This is the first systematic probing into perhaps the most puzzling, but least discussed fact of cultural history: the birth of science. Cultural history abounds in parallel achievements, but it happended only once, between 1250 and 1650, that rudimentary science turned into a self-sustaining enterprise. Such a singular process can hardly be without a lesson, the grasp of which might be of crucial importance for the future of mankind.

To unfold this lesson the author, Stanley L. Jaki, Distinguished University Professor at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, and an internationally renowned historian and philosopher of science, first gives a detailed analysis of ancient Hindu, Chinese, Maya, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek cultures, all of which, especially the Greek, could boast a valuable start in science. Yet, in all of them, science suffered a stillbirth. They all failed to muster up a sufficient measure faith in progress, confidence in the rationality of the universe, appreciation of the quantitative method, and a depersonalized view of the process of motion, all qualities which are the main features of the scientific quest.

Because the Koran overemphasized the will of the Creator, Muslim scholars fell prey to a mistrust in the validity of rational laws, and as a result science came to a standstill among the Arabs as well. Quite different was the case in the Christian, medieval West, where the biblical faith in the Creator permeated for the first time a whole culture and effectively produced the qualities described above. The ultimate result was the rise of classical physics.

Such is the main theme of a highly original book, in which an astonishing wealth of information is marshalled to unfold, as the author states, 'the ultimate consequences of some basic presuppositions'. The work is a classic effort of synthesis, full of drama that vibrates through the long history of science.

About the Author

Stanley L. jaki, a Hungarian-born Benedictine priest, holds doctorates in systematic theology and nuclear physics, and has specialized for the last three decades in the history and philosophy of science. An honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he was Gifford Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, Fremantle Lecturer at Oxford University, and recipient of the Templeton Prize for 1987. He is the author of over forty books.

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