Download or read book Scientific History written by Elena Aronova and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasingly, scholars in the humanities are calling for a reengagement with the natural sciences. Taking their cues from recent breakthroughs in genetics and the neurosciences, advocates of “big history” are reassessing long-held assumptions about the very definition of history, its methods, and its evidentiary base. In Scientific History, Elena Aronova maps out historians’ continuous engagement with the methods, tools, values, and scale of the natural sciences by examining several waves of their experimentation that surged highest at perceived times of trouble, from the crisis-ridden decades of the early twentieth century to the ruptures of the Cold War. The book explores the intertwined trajectories of six intellectuals and the larger programs they set in motion: Henri Berr (1863–1954), Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Julian Huxley (1887–1975), and John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971). Though they held different political views, spoke different languages, and pursued different goals, these thinkers are representative of a larger motley crew who joined the techniques, approaches, and values of science with the writing of history, and who created powerful institutions and networks to support their projects. In tracing these submerged stories, Aronova reveals encounters that profoundly shaped our knowledge of the past, reminding us that it is often the forgotten parts of history that are the most revealing.
Download or read book Science written by Patricia Fara and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science's past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war, politics, and business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people - men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps through the centuries, from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, illuminating the financial interests, imperial ambitions, and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today. She also ranges internationally, illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world, from China to the Islamic empire, as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe, from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond. Above all, this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy, arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right - but because people have said that it is right.
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 The Scientific Life written by Steven Shapin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are scientists? What kind of people are they? What capacities and virtues are thought to stand behind their considerable authority? They are experts—indeed, highly respected experts—authorized to describe and interpret the natural world and widely trusted to help transform knowledge into power and profit. But are they morally different from other people? The Scientific Life is historian Steven Shapin’s story about who scientists are, who we think they are, and why our sensibilities about such things matter. Conventional wisdom has long held that scientists are neither better nor worse than anyone else, that personal virtue does not necessarily accompany technical expertise, and that scientific practice is profoundly impersonal. Shapin, however, here shows how the uncertainties attending scientific research make the virtues of individual researchers intrinsic to scientific work. From the early twentieth-century origins of corporate research laboratories to the high-flying scientific entrepreneurship of the present, Shapin argues that the radical uncertainties of much contemporary science have made personal virtues more central to its practice than ever before, and he also reveals how radically novel aspects of late modern science have unexpectedly deep historical roots. His elegantly conceived history of the scientific career and character ultimately encourages us to reconsider the very nature of the technical and moral worlds in which we now live. Building on the insights of Shapin’s last three influential books, featuring an utterly fascinating cast of characters, and brimming with bold and original claims, The Scientific Life is essential reading for anyone wanting to reflect on late modern American culture and how it has been shaped.
Download or read book Images of Science written by Brian J. Ford and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This spectacularly illustrated book chronicles the exciting progress of scientific investigation through the ages as it has been mirrored in the art used to document its ideas and breakthroughs. From the cave paintings of prehistory through the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece to Renaissance drawings and modern microscopy, these images reveal the hidden influences and cultural pressures of their times. Separate chapters focus on the animal world, herbs and the birth of botany, physics and the science of non-living matter, mankind in the world; the world in space; and other seminal topics. The illustrations have been chosen from among the best preserved in the world, some never before reproduced. All help to show how scientific illustration first arose; how it mirrored in many ways the value systems of the science of its time; how images were borrowed, transformed, and occasionally came to predict future discoveries. 210 illustrations.
