Is Science Western in Origin?

2009-09-11
Is Science Western in Origin?

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  • Author: C. K. Raju
  • Publisher: C. K. Raju
  • ISBN: 983304607X
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 68

On stock Western history, science originated among the Greeks, and then developed in post-renaissance Europe. This story was fabricated in three phases. First, during the Crusades, scientific knowledge from across the world, in captured Arabic books, was given a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was all transmitted from the Greeks. The key cases of Euclid (geometry) and Claudius Ptolemy (astronomy)— both concocted figures — are used to illustrate this process. Second, during the Inquisition, world scientific knowledge was again assigned a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was not transmitted from others, but was “independently rediscovered” by Europeans. The cases of Copernicus and Newton (calculus) illustrate this process of “revolution by rediscovery”. Third, the appropriated knowledge was reinterpreted and aligned to post-Crusade theology. Colonial and racist historians exploited this, arguing that the (theologically) “correct” version of scientific knowledge (geometry, calculus, etc.) existed only in Europe. These processes of appropriation continue to this day.

Is Science Western in Origin?

2009
Is Science Western in Origin?

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  • Author: C. K. Raju
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9788189654801
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 58

On stock Western history, science originated among the Greeks, and then developed in post-renaissance Europe. This story was fabricated in three phases. First, during the Crusades, scientific knowledge from across the world, in captured Arabic books, was given a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was all transmitted from the Greeks. The key cases of Euclid (geometry) and Claudius Ptolemy (astronomy) both concocted figures are used to illustrate this process. Second, during the Inquisition, world scientific knowledge was again assigned a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was not transmitted from others, but was independently rediscovered by Europeans. The cases of Copernicus and Newton (calculus) illustrate this process of revolution by rediscovery. Third, the appropriated knowledge was reinterpreted and aligned to post-Crusade theology. Colonial and racist historians exploited this, arguing that the (theologically) correct version of scientific knowledge (geometry, calculus, etc.) existed only in Europe.

The Beginnings of Western Science

2010-02-15
The Beginnings of Western Science

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  • Author: David C. Lindberg
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • ISBN: 0226482049
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 506

When it was first published in 1992, The Beginnings of Western Science was lauded as the first successful attempt ever to present a unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. Chronicling the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy to late-Medieval scholasticism, David C. Lindberg surveyed all the most important themes in the history of science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. In addition, he offered an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. The Beginnings of Western Science was, and remains, a landmark in the history of science, shaping the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development. It reemerges here in a second edition that includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science has been thoroughly retooled to reveal the magnitude and sophistication of medieval Muslim scientific achievement. And the book now reflects a sharper awareness of the importance of Mesopotamian science for the development of Greek astronomy. In all, the second edition of The Beginnings of Western Science captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers.

Life as Its Own Designer

2009-07-09
Life as Its Own Designer

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  • Author: Anton Markoš
  • Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
  • ISBN: 1402099703
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 216

It has been nearly 150 years since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, and his theory of natural selection still ignites a forest of heated debate between scientific fundamentalists on the one hand and religious fundamentalists on the other. But both sides actually agree more than they disagree, and what has long been needed is a third way to view evolution, one that focuses more on the aspect of life and “being alive”, one that can guide us through, and perhaps out of, the fiery thicket. This book, a seminal work in the burgeoning field of Biosemiotics, provides that third way, by viewing living beings as genuine agents designing their communication pathways with, and in, the world. Already hailed as the best account of biological hermeneutics, Life As Its Own Designer: Darwin’s Origin and Western Thought is a wholly unique book divided into two parts. The first part is philosophical and explores the roots of rationality and the hermeneutics of the natural world with the overriding goal of discovering how narrative can help us to explain life. It analyzes why novelty is so hard to comprehend in the framework of Western thinking and confronts head-on the chasm between evolutionism and traditional rationalistic worldviews. The second part is scientific. It focuses on the life of living beings, treating them as co-creators of their world in the process of evolution. It draws on insights gleaned from the global activity of the Gaian biosphere, considers likeness as demonstrated on homology studies, and probes the problem of evo-devo science from the angle of life itself. This book is both timely and vital. Past attempts at a third way to view evolution have failed because they were written either by scientists who lacked a philosophical grounding or New Age thinkers who lacked biological credibility. Markoš and his coworkers form an original group of thinkers supremely capable in both fields, and they have fashioned a book that is ideal for researchers and scholars from both the humanities and sciences who are interested in the history and philosophy of biology, biosemiotics, and the evolution of life.

