SED 599 History of Science for the Science Classroom Mid-Term Exam

Please answer THREE questions from the list below. Answers should be between 12 pages in length for each answer. Please employ parenthetical references, endnotes, or footnotes for direct quotations and for general information and arguments taken from our required readings. Give the source and page number(s) as you would in a research paper. Any phrase or statement of ten words or more that is quoted verbatim for a source must be placed within quotation marks and the sources (including pages numbered) given in parenthetical reference, endnote, or footnote. Questions: 1. What are the characteristics of a scientific revolution according to Thomas Kuhn? What are the elements of scientific revolution in the development of the new astronomy during the period 1543 to 1687? Who were the key players? 2. What was it in Galileos work that incited opposition on religious, ideological, or political grounds? In addition, based on your understanding of the situation, was the clash between Galileo and the Church an inevitable outcome? 3. What was original in Charles Darwins book, the Origin of Species? How did his university teachers, travels, readings, and systematic observation determine the argument and evidence in the Origin of Species? What was some of his evidence? 4. Was there a chemical revolution in the 18th century? Describe the debate between phlogiston and oxygen. Who were the major players and what evidence did they use to argue their sides? Why do you believe oxygen was ultimately successful? 5. How did our view of geologic time change in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries? What role did the uniformitarian vs. catastrophist debate play in these changes? In what way did these changes affect other aspect of science?