9780130990914

Covering physics, astronomy, chemistry, the various branches of biology, and geology, this book is the perfect introduction to the history of science. A compilation of interesting readings,Scientific Revolutionsreflects the richness and diversity of scientific culture and practice.Its primary focus is on the extraordinary bursts of scientific activity that propel science in new and different directions.Useful as a reference work for readers interested in the sciences.

Brian S. Baigrie is Associate Professor of history and philosophy of science at The Institute for History of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, Canada. Author of numerous scholarly papers on the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, as well as feature articles on various aspects of scientific practice for science magazines, Professor Baigrie has edited a number of books, including: Picturing Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Problems Concerning the Use of Art in Science (1996). The Renaissance and The Scientific Revolution: Biographical Portraits (2000), and the award-winning History of Modern Science and Mathematics (2002). His current research focuses on visualization in scientific practice.

List of Plates
Causation and Movement Aristotle
Saving the Appearances Ptolemy
On the Nature of Things Lucretius
The Copernican Revolution
The Surgical Art
The Philosopher's Stone Paracelsus
The Mutable Heavens
A Guide to the Interpretation of Nature
The Sun of the Microcosm
Naturally Accelerated Motion Galileo
Causes of Motion,René Descartes
A New Theater of Nature
Mechanical Chemistry
Human Reproduction
Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
The Sexual System
The Principle of Fire
The Elements of Chemistry
Construction of the Heavens
A Portrait of Caroline Herschel
The Gravitational Constant
The Artificial Electric Organ
The World Machine
Directed Variation
The Chemical Atom
Distinguishing an Atom from a Molecule
Geology and Genesis
The Electromagnetic Effect
Deep Geologic Time
Taking the Measure of Electricity
Lines of Force
The Cell Theory
Survival of the Fittest
The Foundations of Genetics
Theory of Pangenes
Experimental Physics as a University Subject
Playing Patience with the Elements
Shadow Pictures
Martian Engineers
The Death of the Atom
The Mutation Theory
What is the Theory of Relativity?
The New Alchemy
What is Life?
Index
Name Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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The production of this anthology has been guided by the conviction that the best introduction to the history and philosophy of science is primary source material that reflects, as well as possible, the richness and diversity of scientific culture and practice. The realization of this conviction called for some difficult decisions. Many of the canonical texts of the natural sciences were forged in the service of a body of well-established theory--Joseph Louis Lagrange''s magnificent Mecanique Analytiqueand Ronald Aylmer Fisher''s The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance--are uncontroversial instances of the articulation of received theories--respectively, those of Newton and Darwin. The greater part of the scientific literature consists of writings of this sort. The focus of this book, however, is on those extraordinary bursts of scientific activity that propel the culture of science in new and, sometimes unexpected, directions. Repositories of tradition, and their elaboration, have received a great deal of critical attention from professional scholars in recent years but there is a great deal, I believe, that both the introductory and the advanced student can learn from these comparatively rare outbursts of innovation. The selection of readings gathered here takes no stand on the "essential tension," so masterfully portrayed by Thomas Kuhn, between tradition and innovation in the natural sciences. The title of this volume is merely a gentle reminder that these readings emphasize novelty, including novel device production; it is not meant in any way to diminish the importance of work carried out in the service of a received body of knowledge. The title Scientific Revolutionsserves here as a label for important turning pointsin the history of science and its philosophical interpretation--it is not to be taken in the general sense of historians and philosophers of science as boundaries for great historical periods, often centuries in length, that were dominated by a particular variety of science, whether the science of Copernicus, Newton, or Darwin. Grand intellectual artifacts like "research programs," "paradigms," and "worldviews," however meaningful as organizational tools for professional scholars, tend to obscure the little revolutions that are occurring in science all the time, and the very diversity that makes the natural sciences an exciting and rewarding field for humanistic exploration and discovery. A number of these turning points have been documented by their innovators in ways that are invariably daunting to an introductory audience. In these cases, another, less technically demanding reading from the same author has been substituted for those readings that were deemed to be too demanding; cases in point are the selections from J. J. Thomson and