Expanding Horizons in the History of Science

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. E. R. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Current Anthropology

This book challenges the common assumption that the predominant focus of the history of science should be the achievements of Western scientists since the so-called Scientific Revolution. The conceptual frameworks within which the members of earlier societies and of modern indigenous groups worked admittedly pose severe problems for our understanding. But rather than dismiss them on the grounds that they are incommensurable with our own and to that extent unintelligible, we should see them as offering opportunities for us to revise many of our own preconceptions. We should accept that the realities to be accounted for are multi-dimensional and that all such accounts are to some extent value-laden. In the process insights from current anthropology and the study of ancient Greece and China especially are brought to bear to suggest how the remit of the history of science can be expanded to achieve a cross-cultural perspective on the problems.

The Dawn of Scientific Biography

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-230
Author(s):  
Michael Segre
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Scientific Biography ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Model

Abstract This article endeavors to contribute to a better understanding of the literary contexts of early biographies of scientists written during the Scientific Revolution. To what extent are these biographies influenced by stereotypes that are an inadequate fit for modern history of science? Its claim is that there was, indeed, a literary model for biographies of scientists, and that this model had deep roots in Biblical and classical literature. While the model was similar to that used in Renaissance biographies of artists, it did not fully emerge until as late as the seventeenth century.

History of Science and Medicine

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Staffan Müller-Wille
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Growth Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Agendas ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores what both historians of medicine and historians of science could gain from a stronger entanglement of their respective research agendas. It first gives a cursory outline of the history of the relationship between science and medicine since the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. Medicine can very well be seen as a domain that was highly productive of scientific knowledge, yet in ways that do not fit very well with the historiographic framework that dominated the history of science. Furthermore, the article discusses two alternative historiographical approaches that offer ways of thinking about the growth of knowledge that fit well with the cumulative and translational patterns that characterize the development of the medical sciences, and also provide an understanding of concepts such as ‘health’ and ‘life’.

The History of Science as European Self-Portraiture

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORRAINE DASTON
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
World History ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Image ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

Since the Enlightenment, the history of science has been enlisted to show the unity and distinctiveness of Europe. This paper, written on the occasion of the award of the 2005 Erasmus Prize to historians of science Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin, traces the intertwined narratives of the history of science and European modernity from the 18th century to the present. Whether understood as triumph or tragedy (and there have been eloquent proponents of both views), the Scientific Revolution has been portrayed as Europe's decisive break with tradition – the first such break in world history and the model for all subsequent epics of modernization in other cultures. The paper concludes with reflections on how a new history of science, exemplified in the work of Shapin and Schaffer, may transform the self-image of Europe and conceptions of truth itself.

Burke and Wills

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Australia ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Scientific Legacy ◽  
Scientific Investigations ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Scientific Value ◽  
First Time ◽  
Scientific Achievements

This book challenges the common assumption that little or nothing of scientific value was achieved during the Burke and Wills expedition. The Royal Society of Victoria initiated the Victorian Exploring Expedition as a serious scientific exploration of hitherto unexplored regions of inland and northern Australia. Members of the expedition were issued with detailed instructions on scientific measurements and observations to be carried out, covering about a dozen areas of science. The tragic ending of the expedition meant that most of the results of the scientific investigations were not reported or published. Burke and Wills: The Scientific Legacy of the Victorian Exploring Expedition rectifies this historic omission. It includes the original instructions as well as numerous paintings and drawings, documents the actual science undertaken as recorded in notebooks and diaries, and analyses the outcomes. It reveals for the first time the true extent and limits of the scientific achievements of both the Burke and Wills expedition and the various relief expeditions which followed. Importantly, this new book has led to a re-appraisal of the shortcomings and the successes of the journey. It will be a compelling read for all those interested in the history of exploration, science and natural history, as well as Australian history and heritage.

The History of Physics: A Very Short Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Heilbron
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
History Of Physics ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Century Science ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Medieval Scholar

How does today’s physics—highly professionalized; inextricably linked to government and industry—link back to its origins as a liberal art in ancient Greece? The History of Physics: A Very Short Introduction tells the 2,500-year story, exploring the changing place and purpose of physics in different cultures; highlighting the implications for humankind’s self-understanding. It introduces Islamic astronomers and mathematicians calculating the Earth’s size; medieval scholar-theologians investigating light; Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, measuring, and trying to explain, the universe. It visits: the House of Wisdom in 9th-century Baghdad; Europe’s first universities; the courts of the Renaissance; the Scientific Revolution and 18th-century academies; and the increasingly specialized world of 20th‒21st-century science.

The Origins of Unions: Some Miscellaneous Sydney Workers in 1910

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-308
Author(s):  
Christopher Sheil
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Occupational Group ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Union Formation ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

In considering the causes and possible corrections for the current decline in Australian trade union membership, it may help to reflect on the origins of the movement. This article presents evidence and an argument about one aspect of the origins of the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union (FMWU). The evidence concerns the social history of watchmen, caretakers and cleaners, who formed the original core of the union's membership. The argument is that these workers amounted to such an improbable basis for a union that the simple fact of their organization represents a substantial challenge to the common assumption in labour history that it is the cohesion of an occupational group that empowers it. To the extent that the origins of the union are typical, it can be suggested that the period of tremendous Australian trade union formation and growth between 1907 and 1913 owed much more to general political and, by extertsion, social conditions than it did to the specific circumstances of any particular section of workers.

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