Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa

English engineer John Smeaton's experimental method(s): Optimisation,

hypothesis testing and exploratory experimentation
Andrew M.A. Morris
Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, Room 5B425, B-1050, Brussels, Belgium

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this paper I provide a detailed account of eighteenth-century engineer John Smeaton's experimental methods,
John Smeaton with the aim of bringing our understanding of his work into line with recent research in the history and phi-
Science-technology relation losophy of science. Starting from his use of the technique of parameter variation, I identify three distinct
Parameter variation
methodological aims in the research he carried out on waterwheels, windmills and hydraulic mortars. These aims
Exploratory experimentation
Hypothesis testing
are: optimisation, hypothesis testing and maxim generation. The main claim of this paper is that Smeaton did
Optimisation more than merely improve engineering methods by systematising earlier artisanal approaches, which is the classic
view of Smeaton's method developed by historians of technology in the 1990s. I argue instead that his approach
bridged the divide between science and technology, by integrating both hypothesis testing and exploratory
experimentation. This is borne out, in particular, by the way that Smeaton emphasised the exploratory side of the
work he published in the Philosophical Transactions, in contrast to his account of the construction of the Eddystone
lighthouse, which was aimed at a broader, non-specialist public. I contribute to recent research on exploratory
experimentation by showing – in line with other work on this topic – that exploratory experimentation is not
incompatible with hypothesis testing. This new perspective on Smeaton's method will hopefully lead to further
research and new insights into the relation between science and technology at the start of the Industrial
Revolution.

1. Introduction positions Smeaton as an ingenious practical tinkerer who systematised

John Smeaton (1724–1792) was an English engineer active in the
second half of the eighteenth century. His main achievements include the
Eddystone lighthouse off the coast of Plymouth, ground-breaking ex-
periments on waterwheel efficiency, and improvements to a wide variety
of scientific instruments and machines.1 He is also known as an early
proponent of the method of parameter variation.2
Although the historiography of eighteenth-century science has been
revolutionised over the past few decades, not much research has been
carried out on Smeaton's role in the history of science and technology,
our understanding of which has changed little since the early 1990s,
when Walter Vincenti (1990) and Donald Cardwell (1994) sketched the
outline of a Smeatonian method based on a widely applicable method of
systematic parameter variation and the use of scale models, which
and improved ad hoc artisanal methods. This I refer to as the ‘classic view’
in what follows. In the last few decades however, parameter variation has
mainly been associated with the experimental approach called explor-
atory experimentation.3
In this paper I show that Smeaton used parameter variation much
more broadly, as part of an experimental methodology with three
different objectives: optimisation, hypothesis testing and maxim gener-
ation via exploratory experimentation. By looking more closely at his
methodology in the research into waterwheels, windmills and hydraulic
mortars, we will see that Smeaton's approach went beyond merely sys-
tematising earlier artisanal and practical methodologies focusing on the
design considerations, such as optimisation, that are central to engi-
neering and technology. Smeaton also tested common hypotheses and
extracted empirical regularities from his experiments, and such activities

E-mail addresses: amorris@vub.be, andrewmamorris@gmail.com.

1
For an overview of Smeaton's achievements, see Turner and Skempton (1981).
2
This is a key feature of the analysis in Vincenti (1990).
3
For an extended treatment of exploratory experimentation, see Steinle (2016).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.07.004
Received 8 December 2020; Received in revised form 5 July 2021;
Available online 20 September 2021
0039-3681/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A.M.A. Morris
were the preserve of more strictly scientific research, which was driven
less by directly practical outcomes, and more by the relation to theory,
either testing an existing hypothesis or generating a new hypothesis.4
By giving a detailed account of Smeaton's experimental practices, I
aim to bring our understanding of his methodology into line with recent
research on scientific practice during the Industrial Enlightenment.5
Further, Smeaton was a pioneering civil engineer, so gaining a deeper
understanding of his methodology will also provide insight into the
development of the relation between science and technology in the early
Industrial Revolution.6
2. What is at stake?
Before turning to look at Smeaton's method, it is worth getting an
understanding of what is at stake in the analysis that follows. The classic
view of Smeaton's method not only provides an interpretation of Smea-
ton's work, it also implies a certain understanding of the relation between
science and technology, which I spell out in this section. By reinter-
preting Smeaton's method in light of more recent research into scientific
methodology, I also call into question the vision of the relation between
science and technology that is implicit in the classic view.
Our understanding of the relation between science and technology
during the Industrial Revolution has been influenced by two somewhat
outdated strands of historical research from the twentieth century, which
are represented in the debate between A.E. Musson and Eric Robinson on
the one hand, and A. Rupert Hall on the other. Musson and Robinson
claim that science was a central part of the early Industrial Revolution.7
Hall (1974), on the other hand, argues that the technological de-
velopments of the late eighteenth century actually owed very little to the
science of the period.
This division corresponded to disciplinary distinctions between his-
torians of science and historians of technology. Vincenti, an historian of
engineering, rejects the idea of a close relationship between science and
technology because this has often reduced technology to applied science.
Instead, he proposes to study engineering as a distinct intellectual
domain, with its own methods. By focusing on Smeaton, Vincenti (1990)
articulates what he takes to be the quintessential engineering approach,
forming ‘the basis of an autonomous tradition in engineering research’,
which was later applied successfully to the design of devices such as
aircraft propellers (p. 138).
Despite believing that science and technology go hand-in-hand,
Cardwell (1994) also argues that ‘[w]ith Smeaton, engineering in En-
gland became autonomous, with at least one common method for all
problems’ (p. 195). He claims that Smeaton's method did not ‘involve
scientific research into the basic laws of the subject or system under
investigation’ but instead what it did was ‘formally banish from the realm
of techniques the element of craft mystery, passed down from master to
apprentice’ (Cardwell, 1994, p. 195). So both Vincenti and Cardwell see
Smeaton as systematising practical, artisanal methods, without actually
doing anything specifically scientific.
This classic view of Smeaton's method was adopted by more recent
researchers such as Joel Mokyr or David F. Channell, despite the fact that
our understanding of the distinction between science and technology has
been evolving over the last two or three decades. For Mokyr (2002), who
4
There have been many proposals about ways to understand the science-
technology distinction. See, for example, Radder (2009), Radder (2003) and
Hansson (2015). Some of the historically oriented literature on this topic will be
discussed in the following section.
5 9
For more on the Industrial Enlightenment, see Jones (2008) and Mokyr
(2002).
6 10
The terms ‘science’ and ‘technology’ are anachronistic. For more on the
historiographical issues related to the distinction between knowing and doing,
see Roberts, Schaffer, and Dear (2007).