Albert Einstein. An accessible alternative proved to be unavailable in a few cases, which narrowed the range of candidates for the anthology, sometimes in unfortunate ways. It was decided in two of these cases--Caroline Herschel and Marie Curie--that the absence of suitable primary source material constituted grounds for exceptions to the principle calling for primary source material. The weakness of primary source material, from the point of view of the historian of science, is that it is invariably geared toward reporting results and supporting evidence, thereby effectively denying the reader any insights into the processes involved in scientific discovery and the conditions--often unpleasant--under which scientists labor. Hence, the inclusion of Eve Curie''s recounting of her mother''s unbridled passion for the experimental life; and the selection by the American astronomer, Maria Mitchell, reflecting on the larger question of science as a vocation for women. If anything, these readings are important reminders that, even in a course that is grounded in primary source material, secondary sources are still indispensable. Even after the decision was made to restrict the selections to revolutionary documents (understood now as those that propel the culture of science in new and sometimes unexpected directions) that were not too technically demanding, we still faced a daunting body of literature. This anthology focuses on the physical and life sciences--astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology--with some additional readings drawn from the earth sciences (geology and palaeontology) which dovetail rather nicely with important debates in the selected disciplines. Some obvious candidates were excluded on the grounds that they have been reproduced many times and are still widely available; other things being equal, preference has been given to material that are likely to be the least accessible to university students. Of course, there are limits to the application of this principle: Any historical introduction to science, it goes without saying, would be incomplete without the likes of Copernicus, Bacon, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday, Lyell, Darwin, and Einstein. However, these "paradigm" names are balanced by the inclusion of three kinds of readings that are designed to instill in the student a sense of the diversity of scientific practice. First, there are a number of readings that are not as well known as they might be but which, nevertheless, opened up entire new areas of scientific research and study in their day--examples are Leeuwenhoek''s discovery of microscopic organisms, Priestley''s recounting of his discovery of oxygen, Cavendish''s determination of the gravitational constant, Volta''s creation of the first electric battery, Oersted''s detection of the electromagnetic effect, Rontgen s discovery of Xrays, and De Vries'' elaboration of the mutation theory. These readings are powerful antidotes to the temptation to reserve the label "scientific revolution" for the extraordinary upheavals associated with the likes of Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. Second, a number of dissenting voices are included here to counter any suggestion that the history of science follows a natural trajectory from superstition and error to truth. For example, Priestley invoked an elaborate and, ultimately misguided, theory to explain a piece of observational evidence, and Lowell concocted an entire alien civilization to explain puzzling observations. By the same token, however, both inspired generations of scientists to seek answers to questions that their work placed on the agenda. Extraordinary science need not be synonymous with the creation of a body of truths that gain the allegiance of the scientific community. Finally, there are a number of readings that vividly recount experiments and the production of novel devices--Harvey''s experiments on the circulation of the blood, Leeuwenhoek and Hooke on subvisibilia, Priestley on oxygen, Cavendish on the gravitational constant, Volta on the battery, Oersted on the electromagnetic effect, Schwann on cell theory, Mendel on inheritance, Rontgen on X-rays, Thomson on the electron, De Vries on mutations, and Rutherford on the disintegration of the atom. Scientific revolution is still widely portrayed in purely intellectual terms as the elaboration of the consequences of a novel proposition, theory, set of equations, etc. These readings help to correct this bias toward theory, reminding us that many of the important turning points in the history of science were negotiated by experimental practice and the creation of associated technology. The cultural and national diversity of the modern classroom called for a final tough decision. In our own multicultural age, students approach their lectures and readings with a more profound sense of their own situatedness, not only in their awareness of their own cultural histories but in their conviction that cultural attachments strongly shape beliefs and values. As much as possible,

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Scientific Revolutions Primary Texts in the History of Science

Scientific Revolutions Primary Texts in the History of Science

0130990914

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