History of Science

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History of Science

• Study of the change of natural knowledge claims
  over time and also the cause of these changes.
• Science dynamics.
• A vast field (Plato-NATO) embracing many
  different scientific traditions, from Algebra to
  Zoology.
• Todays science is tomorrows history of
  science.

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Aristotelian Cosmology

• Geocentrism
• Heavens
• Uniform circular motion
• Perfect and incorruptable
• Quintessence or aether
• Sublunar realm
• Natural place and natural motion
• Generation and corruption
• Four elements earth, water, air, and fire
• Cold, hot, most, dry, affinity and opposition

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The sub-lunar realm
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Aristotelian natural philosophy
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Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places

• Emphasized the effects of climate and other
  geographical factors on human health.
• People inhabiting harsh climates in rugged and
  mountainous terrain are large, naturally
  courageous, and warlike while people living in
  leas and hollows where hot winds prevail tend to
  be broad and fleshy with dark complexions.
• Asians are more gentle and less warlike than
  Europeans, due in part to milder changes of
  seasons which reduce rapid physical and
  physiological changes and their accompanying
  mental shocks.
• Climate is a primary influence, but human
  institutions could have a moderating effect.
• Overall, however, the relationship between health
  and lifestyle is under the direct influence, if
  not the control, of airs, waters, and places.

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Hippocratic medicine
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Scientific Revolutions
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Scientific Revolution(s)

• The Scientific Revolution is a term commonly
  referring to the transformation of thought about
  nature through which the Aristotelian tradition
  was replaced by so-called "modern" science.
• Most see it as a series of events focused in the
  period 16th and 17th century or, more precisely,
  from 1543 (De Revolutionibus of Copernicus) to
  1687 (Principia of Newton). Others grant it some
  status from 1300 to 1800.
• Still others, see revolutions all around,
  Glorious, American, French, Industrial, Chemical,
  Darwininan, Freudian, Russian, Quantum, and Plate
  Tectonics.
• Revolution, revolutions, or evolution of ideas,
  it depends on whom you read.

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Nicholas Copernicus(1473 1543)
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Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)De humani corporis
fabrica, 1543 On the fabric of the human body
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William Harvey (1578 1657)and the circulation
of the blood
De Motu Cordis 1628
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• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
• Natural Philosopher
• Government Official
• Lord Chancellor
• Novum Organon
• Great Instauration
• New Atlantis
• Compass, Gunpowder, Printing
• The ant, the spider, the bee

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William Gilbert

• De Magnete (1600)

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• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
• Kinematics and Astronomy
• Telescope
• Sunspots, Phases of Venus, Lunar craters, Moons
  of Jupiter, Milky way made of stars
• Support of Heliocentrism
• Experiments with falling bodies
• Mathematics of motion

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Galileo explains his discovery to the Pope
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• René Descartes (1596-1650)
• Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
• Analytic geometry
• Le monde (1633)
• LHomme (1637)
• Discours de la Méthode (1637)
• Principia philosophia (1644)
• Les Passions de lâme (1649)
• Dynamics

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Evangelista Torricellis Experiment (1644)

• Nature does not abhor a vacuum and the air has
  weight.

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Blaise Pascal and Florin Périer

• On September 19, 1648, Florin Périer and some
  friends perform the Torricelli experiment on top
  of Puy de Dôme in central France. The height of
  the mercury column is 85 mm less than in
  Clermont-Ferrand at the base of the mountain,
  about 1000 meters below.

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• Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
• Experimental Method, Natural Philosophy
• Air Pump
• Skeptical Chymist (1661)
• Boyles Law
• Royal Society of London
• Public Verification of Science

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An experiment on a bird in the air pump, by
Joseph Wright
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• Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
• Theory of Light
• Theory of Motion
• Theory of Gravity
• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
  (1667)
• Dynamics
• Alchemy
• Theology
• Master of the Mint
• Newtonian World System

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Mechanical Philosophy

• Natural law
• Reductionistic
• Mathematical
• Materialistic
• Anti-teleological
• Inductive
• Observation
• Experimental method
• Clockwork universe

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Herbert Butterfield (1949)

• Since the Scientific Revolution overturned the
  authority in science not only of the middle ages
  but of the ancient world
• Since it ended not only in the eclipse of
  scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of
  Aristotelian physics
• It outshines everything since the rise of
  Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and
  Reformation to the realm of mere episodes, mere
  internal displacements, within the system of
  medieval Christendom.

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Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature.

• The removal of animistic, organic assumptions
  about the cosmos constituted the death of
  naturethe most far-reaching effect of the
  Scientific Revolution.
• Because nature was now viewed as a system of
  dead, inert particles moved by external, rather
  than inherent forces, the mechanical framework
  itself could legitimate the manipulation of
  nature.
• Moreover, as a conceptual framework, the
  mechanical order had associated with it a
  framework of values based on (masculine) power,
  fully compatible with the directions taken by
  commercial capitalism.

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Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions

• What are scientific revolutions all about?
• 1. The community's rejection of a time-honored
  scientific theory in favor of another
  incompatible (or incommensurable) with it.
• 2. A shift in the problems available for
  scientific scrutiny and the standards of
  legitimate problem solving.
• 3. Each involved a transformation of the
  scientific imagination and worldview.
• 4. Each involved heated controversy.
• 5. Each was followed by a period of normal
  science
• 6. Examples Copernicus, Newton, Lavosier,
  Einstein.

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Is there a Post-normal science?

• 'Post-Normal Science', a mode of scientific
  problem-solving appropriate to policy issues
  where facts are uncertain, values are in dispute,
  stakes are high and decisions are urgent. 
•  Todays blogs are becoming the equivalent of
  printing which empowered the Protestant
  revolution against the Church.
• Scientific elites vs. the extended peer-to-peer
  community with its new technological base, the
  internet.
• Wikipedia, post-normal science
• Opens more of science to the democratic process.
• Problems Critics are not usually researchers.
• Junk science.
• Conspiracy theorists.
• Needed ethics in science and reform of peer
  review.