7
See Musson and Robinson (1969, pp. 27–30) and Musson (1975, pp.
633–637) for the critique of Hall.
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
cites both Vincenti and Cardwell, Smeaton's method was ‘a method of
parameter variation through experimentation, which is a systematic way
of making gradual improvements in λ [prescriptive knowledge] in the
absence of a wide epistemic base’ (p. 42).
Channell (2009) points out that, ‘[w]ith the development of steam
engines, railways, ocean-going iron-hulled ships, and large scale iron
bridges, it became impractical and uneconomical for engineers to use
traditional rule-of-thumb or trial-and-error techniques’, so engineers like
Smeaton developed more sophisticated methods that could replace such
techniques (p. 126). Channell views the relation between science and
technology during the eighteenth century as led by engineers, on the one
hand, who were trying to systematise their approach, and scientists, on
the other hand, who were trying to use their scientific research in prac-
tical applications.
So the classic view, whether implicitly or explicitly, has tended to
classify Smeaton as a systematic but fairly unscientific practical man,
who improved engineering methods with little use of any scientific
knowledge or methods. Although this classic view has been undermined
by recent trends in the history and philosophy of science, as we will see in
the next section, Smeaton's methodology has not received the full reap-
praisal that it deserves.
3. Recent historiographical trends
A number of developments in recent history and philosophy of sci-
ence have changed the way that science itself is understood. With the
increased focus on practices and experiments (trends that are sometimes
labelled as the ‘practical turn’ or ‘practice turn’ and the ‘new experi-
mentalism’), researchers began to focus more on the details of the
experimental work carried out by scientists throughout history.8 In
addition to the philosophical focus on practice, the turn towards scientific
practices has a long history in the sociology of science and technology,
beginning in the 1970s, which is often associated with the work of re-
searchers such as Harry Collins, David Gooding, Steven Shapin or Simon
Schaffer.9
And this new focus revealed that much experimental science was
highly technological, involving the development of complex experi-
mental devices and the deft manipulation of those devices.10 Much of this
attention given to experiment, not only in the philosophy of science, but
also in the related fields of history of science and sociology of science and
technology, has emphasised the importance of instrumentation in
experimental scientific practice.11 This increased focus on experimental
practices brought into relief the multiplicity of experimental strategies
used throughout the history of science. As a result of this research,
experiment was no longer assumed to merely test hypotheses – as it was
more closely studied, so a wide variety of experimental aims and methods
were identified (Hacking, 1983). Another consequence was the increased
focus on the technological nature of scientific practices.
It could easily be argued that talk of a science-technology distinction
in the eighteenth century is anachronistic. It would perhaps be more
accurate to refer to the relation between natural philosophy and early
engineering. This has been the topic of much valuable secondary litera-
ture, in particular Larry Stewart's and Margaret Jacob's research, showing
how the Royal Society was central to the application of ‘Newtonian’
natural philosophy to practical mechanics.12
8
For some reading on the ‘practice turn’, see Soler (2014). The term ‘new
experimentalism’ was coined by Ackermann (1989).
See, for example, Collins (1992), Gooding, Pinch, and Schaffer (1989) or
Shapin and Schaffer (1985).
It is unsurprising that Hall (1974) determines that little theoretical scientific
knowledge contributed directly to the inventions of the Industrial Revolution.
11
See, for example, Gooding, Pinch, and Schaffer (1989), Baird (2004) or
Bertoloni Meli (2006).
12
In particular, see Stewart (1992) and Jacob and Stewart (2004).
A.M.A. Morris
To this research can be added various studies on the different spaces
of knowledge transmission and exchange: sites where different knowers
came into contact, such as workshops, laboratories and factories.13 At the
same time there was a proliferation of hybrid figures who, in different
ways, moved between these different ‘milieux’ and connected different
practices of knowing and making from the worlds of natural philosophy
and engineering.14
Danilo Capecchi's recent monograph on epistemology and natural
philosophy in the eighteenth century draws attention to Smeaton's role
linking science and technology, urging us to see the relation as more than
science influencing engineering, as defined by earlier scholars like Hall
(Capecchi, 2021). He also emphasises the importance of ‘less formalized
theoretical considerations’ produced by Antoine Parent (1666–1716)
and Jean-Charles de Borda (1733–1799) as well as the crucial influence
of natural philosophical experimental methods (Capecchi, 2021, p. 505).
The role of experimental practice in Smeaton's work has also been
emphasised by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and Jacob (1995), who note that
‘[w]ith these disciplined methods of verification and replication drawn
from scientific practices, British engineers believed themselves to be
scientists, or at the least their imitators’ (p. 113).
The current paper builds on this point about experimental practices,
by attempting to provide a methodological framework for our under-
standing of Smeaton's experimental method, that might subsequently be
used to trace the influences at work on Smeaton. A first suggestion might
be to compare this method with Newton's own method, following the
suggestion of Dobbs and Jacob (1995), although this goes beyond the
scope of the present paper.
This could help understand how the engineering approach based on
trial-and-error and tinkering became increasingly ‘scientific’, as David
Philip Miller (2019) calls it (p. 156). It is for this reason that comparison
with cases of exploratory experimentation are instructive – exploratory
experimentation provides a framework for understanding the devel-
opment of a scientific discipline in the absence of a fully-developed
theoretical background. This goes further than the classic view
because Smeaton's methods are themselves seen as being properly
scientific.
My aim in this respect is modest. I hope to go into some detail
about the methods Smeaton used in his work on waterwheels, wind-
mills and hydraulic mortars, in order to show that Smeaton's status as
a hybrid knower extended to his methodology (cf. Morris, 2021).
Smeaton not only moved in social circles connected with both the
world of natural philosophy, such as the Royal Society Club, and the
world of engineering, as a founding member of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, but he also carried out research on natural philosophical
topics such as vis viva, publishing two papers on the subject in the
Philosophical Transactions, in addition to papers on instrument making
and engineering.15
This hybridity is also reflected in the way that Smeaton presented
his engineering methods – in work published in the Philosophical
Transactions, Smeaton gave greater emphasis to the search for general
principles or rules, whereas in his Narrative on the construction of the
Eddystone lighthouse, the emphasis was placed on solving problems
by evaluating workmen's maxims and optimising the object of study.16
This difference in emphasis tells us that certain kinds of early engi-
neering research were already of interest to fellows of the Royal
Society.
13
See Jacob (2007) and Stewart (2007).
14
See Klein (2017) on the figure of the ‘hybrid expert’. Jones (2008, pp.
116–129) discusses the related figure of the ‘savant fabricant’.
15
Smeaton's research on vis viva can be found in Smeaton (1776) and Smeaton
(1782). On this research, see Morris (2018). On Smeaton's hybrid status and his
social circle, see Morris (2021).
