History of Science

OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss how scientific and
technological developments affect
society and the environment
2. Identify the paradigm shifts in history
 It all starts with the Greeks
The Ancient Greeks are seen, in the west, as our
intellectual forefathers. From Greece was born
philosophy, drama, western artistic aesthetics,
geometry, etc., etc., etc.

Theology was never an important aspect of Greek

thought and Orthodoxy was practically anathema.
Ancient Greek society did not have a permanent
priestly class that imposed dogma.

Greek Gods & Goddesses were NOT omnipotent

nor omniscient.
 Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
• Tutor to Alex the Great
• His philosophy later adopted by the
Christian West
• Founded the Lyceum, (peripatetic
school) which emphasized natural
philosophy.
• created a hierarchy of all living
things, from simple to more
complex.
 Ptolemy
• Created a Geocentric model of the universe.

• This worked pretty well for a long time – especially

for planets. But, eventually, errors would be
detected (once math & technology developed more).
 Greek Civilization
• It is difficult to underestimate the
contributions of Greek philosophy,
science, art, literature, etc. to our
Western way of thinking.
• Renaissance
 European Medieval thinking
• After the fall of the Roman Empire (~478 AD),
Europe would be politically fragmented and a period
of intellectual conservatism would be the norm.

• Meanwhile, Arab civilization would be the center of

intellectual development – esp. in mathematics,
optics, medicine.

• In Europe, intellectual activity would be under the

purview of the church – monasteries would be the
loci of study, contemplation, documentation.
• According to the Church, all that could be known
about the world came from the bible.

• Creation had been perfect

• Degeneration: after people were tossed out of

Eden, it was all down hill – the further history moved
away from creation, the more evil grew and the 2nd
coming would restore God’s kingdom.

• Likewise, the further one got from the holy land, the
more degenerate would be those societies.
The Day the Universe Changed
 The “New World”
• The “discovery” of the Americas was one of the most
important events in European history (although
historians mostly focus on the impact of Europe on
the Americas).

• There were several troubling aspects to the

discovery.
• First, the Bible had absolutely nothing to say about
the Americas – not its location, people, history, etc.

• Europeans came into contact with people entirely

ignorant of God, Christ, etc.

• The plants and animals of the Americas were

unknown – although there were some that were the
same.
• This led to
1) recognition that the Bible was not the ultimate
authority on nature

2) debate over the nature of Indigenous people

(were they animals or humans?)

3) classification of the animals & plants.

4) the fact that no one knew anything about the

Americas sparked curiosity – the need to know.
Of course, there were many other ramifications to
European domination of the Americas –

• Economic: commerce would eventually lead to

the industrial revolution
• Power: struggles over control of the colonies
and their wealth would spark intense
competition between European nations (Spain
vs. Britain, etc.)
• Politics: Liberalism (our current form of
government) would have its first experiment in
the Americas (USA).
Our concern here, however, is in science.

• The discovery of the new world began a process of

separation of church and science.

• Many would try to reconcile science & religion, but

ultimately, science would largely reject theology as a
way of knowing the natural world.

• This would be a difficult period with many wounded

– but the process was more or less inevitable.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
• Descartes is often called the
'father' of modern philosophy.

• Descartes argued that

knowledge is genuinely possible,
and that a mathematically-based
scientific knowledge of the
material world is possible.
 Cogito, ergo sum
• he rejected religious authority in the quest for
scientific and philosophical knowledge (but he was a
devout Catholic)

• He argued for a rational justification for a universal,

mathematical/ quantitative understanding of nature.

• We still rely largely on the Cartesian view of the

universe – a mechanistic view of nature.
Although Descartes and other philosophers
established spaces for coexistence between science
and religion, it would still be quite some time before
Europe would be able to embrace evolution.
 Creationism
Several compelling Christian dogmas are
important to note:

1) Genesis: GOD created earth in 6 days

(don’t forget – he took the last day off).

Creation was also centered around Earth & Man

(we are in his image).
 2) Relative Youth of the Earth

there was a lot of debate about the exact age . . .

but most theologians agreed it wasn’t so long ago.

