Download or read book The Origins of Natural Science written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1985 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 9 lectures, Dornach, December 24, 1922 - January 6, 1923 (CW 326) "Modern science, and the scientism based on it, so far from being the only possible 'reality principle, ' is merely one way of conceiving the nature of reality; a way moreover that has arisen only recently and that there is no reason to suppose will last forever." -- Owen Barfield(from the introduction) These talks outline the subtle changes in our ideas and feelings in relation to the development of natural science. Through this, Steiner shows the significance of scientific research and the mode of thinking that goes with it. As we look at what technology has brought us, we may have a feeling like the pain we feel over the death of a loved one. According to Steiner, this feeling of loss will eventually become our most important stimulation to seek the spirit. This book is a translation from German of Der Entstehungsmoment der Naturwissenschaft in der Weltgeschichte und ihre seitherige Entwicklung (GA 326).
Download or read book Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire written by Sarah Irving and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Represents a history of the British Empire that takes account of the sense of empire as intellectual as well as geographic dominion: the historiography of the British Empire, with its preoccupation of empire as geographically unchallenged sovereignty, overlooks the idea of empire as intellectual dominion.
Download or read book Boundaries of Natural Science written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1987-06 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Translated by Frederick Amrine and Konrad Oberhuber from shorthand reports unrevised by the lecturer, from the 4th edition (1969) of the German text published under the title Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis (Vol. 322 in the Bibliographic survey)"--Copyright page.
Download or read book A Student s Guide to Natural Science written by Stephen M. Barr and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-07 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physicist Stephen M. Barr’s lucid Student’s Guide to Natural Science gives students an understanding, in broad outline, of the nature, history, and great ideas of natural science from ancient times to the present, with a primary focus on physics. Barr discusses the contributions of the ancient Greeks, the medieval roots of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the role religion played in fostering the idea of a lawful natural order, and the major theoretical breakthroughs of modern physics. Throughout this thoughtful guide, Barr draws his readers’ attention to the larger themes and trends of scientific history, including the increasing unification of our view of the physical world, in which the laws of nature appear increasingly to form a single harmonious mathematical edifice.
Download or read book Greek Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science written by P. Nicolacopoulos and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Greek colleagues, in Greece and abroad, must know (indeed they do know) how pleasant it is to recognize the renaissance of the philosophy of science among them with this fine collection. Classical and modern, technical and humane, historical and logical, admirably original and respectfully traditional, these essays will deserve close study by philosophical readers throughout the world. Classical scholars and historians of science likewise will be stimulated, and the historians of ancient as well as modern philosophers too. Reviewers might note one or more of the contributions as of special interest, or as subject to critical wrestling (that ancient tribute); we will simply congratulate Pantelis Nicolacopoulos for assembling the essays and presenting the book, and we thank the contributors for their works and for their happy agreement to let their writings appear in this book. R. S. C. xi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Neither philosophy nor science is new to Greece, but philosophy of science is. There are broader (socio-historical) and more specific (academic) reasons that explain, to a satisfactory degree, both the under-development of philosophy and history of science in Greece until recently and its recent development to international standards. It is, perhaps, not easy to have in mind the fact that the modem Greek State is only 160 years old (during quite a period of which it was consider ably smaller than it is today, its present territory having been settled after World War II).
Download or read book Seeing New Worlds written by Laura Dassow Walls and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1995-11-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture. Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreau’s day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the “two cultures” we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldt’s scientific approach resulted in not only his “marriage” of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his “The Dispersion of Seeds” since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species. This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, “organic” Romanticism. Instead, Thoreau’s experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges today’s “two cultures” in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature.
Download or read book The Science of Describing written by Brian W. Ogilvie and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Out of the diverse traditions of medical humanism, classical philology, and natural philosophy, Renaissance naturalists created a new science devoted to discovering and describing plants and animals. Drawing on published natural histories, manuscript correspondence, garden plans, travelogues, watercolors, and drawings, The Science of Describing reconstructs the evolution of this discipline of description through four generations of naturalists. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, naturalists focused on understanding ancient and medieval descriptions of the natural world, but by the mid-sixteenth century naturalists turned toward distinguishing and cataloguing new plant and animal species. To do so, they developed new techniques of observing and recording, created botanical gardens and herbaria, and exchanged correspondence and specimens within an international community. By the early seventeenth century, naturalists began the daunting task of sorting through the wealth of information they had accumulated, putting a new emphasis on taxonomy and classification. Illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, and photographs, The Science of Describing is the first broad interpretation of Renaissance natural history in more than a generation and will appeal widely to an interdisciplinary audience.
Download or read book Acolytes of Nature written by Denise Phillips and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-06-04 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many of the practical and intellectual traditions that make up modern science date back centuries, the category of “science” itself is a relative novelty. In the early eighteenth century, the modern German word that would later mean “science,” naturwissenschaft, was not even included in dictionaries. By 1850, however, the term was in use everywhere. Acolytes of Nature follows the emergence of this important new category within German-speaking Europe, tracing its rise from an insignificant eighteenth-century neologism to a defining rallying cry of modern German culture. Today’s notion of a unified natural science has been deemed an invention of the mid-nineteenth century. Yet what Denise Phillips reveals here is that the idea of naturwissenschaft acquired a prominent place in German public life several decades earlier. Phillips uncovers the evolving outlines of the category of natural science and examines why Germans of varied social station and intellectual commitments came to find this label useful. An expanding education system, an increasingly vibrant consumer culture and urban social life, the early stages of industrialization, and the emergence of a liberal political movement all fundamentally altered the world in which educated Germans lived, and also reshaped the way they classified knowledge.