16
I thank the anonymous reviewer who suggested I give this issue more
attention.
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
4. Overview of Smeaton's methods
Smeaton's overarching method can be divided into three phases: 1)
optimisation, 2) hypothesis testing and 3) maxim generation. Smeaton's
primary aim as a civil engineer was to determine the most efficient,
effective waterwheel, windmill or hydraulic mortar, which he did by
varying parameters and choosing the most optimal configuration. The
parameters he varied often corresponded to workmen's maxims or
contemporary construction practices, which were also put to the test in
this optimisation process. Finally, Smeaton generated his own maxims
based on the results of his experiments.
This section will look at how Smeaton put these methods into prac-
tice. As noted by Cardwell and Vincenti, Smeaton carried out parameter
variation on scale models. In the case of his research into waterwheels, he
used a miniature waterwheel, and for his experiments on windmills, he
devised an apparatus that replicated the action of a windmill. In the
experiments on hydraulic mortars, Smeaton carried out tests on two-
inch-wide balls of mortar. As we will see, Smeaton selected which pa-
rameters to vary based on either natural constraints (such as the quantity
of water or wind that would power the waterwheels or windmills) or
contemporary construction practices and methods.
By varying these parameters, Smeaton was able to create a table
synthesising his results, which allowed him to select the best kind of
waterwheel, windmill or hydraulic mortar. This was the primary aim of
his research: to optimise waterwheels, windmills and hydraulic mortar
recipes to provide the most efficient power output and the strongest
mortar. In so doing, Smeaton challenged some common conceptions
about the functioning and construction of waterwheels, windmills and
hydraulic mortars. His final aim was to provide principles or ‘maxims’
that could be used by other engineers to help guide their practice.
The following brief methodological remark from Smeaton's paper on
waterwheels provides a helpful introduction to our discussion of these
methods:
Many obvious and considerable improvements upon the common
practice naturally offer themselves from a due consideration of the
principles here established, as well as many popular errors show
themselves in view: but as my present purpose extends, no farther
than the laying down such general rules as will be found to answer in
practice, I leave the particular application to the intelligent artist, and
to the curious in these matters (Smeaton, 1759, p. 138).
Smeaton emphasises here how his development of general principles
(‘laying down such general rules’) can serve both to optimise waterwheel
design (‘improvements upon the common practice’) and refute existing
hypotheses about waterwheel functioning (‘popular errors’).
However, the way in which he combined these different methods or
techniques was flexible. In some cases – particularly the more scholarly
work published in the Philosophical Transactions – Smeaton placed a
greater emphasis on the search for general rules or maxims, whereas in
other cases – such as the account of research into mortars for the Eddy-
stone lighthouse – he emphasised optimisation and testing practical hy-
potheses over the generation of maxims. In this way we can see how the
distinction between natural philosophy and early engineering can be
mapped onto the more recent distinction between science and technol-
ogy. When Smeaton was working in the eighteenth century, exploratory
research was considered of greater interest to the natural philosophy-
oriented readers of the Philosophical Transactions, as opposed to the
work of testing workmen's hypotheses and optimisation.
Smeaton carried out a broad variety of different kinds of research
during his career, writing many different reports and accounts of that
research. Interestingly, the two sources of information about Smeaton's
methods in his engineering experiments span almost the entirety of his
career. The waterwheel and windmill experiments were carried out in the
1750s and the results were published in 1759, and the Eddystone light-
house was built between 1756 and 1759, although Smeaton only
A.M.A. Morris
published his Narrative of the construction of the lighthouse in 1791,
shortly before he died.17 Importantly, the Narrative included an account
of the mortar research he carried out after the lighthouse was finished,
suggesting that the core components of the methods that he used
remained more or less stable (Morris, 2021, p. 13).
5. Optimisation via hypothesis testing: waterwheels and
windmills
Smeaton's background in instrument-making prepared him well for
working on experimental models (Turner and Skempton, 1981, p. 8). In
order to carry out sufficiently broad parameter variation, Smeaton
needed to work on a small scale, which he did by building model wa-
terwheels and windmills, and by studying small samples of mortar.
However, he still needed to establish which parameters he could
reasonably vary in a limited amount of time. Scale models and small
samples made his work easier, but he still could not vary an unlimited
number of parameters. This was where hypothesis testing became useful:
to determine which parameters could be varied most fruitfully, Smeaton
looked to contemporary construction practices and ideas, which he
would be able to put to the test (such as ‘salt water is not suitable for
mortars’) or compare with other hypotheses (such as comparing overshot
and undershot waterwheels, or comparing different ratios of lime to
tarras in mortars, or different angles of attack in windmill sails).
This was how Smeaton selected the parameters to vary. His results
would combine both the testing of relevant hypotheses as well as the
optimisation of the process under examination. Optimisation is a design
feature – it does not directly tell us anything about the world. The en-
gineer outlines an objective, such as waterwheel efficiency, defined as
the relationship between input and output, or material strength, defined
as the ability to retain hardness under specific conditions. They will then
be able to use the data produced by the variation of parameters to select
the best solution, ie. the waterwheel with the greatest output, or the most
resistant mortar.
In addition to designing the most suitable materials and devices, this
approach to optimisation meant that Smeaton directly tested the notions
of the workmen and artisans. The parameters that had already been
subject to debate were often the most suitable parameters to vary,
because disagreement indicated that improvements might still be made.
Smeaton designed a simple yet precise apparatus for testing water-
wheel efficiency (Fig. 1). The device was a scale version of a waterwheel
with an additional pulley system for raising weights, and a hand-pump
mechanism for circulating the water. Smeaton tried to vary as many
parameters as possible in order to find both the most efficient way to run
the machine, as well as taking note of the maximum output of the ma-
chine. He varied five main parameters by adjusting the device – most of
these adjustments had been integrated into the design of the apparatus. It
is worth indicating here that variation of parameters need not be un-
derstood as implying that the parameter under consideration can be
varied continuously – many parameters varied by Smeaton were
discontinuous, such as materials used in mortars, number of paddles on a
waterwheel, or whether the waterwheel was undershot or overshot. In
this paper, I take parameter variation to refer to any experimental feature
that can be changed whilst leaving the rest of the experiment the same.
Smeaton varied the size of the aperture and the height of the water in
the reservoir, which was equivalent to varying the flow rate of the water
provided by the river or stream. In Fig. 2, we see that Smeaton raised or
lowered the sluice (I) by fixing it with the pin (K). The height of the water
in the reservoir was measured by the float (G) and maintained by steady
pumping. The pump mechanism was designed to reduce the rising and
falling of the water with each action of the pump, with features such as
the tapered piston at (V) (Smeaton, 1791, p. 109).
