9319955 Rudwick Modern analyses of the practice of scientific research have generally focussed on laboratory work. But much scientific knowledge is (and has been) produced in two other locations, namely in the field and in museums. Understanding how scientific research generates reliable knowledge would be enhanced by closer study of such non-laboratory settings. Historical studies are particularly important because they help distinguish intrinsic--or at least long-term--features of the process from those that contingently characterize our present moment in history. Dr. Rudwick is consequently undertaking a study of a major development in the history of science for which the original research took place almost entirely in the field and in museums, not in laboratories. Specifically, he is examining what he has called the "discovery of time." Three centuries ago, a cosmic history totalling a few thousand years seemed so obviously reasonable that is was simply taken for granted by almost all educated people. It has been replaced by one in which the age of the universe, and indeed of the earth, is routinely estimated in billions of years. This revolution in perspective should be considered, however, not primarily as a mere expansion of the timescale, but rather in terms of a reconstruction of an unexpectedly long and complex history of nature, in which human beings turn out to have been relative newcomers. Learning how to make such a reconstruction was largely worked out by geologists during a mere half-century, a period equivalent to no more than a single scientific lifetime. The most decisive part of this research was the reconstruction of geologically quite recent history: specifically it entailed learning how to relate recorded human history to the far earlier periods of prehuman history. This grant continues support for Dr. Rudwick's study on this outstandingly important field- and museum-based scientific research, on the basis of a detailed analys is of relevant books and articles, correspondence, and field and museum notes. This study should help to deepen our understanding of how reliable scientific knowledge is generated in settings other than that of the laboratory. ***
