison with real science (or real philosop
are misguided.
When Larry Holmes looked at Krebs' lab notebooks, we all reco
nize Homes' work as history.3 Krebs is a particular; so is the lab b
Both are undeniably of the past. But think now of the lab book itself
too is a narrative about particular events, events that occurred in
lab. And at the time the lab report was written those events were alre
in the past. It may seem that these events are too recent to be c
history, and I agree that we would not ordinarily use the term in
way. But insofar as what was supposed objectionable about history
that it concerns itself with particular events and that these events ar
the past, Krebs' notebooks undeniably have both features. So
every lab book, every report of a measurement, indeed any report of
observed datum whatsoever. These are all history in the very sense th
was said to be not part of real science.
Once we change our perspective, we begin to see history alm
everywhere. One of the most important of these "everywheres" is in
review article. These articles are not add-ons to science where the real
scientific enterprise lies elsewhere. They keep score in telling us what
problems have been solved and how important the various solutions
have been. They tell us what remains to be done and evaluate the re-
search trajectories in the field. These require the description and inter-
pretation of the particular work that has been done - just like any
history would. It is not too much to say that anyone who controls the
review articles controls the field. To exile them from "real" science
simply because they are history in our sense would be foolish.
The scientists themselves recognize both the importance and the
interpretative character of these articles. If you aren't asked to write one
yourself, you can at least insert a miniature version at the outset of your
research articles. Call it a literature review if you like, but it serves the
same purpose. You have to get your reader to interpret the past in such
a way that your approach is legitimated and your specific contributio
makes progress and that alternative approaches have reached a dead

3 Holmes, 1991-1993. See also Holmes et al., 2003.

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 THE ROLE OF HISTORY IN SCIENCE 213

end. A surprising amount of the weight of scientific argu

just these interpretive (and historical) exercises.
Even when such a comparison of theories is not ther
some publication, it is presupposed. This is because th
always a choice, that is, a choice between alternative t
to know whether a given data set confirms a given theory
know whether T is a more accurate predictor than its r
how good T is, if its predictions are substantially fur
measured values than are its rivals' predictions, then T is
by those measurements.4 Of course the rival theories h
preted and understood, and this is one of the functions o
review.
Not every scientist goes as far as Ernst Mayr and w
frankly historical book.5 John Beatty insists that M
should be thought of as part of the primary rather t
literature of science.6 If my argument here is correct
entirely right on this. When Mayr is writing a frankly hi
is also doing real science.
In short one is making historical judgments in man
primary literature:

• in declaring certain experiments as crucial,

• in declaring a line of research (the opposition's) to h
dead end,
• in declaring ones own research trajectory to be prog
• in declaring ones own work to be new.

All this is both interpretive and essential to scientific

Mayr describes genetic atomism as "beanbag genetics" h
trying to shape, our interpretation of a historically given
This is in no way a criticism of Mayr. It is the sort of
creative scientist does and must engage in. Mayr hi
unapologetic about efforts to shape the historical recor
was the one doing the shaping.
Nothing in my argument requires all or any of this his
be good history. We can all point to examples where th

4 This point is somewhat controversial, or at least it used to be

defend it here.

5 Mayr, 1982.
6 Beattv, 1998.
7 Mayr, 1959.

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214 RICHARD CREATH

is egregiously bad. But just because i

not mean that it is not essential to the
otherwise, try to imagine science wit
ities. There would be no reports of
articles or literature reviews. In fact t
preexisting literature. What would be l
amount of ungrounded speculation.
speculative metaphysics. And, if I m
speculative metaphysics unconnecte
pretty much a dead end.
I don't think that I need to go fur
understood science contains historical elements that are essential to the
scientific enterprise. Of course science contains more than that. I am not
trying to reduce science to history or to reduce even the history of
science to science. But the argument that sought to separate them (often
as part of a campaign to give second-class status to the historical) is
utterly misguided. Any enterprise can be trivial, derivative, and
deplorable. But there is no reason to think that, just because what we do
is history, it must be any of these things.

References

Beatty, John. 1998. Personal communication, especially in connection with the Dibner-
MBL Seminar in the History of Biology, 1998 " Why Does History Matter: Biology as
a Historical Science".
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1997. "Non-Overlapping Magisterial Natural History 106: 16-22
Holmes, Frederic Lawrence. 1991-1993. Hans Krebs, vols. 1-2. Oxford: Oxford Un
versity Press.

Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Maienschein, Jane et al. 2009. "Focus: What is the Value of History of Science?. Isis
99: 318-373.
Mayr, Ernst. 1959. "Where Are We?/' Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative
Biolozv 24: 1-14.

Press.

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