17
For more information about the publication of the Narrative, see Morris
(2021).
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
Smeaton varied the number of paddles on the wheel, which was a
question that had begun to interest researchers when Henri Pitot
(1695–1771) made the case for a certain distribution of waterwheel
paddles in a paper presented to the French Academie des sciences in 1729,
which was then repeated by Bernard Forest de Belidor (1698–1761) and
John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744), both of whose work was very
familiar to Smeaton.18 Varying the weight lifted by the turning of the
wheel corresponded to the different uses to which the waterwheel would
be put (such as grinding corn or raising water), represented in the
experiment by the weight raised by the action of the wheel, shown at (R)
in Fig. 1.
Perhaps the most important parameter to be varied was the type of
force turning the wheel – impulse or gravity – in order to compare the
efficiency of overshot and undershot waterwheels. Since the beginning of
the eighteenth century, practical mechanics and engineers had begun to
suspect that undershot and overshot wheels, powered by impulse and
gravity respectively, were not equivalent. Smeaton (1759) wrote that: ‘[i]
n reasoning without experiment, one might be led to imagine’ that overshot
and undershot waterwheels were equally efficient (p. 124). In order to
convert his apparatus to an overshot design, Smeaton added a race –
represented by the dashed lines extending from g to f in Fig. 2 – which
directed the water over the top of the wheel, rather than under it. Thanks
to Smeaton's instrument making ingenuity, the difference between two
waterwheel models – undershot and overshot – could be reduced to the
variation of a parameter in a single model. Smeaton demonstrated that
the overshot wheel was more efficient than the undershot, and in so
doing became embroiled in the vis viva controversy between Leibnizian
and Newtonian conceptions of motive force (see Morris, 2018).
The same approach was continued in his research on windmills.
Smeaton designed a device (Fig. 3) with a model windmill at the end of a
revolving arm, freeing him from the reliance on natural wind, because
the faster he turned the device, the stronger was the air resistance acting
on the windmill. Once again, he varied five different parameters.
Smeaton compared windmill sails weathered according to the research of
Parent, who determined that each sail should be angled at 35 , to ‘the
angle most commonly made use of by practitioners,’ which was the much
shallower 12 –15 . Smeaton also varied the twisting of the sails, which
was important when the sails were understood to be in constant motion
rather than accelerating from rest – this because the outer edges of the
sail turned faster, so a shallower angle was needed at the edges to
minimise air resistance to the rotary motion. Smeaton (1759) compared
the angles suggested by the research of Scottish mathematician, Colin
Maclaurin (1698–1746), to the sails weathered ‘in the Dutch manner,’
that he likely observed during a tour of the low countries four years
earlier, in 1755 (pp. 146–148).19
Another parameter to be varied was the wind speed, in order to
ensure that the windmill would be efficient in different weather condi-
tions. This Smeaton did by varying the force with which he pulled the
cord, Z, which turned the arm. He was able to regulate the rate at which
the arm turned by timing the motion with the built-in pendulum (V)
attached to the device. This did away with any reliance on natural wind
(Smeaton, 1759, pp. 138–139). The results of Smeaton's experiments can
be seen represented in Fig. 4.
Here it is perhaps worth correcting a misconception about the func-
tioning of this apparatus that has crept into the secondary literature. John
D. Anderson (1997), in a broad survey of the history of aerodynamics,
claims that ‘[t]he windmill blades at the end of the whirling arm were
spun by a cable-and-pulley mechanism activated by a falling weight’ (p.
58). Channell (2019), following Anderson, writes that Smeaton was
‘using a falling weight to cause the windmill blades to spin’ (p. 93).
It appears, however, that this was not how the apparatus functioned.
Instead, if we look at Fig. 3, we see that Smeaton pulled the cord (Z)
18
See Reynolds (1983, p. 210). For Pitot's original study, see Pitot (1729).
19
For the account of the trip, see Smeaton ([1755] 1938).
A.M.A. Morris
Fig. 1. A sketch of Smeaton's waterwheel apparatus from Smeaton (1759, p. 101).
causing it to unwind the bobbin (H), which rotated the arm (FG) to which
the windmill sails were attached at (I). As the sails moved through the air
on the rotating arm, they also began to turn, winding in the cord leading
to the pulley mechanism (ONM), and this raised the weight held in the
scales at (P). The more efficient the sails, the more weight would be lifted
in a given amount of time.
Another parameter to be varied was the weight lifted by the device,
which was equated to the quantity of work done by the windmill. A
weight placed in the scale (P) could be raised without being affected by
the motion of the arm (Smeaton, 1759, p. 140). Smeaton (1759) also
varied the area of sail because, as he noted, ‘[m]any have imagined, that
the more sail, the greater the advantage, and have therefore proposed to
fill up the whole area’– this rule he also associated with Parent (p. 149).
6. Optimisation via hypothesis testing: hydraulic lime
Smeaton (1791) relied on the opinions of others even more in his
research into hydraulic limes, where most of the hypotheses he tested
were taken from ‘the workmen’ and construction practices of the period
(p. 104). Here, Smeaton did not have recourse to instruments. Instead, his
experiments were carried out by mixing different ingredients together in
varying proportions, adding water, then rolling the mortar paste into
balls of about two inches in diameter. These balls were then placed in
water for up to three months and tested for hardness manually (Smeaton,
1791, p. 104). Smeaton (1791) also highlighted the fact that he carried
out the experiments many times to be sure of his results: ‘To avoid pro-
lixity, I have mentioned these experiments as single trials; but they were
all repeated, and some of the principal ones several times’ (p. 110). He
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
also burnt and slaked samples of the lime himself, in order to establish
the best method for carrying out this process (Smeaton, 1791, p. 103). He
varied eight different parameters in his hydraulic lime experiments.
Smeaton (1791) varied whether the limestone was burnt completely
or not, as he ‘had heard much complaint from the workmen, of limes not
being well burnt’ (p. 103). He tested the common mixture of lime and
sand, which was ‘denominated excellent mortar for the common pur-
poses of building’ (Smeaton, 1791, p. 103). He also tested the ‘common
composition of Tarras mortar’ as well as varying the quantities of sand
and tarras in the composition. The hardness of the limestone was also
varied:
I found it indeed commonly asserted by Masons, that the harder or
stronger the Lime-stone was, the stronger would be the Lime, but
whether this maxim chiefly regarded the usual composition of lime
and sand in common buildings (with which they were chiefly
acquainted) or whether it held good also in Tarras Mortar, did not
appear (Smeaton, 1791, p. 103).
