Bastos Francisco Inácio
Laboratório de Informações em Saúde, Instituto de Informação Científica e Teconológica em Saúde, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil, 21040-900.
Hist Cienc Saude Manguinhos. 2010 Mar;17(1):141-52. doi: 10.1590/s0104-59702010000100009.
The philosopher Paul Feyerabend and Brazilian scientists Maurício da Rocha e Silva and Newton Freire-Maia were contemporaries and lived surrounded by the fundamental dilemnas of science. The anarchist proposal of Feyerabend, then embryonic, was formulated in parallel by Rocha e Silva in his criticism of the scientific method. Two decades later, Feyerabend's ideas seemed implicitly to stimulate Newton Freire-Maia in his reflections on science. The web of interrelationships in the ideas of these three men - who never interacted - touches on central issues for Brazilian science from 1960 to 1980, a period in which the latter is consolidated in a dialogue with the nascent reflection on science and the scientific method in Brazil.