Episode Overview

In the 1660s, two towering thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle, clashed over a strange new machine: the air pump. What looked like a technical disagreement about air and vacuum quickly became something much larger.

This episode examines how Boyle's experimental approach and Hobbes's philosophical skepticism shaped the foundations of modern science, and why their dispute still echoes today in debates over expertise, public trust, and the role of scientists in public policy. From the invention of "virtual witnessing" to modern struggles with misinformation, this is a story about how facts become believable, and what happens when trust breaks down.

What You'll Learn

1. Why experiments alone do not create trust - You'll learn how Boyle's air-pump experiments required not just data, but carefully crafted descriptions and shared norms to make results credible beyond the room where they occurred.
2. What Hobbes was really worried about - This episode explains why Hobbes objected to experimental science, not because he rejected evidence, but because he feared the political and social consequences of letting small groups "certify reality."
3. How this 17th-century dispute explains modern science debates - From climate models to medical guidelines, you'll see how today's arguments over evidence, institutions, and public policy replay the same structural tensions Hobbes and Boyle exposed centuries ago.

📚 Resources & Further Reading

Leviathan and the Air‑Pump - Steven Shapin & Simon Schaffer

New Experiments Physico‑Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air - Robert Boyle

Royal Society - History & motto Nullius in verba

Pew Research Center - Public trust in scientists and policy debates (Nov. 2024 report)

Shapin, Steven. "Pump and Circumstance: Robert Boyle's Literary Technology." Social Studies of Science (1984)

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