Origin Science

1987
Origin Science

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  • Author: Norman L. Geisler
  • Publisher: Baker Publishing Group (MI)
  • ISBN: 9780801038082
  • Category : Bible and science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 198

Origin

2022-02-08
Origin

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  • Author: Jennifer Raff
  • Publisher: Twelve
  • ISBN: 153874970X
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 304

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story—and fascinating mystery—of how humans migrated to the Americas. ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution. 20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed. A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

The Annotated Origin

2009-05-30
The Annotated Origin

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  • Author: Darwin
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 9780674032811
  • Category : Biography & Autobiography
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 580

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is one of the most important and yet least read scientific works in the history of science. The Annotated Origin is a facsimile of the first edition of 1859, and is accompanied by James T. Costa’s marginal annotations, drawing on his extensive experience with Darwin’s ideas in the field, lab, and classroom.

For the Glory of God

2015-01-27
For the Glory of God

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  • Author: Rodney Stark
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • ISBN: 1400866804
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 501

Rodney Stark's provocative new book argues that, whether we like it or not, people acting for the glory of God have formed our modern culture. Continuing his project of identifying the widespread consequences of monotheism, Stark shows that the Christian conception of God resulted--almost inevitably and for the same reasons--in the Protestant Reformation, the rise of modern science, the European witch-hunts, and the Western abolition of slavery. In the process, he explains why Christian and Islamic images of God yielded such different cultural results, leading Christians but not Muslims to foster science, burn "witches," and denounce slavery. With his usual clarity and skepticism toward the received wisdom, Stark finds the origins of these disparate phenomena within monotheistic religious organizations. Endemic in such organizations are pressures to maintain religious intensity, which lead to intense conflicts and schisms that have far-reaching social results. Along the way, Stark debunks many commonly accepted ideas. He interprets the sixteenth-century flowering of science not as a sudden revolution that burst religious barriers, but as the normal, gradual, and direct outgrowth of medieval theology. He also shows that the very ideas about God that sustained the rise of science led also to intense witch-hunting by otherwise clear-headed Europeans, including some celebrated scientists. This conception of God likewise yielded the Christian denunciation of slavery as an abomination--and some of the fiercest witch-hunters were devoted participants in successful abolitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. For the Glory of God is an engrossing narrative that accounts for the very different histories of the Christian and Muslim worlds. It fundamentally changes our understanding of religion's role in history and the forces behind much of what we point to as secular progress.

Inventing the Individual

2014-10-20
Inventing the Individual

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  • Author: Larry Siedentop
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 0674417534
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 443

Here, in a grand narrative spanning 1,800 years of European history, a distinguished political philosopher firmly rejects Western liberalism’s usual account of itself: its emergence in opposition to religion in the early modern era. Larry Siedentop argues instead that liberal thought is, in its underlying assumptions, the offspring of the Church. “It is a magnificent work of intellectual, psychological, and spiritual history. It is hard to decide which is more remarkable: the breadth of learning displayed on almost every page, the infectious enthusiasm that suffuses the whole book, the riveting originality of the central argument, or the emotional power and force with which it is deployed.” —David Marquand, New Republic “Larry Siedentop has written a philosophical history in the spirit of Voltaire, Condorcet, Hegel, and Guizot...At a time when we on the left need to be stirred from our dogmatic slumbers, Inventing the Individual is a reminder of some core values that are pretty widely shared.” —James Miller, The Nation “In this learned, subtle, enjoyable and digestible work [Siedentop] has offered back to us a proper version of ourselves. He has explained us to ourselves...[A] magisterial, timeless yet timely work.” —Douglas Murray, The Spectator “Like the best books, Inventing the Individual both teaches you something new and makes you want to argue with it.” —Kenan Malik, The Independent

The Origins of Science

2022-12-09
The Origins of Science

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  • Author: Ernest H. Hutten
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000788571
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 245

First published in 1962 The Origins of Science tries to explain scientific thought from its historical and psychological origins. The depth of psychology of today rather than traditional epistemology is needed in order to understand the problems of knowledge. Reality is the first problem of the scientist; it is exemplified by the idea of object, or of matter. The development of this idea from its Greek beginnings is traced and the unconscious mechanisms that underlie our thought processes -of abstraction, generalisation, etc.- are made manifest. The second problem is that of truth; it is illustrated by examples from the history of mathematics and of logic. Again, the ‘psychology’ of what we accept as truth is made explicit. Scientific method is the intellectual safeguard for the criteria of truth and reality. Instead of traditional induction, the creative view of scientific activity must be accepted. This book is a must read for scholars and researchers of philosophy of science and philosophy in general.