Smeaton (1791) explored whether saltwater or fresh water should be
used in the mortar: ‘[i]t was also generally agreed by masons, that
mortar, if mix'ed up with salt water, would never harden in so great a
degree, as the same kind of composition would do if made with fresh
water’ (p. 103). The geographical sources of the limestone were varied,
with Smeaton (1791) having visited an area and seen a specific type of
limestone, or ‘having heard of a lime produced from a stone found at
Aberthaw,’ for example (p. 105). The degree to which the mortar was
beaten was varied, because Smeaton wanted ‘to examine the validity of
the notion entertained by workmen, respecting Tarras Mortar, that the
A.M.A. Morris
Fig. 2. A technical drawing of the workings of Smeaton's waterwheel apparatus from Smeaton (1759, p. 102).
longer it was kept and the oftener it was beaten over, the stronger it
would set’ (Smeaton, 1791, p. 105). Smeaton (1791) also varied the type
of material used, testing shell lime and plaster of Paris, because he ‘had
heard that Shell Lime […] made an excellent mortar’ (p. 106) and he was
‘aware that the plasterers use some compositions of this kind [ie. plaster]’
(p. 110).
Smeaton's methodological approach for these experiments was quite
clear: starting from current construction practices, he aimed to find a
mortar that would best withstand the wet conditions on the Eddystone
rock. The workmen's maxims served as hypotheses to be tested, but they
also helped guide Smeaton in choosing which parameters to vary, in
order to make the experiments feasible. An experiment with an unlimited
number of parameters to vary, or an unlimited number of variations for
each parameter, would take an unlimited amount of time to complete, so
it was necessary to reduce the number of variables to a manageable
amount.
The hypotheses that served to narrow the different parameters
needing to be varied were directly challenged in the course of gathering
the experimental data. Once a number of parameters had been varied, it
was possible to choose the optimal configuration for the objective in
question. For Vincenti (1990), systematic, experimental parameter vari-
ation is the characteristic methodology that is at the heart of optimisation
in engineering, although this kind of optimisation has not received much
attention in the secondary literature (p. 168). For example, although the
undershot waterwheel often had a higher output than the overshot
wheel, the overshot wheel was actually more efficient. So it was up to the
engineer to define optimisation conditions that best suited the project
that they were working on. Similarly, the straight-sailed windmill was
better gaining motion from rest than other sails, but twisted sails were
more efficient in motion (as we have seen, the outer edges of straight sails
generated too much lateral air resistance to their circular motion). Early
experiments would have tested sails accelerating from rest, whereas
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working windmills were generally in continuous motion throughout the
day.
In his experiments on hydraulic mortars, Smeaton followed the same
approach, establishing which mortar recipes would best resist certain
conditions, such as full submersion, alternating wet and dry or
completely dry. He also provided a table of mortar mixtures (Fig. 5)
ranging from the most expensive kind (to be used in the most weather-
worn parts of the lighthouse) to cheaper, less resilient mortars for less
exposed areas (Smeaton, 1791, p. 122).
The hypothesis-testing part of the experiments adhered to the most
basic, traditional view of scientific practice: evaluating a theory by
testing the consequences of that theory. Either the experiment will
confirm the hypothesis, or it will disprove it. This kind of theory-testing
vision of scientific activity has a long history in the philosophy of science,
and has generated pushback from more recent philosophers of science
who wish to counter such a theory-driven vision of science with an
experiment-driven vision grounded in actual scientific practices rather
than rational reconstructions.20
The continued focus on theory testing could arguably be attributed
to the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification,
according to which the philosophical significance of science was only to
be found in the way that science justified knowledge, not in the way that
it generated knowledge.21 However, since the last decades of the
twentieth century, historically-informed philosophers of science have
begun to devote more attention to the broader practices, methods and
aims of science, beyond justification. Despite no longer being consid-
ered to be the quintessential feature of scientific method, hypothesis
20
This is a common theme in the literature. See Hacking (1983, p. 154),
O'Malley (2007), Elliott (2007) and Steinle (2016, p. 317).
21
See Hacking (1983, p. 5) and Schickore and Steinle (2010).
A.M.A. Morris
Fig. 3. A sketch of Smeaton's windmill-testing apparatus from Smeaton (1759, p. 139).
testing is still an important aspect of scientific activity.22 However, by
looking at both discovery and justification, we gain a much clearer
understanding of Smeaton's methodology. Discovery is the topic of the
next section.
7. Generating maxims
The third aim of Smeaton's experiments was establishing maxims
(rules of thumb or empirical rules) that would help guide engineers in
their work. These maxims were generated from the data collected during
the course of his experiments. The term ‘maxim’ gained in popularity
around the middle of the eighteenth century, generally meaning a rule
for guiding conduct. It is perhaps best known to English-speaking phi-
losophers in virtue of Immanuel Kant's usage of the term in his moral
philosophy, although it was also used widely by the French moralists in
the previous century.23
Its use in scientific contexts is most clearly illustrated by the pio-
neering French engineer from the first half of the eighteenth century,
Bernard Forest de Belidor, whose work was carefully studied by Smeaton.
According to de Belidor (1737), maxims are rules derived from technical,
mathematical research that can be understood and used by the layperson
and/or artisan in their practical projects. These maxims are not only a
distillation of the current scientific research, they are also a simplification
of that research, aimed at readers who might be unable to understand
complex mathematics (de Belidor, 1737, p. 71).
22
O'Malley (2007, p. 354) notes that hypothesis-driven research is still fav-
oured when it comes to attracting funding.
23
For a survey of the term in Kant's work, see: Gressis (2010). La Rochefou-
cauld (1665) is a good example of a seventeenth-century moralist's work con-
taining maxims.
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
What is interesting about these maxims is that they are action-
oriented rules of thumb that will be most useful to someone who is
actually constructing the machine in question, such as a waterwheel. In
his paper on waterwheels, Smeaton also made reference to Leonhard
Euler's paper entitled ‘Maxims for arranging most advantageously ma-
chines intended to raise water by means of pumps’ (1754) which used
maxims in a similar way.
Maxims are important because they show that Smeaton went beyond
merely optimising machines and techniques; he also derived more general
empirical rules from his experiments. Importantly, however, establishing
maxims was not always simply a matter of reading off the relevant results –
in his paper on waterwheels and windmills, Smeaton used the sub-title
‘Observations and deductions from the foregoing experiments’ to intro-
duce the sections containing maxims and other more general conclusions
drawn from his experiments. This sub-title indicates to us that Smeaton was
aware of the need to carry out supplementary work to provide these
maxims and deductions, either by determining a mathematical relationship
between two features of the experiment, such as the input and output of a
waterwheel, or by carrying out supplementary research to generalise the
relationship, which he did in his work on mortars. In other words, it was not
possible to simply ‘read off’ the relevant maxims from the data tables.
