Page 371 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1672 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Gentility of character, and nicety and purity of mind, are found
in those who are capable of thinking deeply about abstruse
matters and scientific minutiae. • al-Razi (864–930)

knowledge systems. Like all effective knowledge systems, Gellner, E. (1991). Plough, sword, and book:The structure of human his-
it is based on induction: on careful empirical observation tory. London: Paladin.
Huff,T. E. (2002). The rise of early modern science: Islam, China, and the
followed by attempts to generalize. Like all knowledge West. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
ance of new realities or new forms of information that
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.).
may overturn established certainties. What really distin- Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
guishes modern science from earlier knowledge systems McClellan, J. E., & Dorn, H. (1999). Science and technology in world his-
tory: An introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
is the size of the intellectual arena within which its ideas McNeill,W. H. (1998). History and the scientific worldview. History and
are generated and tested. Its explanatory power and its Theory, 37(1), 1–13.
McNeill,W. H. (2001). Passing strange: The convergence of evolutionary
qualities of abstraction and universality reflect the volume
science with scientific history. History and Theory, 40(1), 1–15.
and diversity of the information it tries to distil, and the Mokyr, J. (1990). The lever of riches:Technological creativity and economic
rigour of the truth tests to which its claims are subjected progress. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Psillos, S. (1999). Scientific realism: How science tracks truth. London:
in a global truth market. Routledge.
During the past two centuries, science has spread Salmon,W. C. (1984). Scientific explanation and the causal structure of
the world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
beyond the European heartland to Russia, China, Japan,
Shapin, Steven S. (1996). The scientific revolution. Chicago: Chicago Uni-
India, and the Americas. Today it is a global enterprise, versity Press.
and its accounts of reality shape the outlook of educated Sherratt,A. (1995). Reviving the grand narrative: Archaeology and long-
term change. Journal of European Archaeology, 3(1), 1–32.
people throughout the world. Far from diminishing, the Wilson, E. O. (1999). Consilience:The unity of knowledge. London: Aba-
flow of new information that stimulated the original sci- cus.
Worrall, J. (1998). Science, philosophy of. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge
entific revolution has kept expanding as the pace of
encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 8, p. 573). London: Routledge.
change has accelerated and the world as a whole has Ziman, J. (1978). Reliable knowledge: An exploration of the grounds for
become more integrated. Early in the twenty-first century, belief in science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Ziman, J. (2000). Real science: What it says and what it means. Cam-
the power of science to generate new ways of manipu- bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
lating the material world, for better or worse, shows no
sign of diminishing. Science has given our species
unprecedented control over the world; how wisely we use
that control remains to be seen.
Scientific
David Christian
Instruments
See also Galileo Galilei; Newton, Isaac; Modernity; Scien-
tific Revolution; Time, Conceptions of
e think that we know what “scientific instruments”
Ware. After all, science museums all over the world
Further Reading proudly display collections of the material remains of the
Chalmers, A. (1982). What is this thing called science? (2nd ed.). St. activity called “science.” Scientific instruments include
Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press.
Christian, D. (2002). Science in the mirror of “big history.” In I. H. astrolabes and armillary spheres, chemical glassware and
Stamhuis,T. Koetsier, C. de Pater, & A. van Helden (Eds.), The chang- fume cupboards, telescopes and clocks. They are used
ing image of the sciences (pp. 143–171). Dordrecht, Netherlands: in laboratories, classrooms, in space, at sea and
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Elias, N. (1992). Time: An essay. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. underground—and many other places besides—and vary
Floris Cohen, H. (1994). The scientific revolution: A historiographical in size from massive objects like the particle accelerator
inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Frank, A. G., & Gills, B. K. (Eds.). (1992). The world system: Five hun- at CERN, Geneva, to the tiniest nanotechnology devices
dred years or five thousand? London: Routledge. that can only be seen with the help of a microscope.They