World History of Science:

From Prehistory through the Scientific Revolution

Prof. Robert N. Proctor (Office hours: after class) H40/140 Spring 2024
Mon & Wed 9:45-11:15 Bldg 200 Room 303 TA: Nathan Deschamps

What are the oldest scientific discoveries of humans? Knowledge of the stars?
Medicinal plants? Our own mortality? How have people come to know the natural
world, and what does this tell us about truth (and ignorance) more generally? Here we
trace the broad sweep of global science, from the animal origins of our oldest
technologies through the mind-altering events of the Scientific Revolution. We begin
with theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols, especially
those found in Africa, following which we turn to achievements of the Maya, the
Aztecs, and native North Americans (calendrical astronomy, paleobotany, metallurgy,
mathematical nomenclature, etc.). Science and medicine in the ancient Mediterranean
will be focus of several lectures, followed which we’ll look at the sciences of early
China and the Islamic world, along with challenges to traditional cosmologies in
Copernicus and Galileo. Our focus throughout will be global, recognizing that history
is always selective. The overarching theme will be how science transforms—and is
transformed by—human engagements with technology, religion, art, politics,
worldviews and moral values.

Schedule of Lectures

Introduction: What is Science? What is History? April 1

I. Prehistoric Science and Technology April 3, 8-10, 15

April 3 Human Origins and the Earliest Tools
April 8 Acheulean Handaxes: What were they for? (+ film: “Quest for Fire” April 10)
April 10
Stonehenge, Montana Medicine Wheels (+ film on the Anasazi “Sun Dagger”)
April 15 Mesoamerican Math and Paleoastronomy (Mayan and Aztec), Incan Quipus

II. Science in the Ancient Mediterranean World April 17, 22

Pre-Socratic Philosophies
Plato’s Theory of Forms, Aristotle’s Two-Sphere Universe
The Hippocratic Oath and Galenic Medicine

III. East v. West April 24, 29 – May 1, 6

Gunpowder, Printing, the Compass, and other Chinese Wonders
Science in Arabia, Islam, and India
Magic and Alchemical Traditions
Midterm in class May 8
 2

IV. Renaissance Science May 13-15, 20-22

Leonardo’s World Guest lecture: Paula Findlen May 8
Copernicus and the Heliocentric Universe
Giordano Bruno’s Plurality of Worlds and the Birth of Sci-fi
Guest lecture: Nathan Deschamps May 15

V. The Scientific Revolution (4 lectures) May 25, June 3-5

Vesalian Anatomy, Gesner’s Theory of Fossils
Memorial Day – no class May 27th May 29th film
New Methods, New Worlds
Galileo’s Telescope, and the Glory and Horrors of Modernity

Final Exam Week of June 10th, exact day TBD

READINGS (on Canvas unless online):

I. Prehistory: Franz Kafka, “Report to an Academy,” online at:

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?aid=161. Compare Kafka’s “Report” with Morgan’s Naked
Darwinist http://www.elainemorgan.me.uk/ and the film (shown in class) “Quest for Fire” or
“Tales of the Maya Skies”; Clive Gamble, Forward to Ancestral Images; McClelland and
Dorn, Science and Technology, pp. 1-30.

II. Ancient Mediterranean World: Harari, Sapiens. Ancient Hippocratic Oath;

Aristotle’s Physics Book 8; Plato, “Allegory of the Cave”; McClellan and Dorn, Science and
Technology in World History, pp. 31-98.

III. East v. West: Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine; Ibn Sina, Canon of Medicine,
pp. 381-431 (on Coursework); McClellan and Dorn, Science and Technology, pp. 99-154.

IV. Renaissance: Stephen Jay Gould, Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of
Worms, pp. 17-44; Pico della Mirandola, “Oration”; McClellan and Dorn, pp. 155-221.

V. Scientific Revolution: Bacon, Novum Organon; Descartes, Discourse on Method;

Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? McClellan and Dorn, pp. 203-276.

Books:

Yuval Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

McClellan and Dorn, Science and Technology in World History (paper)
René Descartes, A Discourse on Method, trans. Ian Maclean (Oxford UP 2006).
Francis Bacon, New Atlantis and The Great Instauration, ed. H. Davidson, 1989.
Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? (Harvard U. Press, 1989).