Thus, we see that the four maxims derived from his experiments on
waterwheels are generalised, mathematical relationships approximately
derived from his results. They are simple rules that will aid an engineer
who is attempting to construct a waterwheel:
Maxim I. That the virtual or effective head [the virtual height through
which the water falls – see footnote] being the same, the effect will be
nearly as the quantity of water expended.
Maxim II. That the expence of water being the same, the effect will be
nearly as the height of the virtual or effective head.
A.M.A. Morris
Fig. 4. The table of results for Smeaton's experiments on windmills from Smeaton (1759, p. 144).
Maxim III. That the quantity of water expended being the same, the
effect is nearly as the square of its velocity.
Maxim 4th. The aperture being the same, the effect will be nearly as
the cube of the velocity of the water (Smeaton, 1759, pp. 116–120).
The following are the first three maxims derived from the windmill
experiments (out of a total of nine), and they have much the same
structure as the maxims derived from Smeaton's waterwheel
experiments:
Maxim I. The velocity of windmill sails, whether unloaded, or loaded
so as to produce a maximum, is nearly as the velocity of the wind,
their shape and position being the fame.
Maxim 2. The load at the maximum is nearly, but somewhat less than,
as the square of the velocity of the wind, the shape and position of the
sails being the same.
Maxim 3d. The effects of the same sails at a maximum are nearly, but
somewhat less than, as the cubes of the velocity of the wind (Smeaton,
1759, pp. 154–155).
Further, with his maxims relating to windmill sails, Smeaton was able
to show that certain maxims actually follow from the combination of
other maxims. This resonates with Friedrich Steinle's claim that ‘[i]t is
not just a single regularity that is the result of exploratory work, or a
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
disconnected collection of those, but often a coherent system’ (Steinle,
2002, p. 421).
Maxims such as these could serve as handy rules of thumb – Smeaton
is explicit about how these are approximations – that would help other
engineers who were tasked with building their own waterwheel or
windmill.
Smeaton placed much greater emphasis on maxim generation in his
papers published in the Philosophical Transactions, because he was con-
cerned with providing general, widely applicable rules for the con-
struction of waterwheels and windmills, rather than giving an historical
account of the process of developing the specific mortar used in the
construction of the Eddystone Lighthouse. As pointed out earlier in the
paper, this difference in emphasis demonstrates that the exploratory
research carried out by Smeaton was viewed as ‘scientific’ in ways that
testing workmen's maxims and optimisation weren't. For this reason,
Smeaton gave much less attention to maxim generation in his Narrative
on the construction of the Eddystone lighthouse. He did develop one
maxim, however.
By his method of parameter variation, Smeaton was able to determine
that the Aberthaw ‘Blue Lyas’ limestone was a good limestone for his
purposes. However, this conclusion was very limited – in order to
formulate a more general maxim, Smeaton needed to generalise the
principle behind the suitability of Aberthaw limestone. The workmen's
maxim that had been refuted was ‘the harder the limestone, the harder
A.M.A. Morris
Fig. 5. The table of results for Smeaton's experiments on mortars from Smeaton (1791, p. 122).
the lime’, which would have allowed the engineer to select the appro-
priate limestone based on its hardness. However, since this rule did not
apply to hydraulic mortars, Smeaton sought to formulate another, similar
rule. By chemically analysing different types of limestone using aqua
fortis (nitric acid), Smeaton established that it was a clay-like residue in
the rock sample that was correlated with the suitability of that kind of
limestone for hydraulic mortars. Smeaton was not a skilled chemist, so he
had asked his friend William Cookworthy (1705–1780) to help him
analyse different limestone types. Cookworthy was a local apothecary
who had trained in London. He is best known today as the first person in
Britain to succeed in replicating the Chinese porcelain-making process,
after discovering that deposits of the necessary ingredients – kaolin and
petuntse – could be found in Cornwall (Madge, 1993, p. 3). So Cook-
worthy already had experience in analysing rock samples.
The presence of this clay meant that Smeaton (1791) could replace
the maxim of ‘the harder the limestone the harder the lime’ with a better
rule: ‘This suggested to me the idea, that an admixture of Clay in the
composition of limestone, when treated as above specified, might be the
most certain index of the validity of a limestone for Aquatic Buildings’ (p.
108).
In this way Smeaton could establish rules for selecting the correct
limestone by correlating the results of the chemical analysis with the
results of his mortar tests. This further step was necessary to provide a
framework for extending his results. So instead of just saying ‘Aberthaw
limestone is better than chalk for the purpose of hydraulic mortars’,
Smeaton could say that limestone containing clay was better than lime-
stone without clay, for the purpose of hydraulic mortars. Instead of
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
needing to repeat Smeaton's lengthy experiments, future engineers would
only need to dissolve their limestone samples in aqua fortis to determine
whether they would be suitable for hydraulic mortars or not.
8. Did Smeaton carry out exploratory experiments?
Although Smeaton was working as an engineer, his approach shared
many similarities with the early phases of scientific research in new
fields. This because, in both artisanal engineering practices and pio-
neering scientific research, a mature theoretical framework was
conspicuously absent, hence the need for preliminary, exploratory
research. In the eighteenth century, engineering had not yet become the
formalized, scientifically informed discipline of the nineteenth century
and later. Much early engineering practice was based on rules of thumb,
trial-and-error, and approximation. This gave the discipline a structural
similarity with other emerging scientific fields, such as research into
electricity. As we will see in the next section, more recent research has
shown that even established fields of research can have exploratory
aspects.
As the focus in the philosophy of science has shifted away from a
theory-based picture of science towards an approach focused on actual
scientific practices instead of idealised reconstructions, so discussion of
broad terms like ‘inductive method’ have given way to more precise
accounts of exploratory practices, which have been grouped under the
name of exploratory experimentation. Although first associated with the
work of Andre-Marie Ampere (1775–1836) and Michael Faraday
(1791–1867), exploratory experimentation was not intended to be
A.M.A. Morris
limited to specific historical periods or scientific disciplines.24 Indeed,
more recent research has found evidence of exploratory methods in a
wide variety of scientific fields and historical periods.
A related feature that connects discussion of Smeaton's method and
exploratory experimentation, and that also distinguishes them from the
broader focus on inductive method, is the emphasis on the role played by
parameter variation. Parameter variation, which was heavily used by
Smeaton, is also an important feature of exploratory experimentation.
Why is parameter variation so central to exploratory experimentation?
Parameter variation is, in essence, a systematic method for tinkering with
an entity, phenomenon or experimental setup. This approach, which
bears a close relationship with trial-and-error problem-solving, involves
altering one variable whilst keeping everything else the same. When
done systematically, this allows the experimenter to establish empirical,
causal relationships, by identifying which parameters influence which
experimental outcomes.