Download or read book A Short History of Scientific Thought written by John Henry and published by Red Globe Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A highly readable historical survey of the major developments in scientific thought and the impact of science on Western culture, this book takes the reader from ancient times through to the twentieth century. Organized chronologically, the book explores the history of studies of the natural world, and man's role within that world, in a single volume"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Scientific Sources and Teaching Contexts Throughout History Problems and Perspectives written by Alain Bernard and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the textual, social, cultural, practical and institutional environments to which the expression “teaching and learning contexts” refers. It reflects on the extent to which studying such environments helps us to better understand ancient or modern sources, and how notions of “teaching” and “learning” are to be understood. Tackling two problems: the first, is that of certain sources of scientific knowledge being studied without taking into account the various “contexts” of transmission that gave this knowledge a long-lasting meaning. The second is that other sources are related to teaching and learning activities, but without being too precise and demonstrative about the existence and nature of this “teaching context”. In other words, this book makes clear what is meant by “context” and highlights the complexity of the practice hidden by the words “teaching” and “learning”. Divided into three parts, the book makes accessible teaching and learning situations, presents comparatist approaches, and emphasizes the notion of teaching as projects embedded in coherent treatises or productions.
Download or read book Histories of Scientific Observation written by Lorraine Daston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-02 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes bibliographical referrences and index.
Download or read book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions written by Thomas S. Kuhn and published by Chicago : University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The History of Modern Science written by Stephen G. Brush and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1988 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Technical Image written by Horst Bredekamp and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In science and technology, the images used to depict ideas, data, and reactions can be as striking and explosive as the concepts and processes they embody—both works of art and generative forces in their own right. Drawing on a close dialogue between the histories of art, science, and technology, The Technical Image explores these images not as mere illustrations or examples, but as productive agents and distinctive, multilayered elements of the process of generating knowledge. Using beautifully reproduced visuals, this book not only reveals how scientific images play a constructive role in shaping the findings and insights they illustrate, but also—however mechanical or detached from individual researchers’ choices their appearances may be—how they come to embody the styles of a period, a mindset, a research collective, or a device. Opening with a set of key questions about artistic representation in science, technology, and medicine, The Technical Image then investigates historical case studies focusing on specific images, such as James Watson’s models of genes, drawings of Darwin’s finches, and images of early modern musical automata. These case studies in turn are used to illustrate broad themes ranging from “Digital Images” to “Objectivity and Evidence” and to define and elaborate upon fundamental terms in the field. Taken as a whole, this collection will provide analytical tools for the interpretation and application of scientific and technological imagery.
Download or read book Making Prehistory written by Derek Turner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-05 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? In this book Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike.
Download or read book Science Rules written by Peter Achinstein and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-09-24 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Included is a famous nineteenth-century debate about scientific reasoning between the hypothetico-deductivist William Whewell and the inductivist John Stuart Mill; and an account of the realism-antirealism dispute about unobservables in science, with a consideration of Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules in the early twentieth century.
Download or read book History of Scientific Thought written by Michel Serres and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1995-10-16 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of meditative or considered essays, examining nodal points in the long history of science from the first emergence of experts writing on clay in Babylonia.
Download or read book The Invention of Science written by David Wootton and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 1068 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Captures the excitement of the scientific revolution and makes a point of celebrating the advances it ushered in." —Financial Times A companion to such acclaimed works as The Age of Wonder, A Clockwork Universe, and Darwin’s Ghosts—a groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world. We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today, science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history. The Invention of Science goes back five hundred years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently, but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts—Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe—whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition. From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wotton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge. Ultimately, he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization—and the birth of the modern world we know.
Download or read book Tides written by David Edgar Cartwright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the study of the tides over two millennia, from Ancient Greeks to present sophisticated space-age techniques.
Download or read book DE EVOLUTION written by Jeff Frank and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2016-12-22 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A large sophisticated telescope complex sits atop a dormant volcano in one of Earth's most remote locations. Some incredibly bright but fiercely independent folks operate it much of the time. They detect, map, and perform threat analysis of near-Earth objects. Shortly after the world narrowly escapes an extinction event, they start collecting pieces of a related cosmic puzzle. When they've connected enough of them, an intriguing and disturbing picture emerges. Yet the most revealing pieces don't reveal themselves until after all life on Earth already has begun marching in lockstep toward possible oblivion.
