The Computer as a Scientific Instrument

电子数字计算机在几个科学领域带来了重大的变化。基于计算机的建模和统计分析工具具有自动数据收集、存储和分析功能。计算机模拟使科学家们能够可视化他们在自然界中无法观察到的现象。然而，这些应用也为科学实践提出了问题：模拟和数据分析是因果模型的有效来源吗？可以用计算机模拟相同过程来代替或补充实验吗？计算已经改变了许多学科的科学实践，但科学计算的历史还没有被写出来。作为实现这一目标的第一步，研究人员将研究计算机作为科学工具在生物、物理和行为科学等不同领域的应用。提议者将从1975年至大约1975年期间对若干科学领域的第一手和第二手资料进行系统的书目检索开始。然后，他们将进行历史研究，包括档案分析、现场访问和一系列选定的访谈。尽管每个科学领域的研究方法因研究者而异，但他们的努力将被一个共同的目标和共同的研究问题联合起来，包括努力将计算机置于其制度、社会和智力环境中；理解计算机是如何改变科学实践的，又是如何被科学实践改变的；并分析计算机是如何被用来提升某些机构、个人和方法的权威的。

The electronic digital computer has brought about significant changes in several fields of science. Computer-based modelling and statistical analysis tools have automated data collection, storage and analysis. Computer simulations have allowed scientists to visualize phenomena they could not observe in nature. Yet such applications also raised questions for the practice of science: Are simulation and data analysis valid sources for causal models? Can experiments be replaced or supplemented by computer simulations of the same processes? Computing has transformed the practice of science in many disciplines, yet no history of scientific computing has yet been written. As a first step toward this goal, the investigators will examine the use of computers as scientific instruments in diverse fields of biological, physical, and behavioral science. The proposers will begin with a systematic bibliographic search of primary and secondary sources for several fields of science for the period from 1975 through about 1975. Then they will undertake historical research, including archival analysis, on-site visits, and a selected set of interviews. Although the approaches to material in each field of science will vary from one investigator to another, their efforts will be united by a common goal and common research questions, including efforts to situate the computer within its institutional, social, and intellectual context; to understand how the computer changed scientific practices and was changed by them; and to analyze how computers were used to promote the authority of certain institutions, individuals, and methods.