A simple example of this kind of variation can be illustrated by early
research into electricity: the experimenter would vary the material
through which the electricity passed, in order to determine which ma-
terials were most conductive (Steinle, 2002, p. 411). This method was
particularly effective when other potentially relevant parameters, such as
temperature or the size and shape of the wire, were controlled.
Steinle and Elliot have been the most explicit about what might count
as an exploratory experiment, although, as we will see in the next section,
this vision has been considerably refined since its first articulation. There
are two key areas that distinguish exploratory experimentation from
other kinds of experiment:
1) The relation to theory
2) The experimental process
Concerning the relation to theory, exploratory experimentation is
often opposed to theory or hypothesis testing.25 This is the most impor-
tant distinguishing feature of this kind of experimentation. In more
recent literature on this topic, there is debate about whether exploratory
experimentation and hypothesis testing are mutually exclusive or
whether they are merely distinct but complementary. What differentiates
these two kinds of experiment is the open-endedness of the experimental
procedure. Does the experiment aim to demonstrate one specific hy-
pothesis, or does it aim to help understand a phenomenon in a broader,
less specific way? This aim is reflected in the experimental process.
The second major feature of exploratory experimentation is its
distinctive experimental process. In contrast to the highly focused ex-
periments used to test hypotheses, exploratory experimentation involves
a much looser experimental set-up that has the method of parameter
variation at its core (Elliott, 2007, p. 323). The instruments used in
exploratory experimentation are designed to allow for the manipulation
of multiple variables, as opposed to the specificity of theory-testing
experimental set-ups, which generally aim to pick out only one experi-
mental outcome (Steinle, 2016, p. 316).
So, a model waterwheel apparatus that was designed to only deter-
mine whether an overshot or undershot wheel was more efficient would
have had a much simpler design than Smeaton's waterwheel apparatus,
which, as we have seen, was designed to provide a wide selection of
variable experimental parameters in order to optimise the waterwheel
design as much as possible.
Steinle (2016) points out that not only are the instruments used in
exploratory experimentation unique, but the experimental practices
themselves also differ from those of hypothesis-testing experiments (p.
24
Steinle (2016, p. 7) suggests that other episodes from earlier periods might
also be used to illustrate the phenomenon of exploratory experimentation. It is
worth noting that Burian (1997) developed a closely related, but distinct, notion
of exploratory experimentation at around the same time.
25
See Steinle (2016, p. 4) and Elliott (2007, p. 333).
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
315). This can be seen in Smeaton's experiments on hydraulic lime
mortars, whose exploratory nature depended on the engineer's experi-
mental practice, rather than any specific kind of instrument.
Steinle (2016) emphasises the role of exploratory experiment in
establishing empirical regularities (p. 314). Although Smeaton's experi-
ments were resolutely practical, he wanted to arrive at conclusions with
greater generality than merely concluding that this waterwheel is more
efficient than that one, or this type of limestone is better suited to this
particular hydraulic lime. The practical nature of Smeaton's research
meant that he focused more on formulating regularities rather than on
the formation of novel concepts (which was another key feature of
exploratory experimentation underlined by Steinle), although Smeaton's
participation in the debate over vis viva does suggest some conceptual
instability was at play in the research into waterwheels (Steinle, 2002, p.
421).
To generate empirical rules, Smeaton needed to transform his
experimental observations into general maxims, which he did using
either mathematical relationships or chemical properties. By establishing
mathematical relationships between the elements of his maxims, Smea-
ton made those maxims applicable to many different possible waterwheel
configurations. And finding a more general way of identifying and
selecting the best kind of limestone for hydraulic mortars would be useful
for other engineers who might not have access to exactly the same kind of
limestone as Smeaton.
Can we conclude that Smeaton's experiments were exploratory?
Steinle in particular has pointed out that the philosophical focus has
tended to fall on hypothesis testing, because the context of justification
tended to be treated separately from the context of discovery (see
Schickore and Steinle, 2010). Steinle (2016) sees his work on exploratory
experimentation as breaking down this distinction by paying greater
attention to the generation of hypotheses, rather than their evaluation (p.
4).26 This distinction helps us see how Smeaton's experimental work was
twofold, both evaluating existing maxims and generating new maxims.
Significantly, it is the more exploratory research that was underlined in
the paper on waterwheels and windmills published in the Philosophical
Transactions, which indicates that the natural philosophers of the Royal
Society were interested in engineering research insofar as it was able to
produce regularities or general rules applicable to a variety of cases.
9. Compatibility of exploratory experimentation and hypothesis
testing
We have seen that, in Smeaton's research, maxim testing and maxim
generation go hand in hand. Does this mean that Smeaton's experimental
approach was not ‘exploratory’? Not according to more recent research
on exploratory experimentation. I argue, in line with this research, that
although hypothesis testing and exploratory experimentation are meth-
odologically distinct, they are not mutually exclusive, and are often used
together. So the fact that Smeaton tested workmen's hypotheses did not pre-
vent him from also carrying out exploratory work.
In this section I provide a brief survey of the recent literature that
makes a case for the compatibility of exploratory experimentation and
theory testing, as well as comparing Smeaton's method with some of the
methods discussed in this literature. We will see that, despite the fact that
the rigid philosophical distinction between theory-driven and theory-free
experiment does not stand up to scrutiny, the recent focus on exploratory
experimentation has nevertheless generated insights into experimental
practices with varying degrees of ‘theory-drivenness’ in different scien-
tific fields and during different historical periods.27
26
Although Waters (2007, p. 3) warns us not to reduce the distinction between
exploratory experimentation and theory-driven experimentation to the distinc-
tion between discovery and justification.
27
For a critical approach to the notion of exploratory experimentation and its
role in the philosophy of science, see Schickore (2016, p. 21).
A.M.A. Morris
Maureen O'Malley (2007) suggests that philosophical concerns have
taken precedence in establishing the opposition between exploratory
experimentation and hypothesis testing – such as challenging older
conceptions of scientific practice or taking a position on the issue of the
theory-ladenness of experiment (p. 351). O'Malley (2007) emphasises
that in practice, scientists use exploratory techniques and hypothesis
testing together:
[A]s new concepts and classificatory frameworks are being developed
to take proteorhodopsin into account, older theoretical frameworks
(e.g., about rhodopsin evolution) are being called into service and
examined for their adequacy in relation to this new knowledge. In
other words, hypothesis testing is brought in as part of the exploratory
approach (p. 350).
O'Malley (2007) proposes that providing a more nuanced account of
the relationship between exploratory experimentation and hypothesis
testing will be a potential avenue of future research (p. 355). One could
argue that it is obvious that scientists throughout history used experi-
ment to guide their research and not just to test their hypotheses. The aim
of the literature discussed in this section is to give an account of how these
different roles for experiment fit together.
