Science Wars

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Science Wars ◽  
History Of ◽  
Effective Science

What do scientists actually know and what do they know about? Answers to these questions are crucial not only for our understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge, but also for the formulation of effective science-based public policies, from global warming and energy to biotechnology and nanoscience. There is a lack of convincing answers to these questions because of an illogical conflation within modern science of epistemology and ontology, seeking to transcend experience and produce knowledge of reality using experience itself. Attempts at explaining the nature of scientific knowledge from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries reveal that scientific reasoning has selectively employed deduction and induction, rationalism and empiricism, the universal and the particular, and necessity and contingency as if these opposites were compatible. As Thomas Kuhn showed, the history of science belies the definitive truth of ontological claims deduced from theories and, as a corollary, the definitive truth of theories themselves. Science Wars reviews the competing conceptions of scientific knowledge from Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century BCE to the “science wars” of the 1990s and provides thought-provoking analyses for understanding scientific thought in the twenty-first century.

Introduction: Why Science Wars?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Steven L. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Science Wars ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
Knowledge Claims

While all definitions are stipulative by nature and reflect alternative usages, the meaning of the word “knowledge” is especially ambiguous. It carries profound consequences for what we mean by truth, reality, and rationality, but most importantly for our understanding of scientific knowledge claims. Rhetorically, knowledge trumps belief and opinion, but it is not clear that knowledge, even scientific knowledge, is essentially different from and superior to belief and opinion. As to the questions of what scientists know and how they know it, no answers have stood up to critical scrutiny in the history of modern science. Despite this uncertainty, modern science has claimed a hegemony in our society on the production of knowledge as superior to belief and opinion.

scholarly journals Creating the Ancient Rhetorical Tradition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Viidebaum
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Pivotal Moments ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Persuasive Speech

This book explores the history of rhetorical thought and examines the gradual association of different aspects of rhetorical theory with two outstanding fourth-century BCE writers: Lysias and Isocrates. It highlights the parallel development of the rhetorical tradition that became understood, on the one hand, as a domain of style and persuasive speech, associated with the figure of Lysias, and, on the other, as a kind of philosophical enterprise which makes significant demands on moral and political education in antiquity, epitomized in the work of Isocrates. There are two pivotal moments in which the two rhetoricians were pitted against each other as representatives of different modes of cultural discourse: Athens in the fourth century BCE, as memorably portrayed in Plato's Phaedrus, and Rome in the first century BCE when Dionysius of Halicarnassus proposes to create from the united Lysianic and Isocratean rhetoric the foundation for the ancient rhetorical tradition.

Phoenicia in the Roman Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-124
Author(s):  
Julien Aliquot
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Traditions

This chapter traces the history of Phoenicia from the advent of Rome in Syria at the beginning of the first century bce to the foundation of the Christian empire of Byzantium in the fourth century ce. It focuses on the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. Special attention is paid to the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. The focus is on provincial institutions and cities, which provided a basis for the new order. However, side trails are also taken to assess the flowering of Hellenism and the revival of local traditions in the light of the Romanization of Phoenicia and its hinterland.

Why Engaging in the Practices of Science Is Not Enough to Achieve Scientific Literacy

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
pp. 370-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy R. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Next Generation Science Standards ◽  
Habits Of Mind ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Effective Science ◽  
Culture Of Science ◽  
K 12

The National Research Council's Framework for K–12 Science Education and the resulting Next Generation Science Standards call for engaging students in the practices of science to develop scientific literacy. While these documents make the connections between scientific knowledge and practices explicit, very little attention is given to the shared values and commitments of the scientific community that underlie these practices and give them meaning. I argue that effective science education should engage students in the practices of science while also reflecting on the values, commitments, and habits of mind that have led to the practices of modern science and that give them meaning. The concept of methodological naturalism demonstrates the connection between the values and commitments of the culture of science and its practices and provides a useful lens for understanding the benefits and limitations of scientific knowledge.

Greco-Roman Surgical Instruments

2018 ◽  
pp. 554-590
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. Bliquez
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Surgical Instruments ◽  
First Century ◽  
Bladder Stones ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

The chapter looks at Greek and Roman surgical instruments. The survival of Greco-Roman surgical instruments falls into two divisions: tools available in Hippocratic times (fifth to fourth century bce), and instruments at the disposal of surgeons, mostly Greek, from the late Republic through the Empire (first century bce to fifth century ce). From the former, most survivals are cupping vessels from graves. The texts suggest the Hippocratic physician often created his tool on the spot or had a tool prepared for an immediate need, whereas most of an Imperial surgeon’s repertoire consisted of instruments professionally made and sold by smiths. The various kinds of instruments are described, explained, and illustrated: cupping vessels, scalpels, phlebotomes (for phlebotomy), lithotomes (for bladder stones), needles, probes, cauteries, hooks, forceps, saws, drills, chisels, files, levers, tubes, douches, specula, and abortives.

scholarly journals The excavation of the Roman villa in Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead, 1963-8

1974 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman Villa ◽  
History Of

This is an account of excavations of the Roman villa in Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead, which took place in 1963–8. It describes the history of a villa from its simple beginnings in the first century A.D. to its heyday in the fourth century when the owner could boast one of the largest villa bath houses and a bathing pool comparable in size to the Great Bath at Bath. In the mid-fourth century disaster struck. The coin evidence shows that the villa came to an abrupt end and that in or about A.D. 353 it may have been demolished as a result of reprisals against the owner for his support of the rebellion by Magnentius.

scholarly journals Russian Archaeology in Palestine

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Леонид Беляев ◽  
Leonid Belyaev
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Scientific Heritage ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

The paper summarizes the findings of the historiographic and archaeological fieldwork focused on the preservation and development of the scientific heritage of the Russian scientists of the 19th — early 20th centuries in the area of the Syro-Palestinian region that most closely matches the concept of the “Holy Land”. The author identifies three core directions of development in the Russian archaeology: field study of the traces of the Russian pilgrims, scientists, representatives of the government and the Orthodox Church; study of antiquities in some Russian areas; insights into the heritage of the 19th — early 20th centuries as historical sources with its further inclusion in the system of modern scientific knowledge. The paper describes the findings obtained to date (including the interim results of excavations in Jericho, the scientific interpretation of a number of artefacts from the collection of Antonin Kapustin, the first catalogues of archaeological sites in the Russian areas). The author focuses on expanding fieldwork, classifying and attributing antiquities, launching them in circulation at the level of modern science, creating a monograph on the history of the Russian studies in the 19th — early 20th centuries.

scholarly journals Mogontiacum: czynniki rozwoju

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Mrozewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Real City

The history of Mogontiacum spans the period from 17/16 BCE to the end of the fourth century CE. It was a strong military base (with two legions stationed there in the first century) and a major settlement centre, though without municipal rights. However, the demographic and economic development, as well as the superior administrative and political status enabled Mogontiacum to transform – in socio-economic and urbanistic terms – into a real city. This process was crowned in the latter half of the third century with the construction of the city walls.

scholarly journals The Early Royal Society and Visual Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachiko Kusukawa
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Production Processes ◽  
History Of

Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artifacts—manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting, and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades.” Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records.

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