The Changing Image of the Sciences

Ida H. Stamhuis; Teun Koetsier; Cornelis de Pater; Albert van Helden

ISBN 10: 1402008473 / ISBN 13: 9781402008474

Published by Kluwer Academic, 2002

About this Item

Hardcover, x + 226 pages, numerous b&w illustrations in text, NOT ex-library. Internally very good, clean and bright with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Boards show superficial damage to upper spine (two small areas of deep abrasions with surface loss), two stray pen marks on the back. Issued without a dust jacket. -- Contents: Foreword; Introduction / Albert van Helden; In Our Own Image: Creating the Computer / Michael S. Mahoney [From "Giant Brain" to Information Appliance; Transparency of Software; World of the Computer]; Changing Images of Chemistry / Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent [Introduction; Creating Life; Wonderful World of Chemistry; Ways Back to Nature]; Changing Image of Biology in the Twentieth Century / Garland E. Allen [Introduction; Nineteenth Century Background; Biology and the Physical Sciences: Experimentalism and Reductionism; Technological and Institutional Imperative; Integrative Processes; Economic, Social and Technological Context in the Development of an Experimentally and Mechanistically Based Biology in the Twentieth Century (Industrialization of Agricultural Productivity; Imperative of Social Control; Differences Among Eugenics Activities in Different Countries; A New Eugenics Today?); Conclusion]; Image of Physics / Abraham Pais [Introduction by the Editors; Introduction; Einstein's and Bohr's Views on Philosophy; On Relativity Theory (Special Theory; General Theory); On Complementarity; Some Final Comments]; Re-imag(in)ing Women in Science: Projecting Identity and Negotiating Gender in Science / Sally Gregory Kohlstedt & Donald L. Opitz [Introduction; Margaret Cavendish: Defiant Natural Philosopher with an Independent Voice; Maria Sibylla Merian: Innovative Entomologist Working within Conventions; Mary Somerville: Queen of Celestial (and Domestic) Science; Ada Lovelace: Mathematician Calculating Body Image; Agnes Pockels: Surface Chemist and "Hausfrau"; Jantina Tammes: Geneticist Defining Her Own "Weak Constitution"; Marie Curie: Independent and Eminent Collaborator; Conclusions]; Science in the Mirror of "Big History" / David Christian [Introduction; Science in the Mirror of "Big History"; Big History; Science as Creation Myth; Systems of Knowledge; Pre-Human Knowledge Systems; Human Knowledge Systems of the Palaeolithic; Science as a System of Knowledge; Science and the Future?; Conclusion; Appendix: A Modern Creation Story]; Changing Images of Unity and Disunity in the Philosophy of Science / Steve Fuller [Misrecognition of Unity in Recent History and Philosophy of Science (Gospel According to the Disunificationists; Reducing (Away) the Philosophical Component of Reductionism; Root Image of Disunity as Intercalation); Unity and Disunity as Expressions of Constructivism and Realism (Natural and the Normative: Aligned or Opposed?; Evaluation and Application: Clear or Blurred?); Historical Conditions for the Unity and Disunity of Science (Unity of Science as Natural: Deductive and Inductive Versions; Unity of Science as Artificial: - Pro-Unity: From Sublation to Reduction - Anti-Unity: From Kant to Kuhn); Conclusion: Beyond Misrecognizing to Rediscovering the Unity of Science]; Authors and Editors; Index -- This volume is written as a reaction to the worldwide decreasing interest in the natural sciences. It addresses many intriguing questions. How is the changing image of the distinct sciences experienced by the general public, by the scientists themselves, or in disciplines in which natural sciences are applied? How can it be connected to the phenomenon of the low number of women in science? It is of interest to researchers, teachers, and students of natural sciences, the history of science, and philosophy.

Seller Inventory # 007455

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Changing Image of the Sciences
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1402008473
• ISBN 13: 9781402008474
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

The title of our book would lead the reader to believe that in speaking ofthe chang­ ing image of the sciences, we are taking for granted the multiplicity of sciences, as these are practiced, for instance, in modern universities. That was, of course, not always the case. Although we can point to some subjects, for instance mathematical astronomy, as being demarcated to some extent from other subjects as far back as Antiquity, the current division into individual sciences can hardly be traced back fur­ ther than the nineteenth century. Moreover,the further we go back inhistory, the more we must subsume science under general knowledge or scholarship:scientia. Some of the earliest imagesofepisteme or scientia, are those of forbidden knowledge - often related to technology - on the one hand, and the absent-minded scholar on the other. These are powerful metaphors - in word as well as image - that have been appro­ priated in various ages for different purposes. The Greeks gave Western society its first images ofthe power ofknowledge and those who produced it. Prometheus ridiculed the gods, stole their fire, and brought it down to Earth. For this, Zeus had him chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where a vulture fed on his liver during the day, while it grew back at night. He was finally freed by Herac1es.