David Colaço (2018), using the notion of ‘auxiliary hypothesis,’
shows how exploratory experiments can be directed by theories without
necessarily testing those theories (p. 6). This muddies the supposedly
clear distinction between exploratory and theory-driven experimenta-
tion, and supports the claim already advanced by O'Malley, that actual
scientific practice – in contrast to idealised philosophical reconstructions
– usually involves a mix of exploratory and theory-driven
experimentation.
But Koray Karaca (2017) comes closest to articulating the method
employed by Smeaton, making the case for experiments that ‘can have
both exploratory and non-exploratory components that, respectively,
consist of exploratory and non-exploratory procedures and that
contribute to the objectives of the experiment in different and comple-
mentary ways’ (p. 340). Karaca (2017) wants to move away from the
view according to which entire research programs must be classed as
either exploratory or theory-driven, instead suggesting that experiments
can have both exploratory and non-exploratory elements.
As we have seen, the role of hypothesis testing is to give focus and
direction to Smeaton's experiments, which would risk becoming un-
manageable otherwise. The selection of relevant parameters to vary
resulted in a narrowing of the possible outcomes of this research. How-
ever, it is worth noting that this narrowing was only relative – on Karaca's
account, experimentation gains an exploratory aspect when there is a
broadening of the parameters varied, resulting in the potential results of
those experiments being much more open-ended, whereas ‘[t]he non-
exploratory component of an experiment can involve procedures that
are aimed at narrowing down the scope of the experimental research to
the investigation of specific research questions’ (Karaca, 2017, p. 340).
Smeaton's selection of parameters to vary, based on challenging the
maxims of the workmen, constituted the non-exploratory side of the
experiments. Smeaton treated these maxims as hypotheses to be tested,
which fits Karaca's account of how non-exploratory components of an
experiment can be theory-driven (Karaca, 2017, p. 340).
This is also where the issue of background knowledge comes into
play. Although eighteenth-century engineers may not have been directly
applying natural philosophy in their work, they did possess a wide
background knowledge of natural philosophy which informed that work
indirectly (see, for example, Miller, 2019, p. 157). This more nuanced
position avoids the strong claims, either that technological developments
in the Industrial Revolution were not influenced by natural philosophy
(Hall, 1974), or that the growth of eighteenth-century engineering was a
direct result of Newtonian principles being applied to practical mechanics
(Dobbs and Jacob, 1995). Instead, we see that familiarity with natural
philosophy gave engineers the background knowledge they needed to
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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 89 (2021) 283–294
help determine which causally relevant parameters to vary in a given
experiment.28
‘Why is all this relevant?’ a critical reader might ask. By pursuing the
apparent similarities between exploratory experimentation and one facet
of Smeaton's method, we have found that the insights of more recent
research on exploratory experimentation by O'Malley, Colaço and
Karaca, according to which hypothesis testing and exploratory research
are intertwined in specific ways, are confirmed when looking at how
Smeaton proceeded. As our understanding of scientific practices becomes
more nuanced, so too does our understanding of the relationship between
science and technology.
We have seen that Smeaton made use of different scientific methods and
practices, and this in turn tells us about the specific ways that Smeaton made
his technological research ‘scientific’. Not only did he integrate the tradi-
tional scientific approach of hypothesis testing into his experimental prac-
tice, he also carried out the more open-ended work of gathering data and
finding regularities in the results of his experiments – this with the aim of
generating practical maxims. In methodological terms, by using hypothesis
testing and maxim generation in his practical experimentation, Smeaton
actually reduced the distinction between science and technology to a
distinction between two different kinds of subject matter and two different
overall goals (action-oriented vs epistemic), both of which could be treated
using very similar methodological approaches.
Put simply, the fact that we can find the same methods used in sci-
entific practices as diverse as nineteenth-century electrical research,
twentieth-century particle accelerator experiments or Smeaton's wind-
mill research, shows that, contrary to the classic view of Smeaton's
methodology, his experimental research was distinctly scientific, being
distinguishable from other scientific research only by the subject matter
and aims at optimisation. Although the intuition at the heart of the classic
view – that Smeaton systematised craft practices – is correct, we have
seen that it is this very systematisation that makes Smeaton's method-
ology scientific, because it leads him to propose and evaluate widely
applicable, general maxims, instead of merely improving machines or
processes in an ad hoc manner.
10. Conclusions
The analysis of Smeaton's methodology in his research into water-
wheels, windmills and hydraulic mortars has revealed that he did more than
merely systematise craft practices. Not only did Smeaton carry out what was
once viewed as the key feature of scientific activity – hypothesis testing – he
also established empirical regularities via a procedure that has come to be
known as exploratory experimentation. As our understanding of the role of
experimentation in scientific practice has broadened over the past few de-
cades, this has opened up the possibility of re-evaluating the place in the
history of science of engineers and technologists like Smeaton.
Although Smeaton was an excellent technician, I have made the case
in this paper that it is no longer plausible to claim that he did little more
than systematised trial-and-error or organised, yet relatively mindless
tinkering, as the classic view of his methodology suggests. He carried out
a program of rigorous testing of theoretical claims, workmen's maxims
and contemporary construction practices concerning waterwheel and
windmill functioning, and the mixing of hydraulic mortars. He also used
his results to formulate his own maxims, based on the empirical regu-
larities that were produced during his experiments. This is particularly
evident in his celebrated paper on waterwheels and windmills published
in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, and directly contradicts
Cardwell's claim, cited earlier, that Smeaton's work did not involve ‘sci-
entific research into the basic laws of the subject or system under
investigation’ (Cardwell, 1994, p. 195).
28
The role of background knowledge, in contrast to ‘local theories’, is debated
in the literature on exploratory experimentation. I will not enter into the details
of this discussion here. See Colaço (2018, pp. 38–39).
A.M.A. Morris
Having seen how Smeaton used methods drawn from both technology
(optimisation) and science (hypothesis testing, exploratory experimen-
tation), my hope is that this study can not only contribute to viewing
Smeaton's methodology in a new light, but that it might also constitute a
step towards a broader reappraisal of the relation between science and
technology at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Funding information
This work has been funded with a doctoral fellowship from the FWO –
Research Foundation Flanders, grant number 148531.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my doctoral supervisor, Steffen Ducheyne, for
his help during the writing of this paper. Various versions have been
presented at the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, and I would like to thank all those present for their
valuable comments. I have regularly solicited the advice of my colleagues
Jip van Besouw, Pieter Present and Frederik Dhondt, and I am very
grateful for the time and effort they put in. I would also like to thank the
anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions.
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