The Art of Earth Measuring: Overlapping Scientific Styles

Résumé 0

"The aim of this paper is to point out significant and meaningful overlappingbetween several styles of scientific thinking, as they were proposed by Crombie(1981) and discussed by Hacking (1985; 2009). This paper is divided in foursections. First, I examine an interpretation made by Barnes (2004) about theincompatibility among scientific styles. As explained by its author, this interpretationdenies any possibility of similarities between styles of scientific reasoning.In opposition, the following sections of this paper include explanations of relevantcharacteristics of Geometry, as stated in Euclid’s Elements, which are alsopresent in other three scientific styles: modeling, experimental exploration andtaxonomic style (and some of the shared characteristics are even used to definesuch styles). By stressing out these characteristics I argue that these four stylesdiscussed by Hacking are not so different from each other, in fact, they overlapand may even be abridged into one foundational style: geometric."