Download or read book The Epigenetics Revolution written by Nessa Carey and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
Download or read book The Natural Sciences written by John A. Bloom and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether it’s widely promoted debates streamed over the internet or a big-budget documentary series on TV, the supposed “conflict” between science and faith remains as prominent as ever. In this accessible guide for students, a well-regarded science professor introduces readers to the natural sciences from a distinctly Christian perspective. Starting with the classical view of God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, this book lays the biblical foundation for the study of the natural world and explores the history of scientific reflection from Kepler to Darwin. This informative resource argues that the Christian worldview provides the best grounds for scientific investigation, offering readers the framework they need to think and speak clearly about this important issue.
Download or read book Kant Natural Science written by Immanuel Kant and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 821 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together work by Kant never before available in English, along with new translations of his most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms.
Download or read book A Natural History of Time written by Pascal Richet and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The quest to pinpoint the age of the Earth is nearly as old as humanity itself. For most of history, people trusted mythology or religion to provide the answer, even though nature abounds with clues to the past of the Earth and the stars. In A Natural History of Time, geophysicist Pascal Richet tells the fascinating story of how scientists and philosophers examined those clues and from them built a chronological scale that has made it possible to reconstruct the history of nature itself. Richet begins his story with mythological traditions, which were heavily influenced by the seasons and almost uniformly viewed time cyclically. The linear history promulgated by Judaism, with its story of creation, was an exception, and it was that tradition that drove early Christian attempts to date the Earth. For instance, in 169 CE, the bishop of Antioch, for instance declared that the world had been in existence for “5,698 years and the odd months and days.” Until the mid-eighteenth century, such natural timescales derived from biblical chronologies prevailed, but, Richet demonstrates, with the Scientific Revolution geological and astronomical evidence for much longer timescales began to accumulate. Fossils and the developing science of geology provided compelling evidence for periods of millions and millions of years—a scale that even scientists had difficulty grasping. By the end of the twentieth century, new tools such as radiometric dating had demonstrated that the solar system is four and a half billion years old, and the universe itself about twice that, though controversial questions remain. The quest for time is a story of ingenuity and determination, and like a geologist, Pascal Richet carefully peels back the strata of that history, giving us a chance to marvel at each layer and truly appreciate how far our knowledge—and our planet—have come.
Download or read book The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science written by Peter Harrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-20 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: See:
Download or read book The Bible Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science written by Peter Harrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-07-26 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the role played by the Bible in the emergence of natural science.
Download or read book Leo Strauss on Science written by Svetozar Y. Minkov and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, Leo Strauss on Science brings to light the thoughts of Leo Strauss on the problem of science. Introducing us to Strauss's reflections on the meaning and perplexities of the scientific adventure, Svetozar Y. Minkov explores questions such as: Is there a human wisdom independent of science? What is the relation between poetry and mathematics, or between self-knowledge and theoretical physics? And how necessary is it for the human species to exist immutably in order for the classical analysis of human life to be correct? In pursuing these questions, Minkov aims to change the conversation about Strauss, one of the great thinkers of the past century.
Download or read book Making Nature written by Melinda Baldwin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making "Nature" is the first book to chronicle the foundation and development of Nature, one of the world's most influential scientific institutions. Now nearing its hundred and fiftieth year of publication, Nature is the international benchmark for scientific publication. Its contributors include Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, and Stephen Hawking, and it has published many of the most important discoveries in the history of science, including articles on the structure of DNA, the discovery of the neutron, the first cloning of a mammal, and the human genome. But how did Nature become such an essential institution? In Making "Nature," Melinda Baldwin charts the rich history of this extraordinary publication from its foundation in 1869 to current debates about online publishing and open access. This pioneering study not only tells Nature's story but also sheds light on much larger questions about the history of science publishing, changes in scientific communication, and shifting notions of "scientific community." Nature, as Baldwin demonstrates, helped define what science is and what it means to be a scientist.
Download or read book Representing and Intervening written by Ian Hacking and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1983-10-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1983 book is a lively and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of natural science, organized around the central theme of scientific realism. It has two parts. 'Representing' deals with the different philosophical accounts of scientific objectivity and the reality of scientific entities. The views of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Putnam, van Fraassen, and others, are all considered. 'Intervening' presents the first sustained treatment of experimental science for many years and uses it to give a new direction to debates about realism. Hacking illustrates how experimentation often has a life independent of theory. He argues that although the philosophical problems of scientific realism can not be resolved when put in terms of theory alone, a sound philosophy of experiment provides compelling grounds for a realistic attitude. A great many scientific examples are described in both parts of the book, which also includes lucid expositions of recent high energy physics and a remarkable chapter on the microscope in cell biology.
