Edited by Rom Harr~ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), viii+ 104 pp., s (paperback). Until recently the annual Herbert Spencer Lectures given at Oxford were delivered by one person who developed a theme through a succession of talks. However, a new trend has now started with a number of speakers (on the same topic) contributing to the same series. The 1973 series, published in the volume under review here, was on the topic of progress in the sciences, and had a most distinguished set of contributors. These were: Sir Hermann Bondi ('What is Progress in Science ?'); J. L. Monod ('On the Molecular Theory of Evolution'); W. F. Bodmer ('Biomedical Advances: A Mixed Blessing ?'); J. R. Ravetz ('... et Augebitur Scientia'), B. F. Skinner ('The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behaviour'); and Sir Karl Popper ('The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions').
I must confess that, in true Popperian fashion, I approach volumes like this in a thoroughly theory-laden manner. My experience is that all-toooften it is absolutely disastrous to get together a group of distinguished thinkers, particularly distinguished scientists, and ask them to pontificate on some of the problems of science, particularly when these problems are philosophical problems of science. What one gets are half-baked meanderings better suited to the faculty club than the lecture theatre, and when these trivia duly appear in print one is painfully aware that were there some anonymous refereeing system they would long ago have disappeared into the wastepaper basket.
At one level much of this volume confirms my worst suspicions.