If the earth was indeed less than 6000 years old,

then gradual change could not have occurred.
 Bishop Ussher (1581-1656)
• By working
backwards from the
Bible (so-and-so
begat so-and-so), he
calculated the first
day of creation to
have been Sunday,
October 23rd, 4004
BC!
 3) The Permanence of the Earth’s
Physical Structure
According to Christian thought, the appearance of
earth is the result of two factors:

1) Original creation by God.

2) The damage done by the great flood.

Otherwise, the earth had not changed over

time, it was in a state of stasis.
 4) The Fixity of Species

Likewise, after God created plants & animals, these

retained their true, original form, generation after
generation.
- no species had been lost
- no species had changed

Nevertheless, people did understand the process of

selective (or artificial) breeding.
 John Ray
• Natural theology: the doctrine
that the wisdom and power of
God could be understood by
studying His creation.
• Ray spent a great deal of time pondering the
relationships of organismal form to function.
• Living things showed adaptations to their
environments, which for Ray were signs of
God's design and hence worthy of study.
• Unlike Linnaeus, who focused almost exclusively
on classification for its own sake, Ray began to
use classification to address questions in
physiology, function, and behavior
 Argument from Design
• Rev. William Paley – Natural Theology
“The marks of design are too strong to be got
over. Design must have had a designer. That
designer must have been a person. That person
is GOD”

Nature is a watch & GOD is the watchmaker.

Evidence supporting evolution prior
to Darwin
 Uniformitarianism
• James Hutton : came up with the
observation

• Lyell made the ideas popular.

 Sir Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875)
Wrote: Geological Evidence of the
Antiquity of Man in 1863 and
Principles of Geology

Lyell argued that presently observable

Geological processes were adequate
to explain geological history; the action
of the rain, sea, volcanoes, earthquakes,
etc., explained the geological history of
more ancient times.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)
Inheritance of acquired characteristics
 Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
Catastrophism

Opposed Lamarck

Convinced others that

extinction was a fact

Known as the father of

Comparative anatomy
 Extinction
Cuvier’s work demonstrated that some
species had become extinct  this raised two issues:

1) Why would God allow some of his creations

to disappear.

2. Young earth theory: how could so many

strange species go extinct, be covered by
sediments, if the earth was young?
 Sequence of Fossil types
• By the 1830’s there was general recognition that
fossils had been organisms.

• Further, it was apparent that older strata contained

very simple animals. As one moved through time,
the organisms became more and more complex.

• There was no reason to believe that catastrophes

had occurred . . . .
 Existence of Rudimentary Organs
• By the late 1700s, biologists recognized
that some animals retained parts they
didn’t use
– snakes with vestiges of limbs
– Flightless insects retained stunted wings.

– These observations contradicted the

argument from design theory.
 Structural similarities
• A human hand, fin of seal, wing of bat, etc. all show
similar structure.

• While Creationists argued that this was evidence of

the uniform plan of God, evolutionists would argue
that this was due to a common evolutionary past.
 Embryological development
• 18th century comparative anatomists noted that
as animals went through embryonic
development, it was difficult in the early stages
to tell what type of animal it was. Chicken, lizard
and human embryos look very similar and have
similar structures (gill slits, etc.).

• Darwin would use this to argue common

descent.
 Artificial Selection
• Animal breeders had demonstrated that
species are not immutable . . . That is,
they can be changed through selective
breeding.
Charles Darwin
 Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
• Essay on the Principle of Population
(1798)

• In nature, organisms produce far more

offspring than can survive.

• Man too is capable of overproducing if left

unchecked (advocated limiting family size)

• Famine would become globally epidemic

and eventually consume Man.
Alfred Russel Wallace
If not for me, Darwin would
not have published his
ideas . . Yet, no one
remembers my name!!
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
• Independently developed theory of natural
selection (drew same conclusion from Malthus
as had Darwin)

• Wrote an essay “On the Tendency of Varieties to

Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type”

• Send copies to Darwin for review – Darwin

submitted his own, beating Wallace to the
punch!!
 Herbert Spencer
• Coined the term “Survival of
the Fittest”

• Tried to apply evolution to

human populations and
demonstrate moral
superiority of Europeans