STS CHAPTER 2

• Intellectual Revolutions that defined Society
• What is an Intellectual Revolution?

  • An intellectual revolution is a period where paradigm shifts occurred and where scientific beliefs that have been widely embraced and accepted by the people were challenged and opposed
• What is an Intellectual Revolution?

  • (Wootton as cited by McCarthy, 2019):
  • summed up as the “replacement of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality by a new type of decision making which may be termed instrumental reasoning or cost-­benefit analysis”
• The Birth of Modern Science

  • Western science, like so many other aspects of Western Civilization, was born with the ancient Greeks.
  • first to explain the world in terms of natural laws rather than myths about gods and heroes.
  • value of math and experiment in science.
• The Birth of Modern Science

  Aristotle:

  • most influential figure in Western science until the 1600's: who created a body of scientific theory that towered like a colossus over Western Civilization for some 2000 years.
• The Birth of Modern Science

  • Aristotle - Who created a body of scientific theory that towered like a colossus over Western Civilization for some 2000 years.
• The Birth of Modern Science

  Several factors that worked both to overthrow Aristotle's theories and to preserve it:

  • relied very little on experiment -- vulnerable
  • Renaissance scholars: uncovering other Greek authors who contradicted Aristotle.
• Pattern of development

  1. Copernican Revolution
  2. The Darwinian Revolution
  3. Freudian Revolution
  4. Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica
  5. Asian Scientific Revolution
  6. Scientific Revolution in Middle East
  7. Scientific Revolution in Africa
  8. Information Revolution
• Copernican Revolution

  • Nicolas Copernicus - Was a Polish scholar working at the University of Padua in northern Italy = his solution is basically geometric.
  • 1543 - Published Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Worlds: foundations for a revolution in how Europeans would view the world
• Copernican Revolution

  Heliocentrism/Heliocentric Model

  • the center of the solar system is not the earth but actually the sun
  • started the birth of modern astronomy
  • scientific revolution/transformation of society's thoughts and beliefs
• Copernican Revolution

  • Johannes Kepler = successor
  • Tycho Brahe - using only the naked eye, tracked the entire orbits of various stars and planets = kept extensive
  • Previously, astronomers would only track part of an orbit at a time and assume that orbit was in a perfect circle.
• Copernican Revolution

  • Johannes Kepler = Was a brilliant mathematician who had a mystical vision of the mathematical perfection of the universe that owed a great deal to the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras
  • realized that Brahe's idea on planetary orbits were not circular
  • hence they are elliptical
• Copernican Revolution

  • Galileo
  • Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) - Armed with a new invention the telescope, which would further shatter the old theory and lead the way to a new one
  • he saw: sunspots and moon's craters & four moons orbiting Jupiter
• Copernican Revolution

  • The Starry Messenger (1611) - He reported these disturbing findings and spread the news across Europe.
  • Starry Messenger (2022) - Way of looking at the world called the cosmic perspective.
• Copernican Revolution

  • Isaac Newton - Newton had to invent a whole new branch of math, calculus, for figuring out rates of motion and change.
  • William Harvey in medicine and Mendeleev in chemistry
• The Darwinian Revolution

  • The publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin = ushered in a new era in the intellectual history of humanity.
  • theory of biological evolution
• The Darwinian Revolution

  • William Paley in his Natural Theology (1802)
  • Elaborated the argument-from-design as forceful demonstration of the existence of the Creator
• The Darwinian Revolution

  • Natural Theology: a program of inquiry into the existence and attributes of God without referring or appealing to any divine revelation.
• Freudian Revolution

  • Sigmund Freud - Was born in 1856
  • before the advent of telephones, radios, automobiles, airplanes, and a host of other material and cultural changes that had taken place by the time of his death in 1939
• Freudian Revolution

  Sigmund Freud

  • Was the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method for treating mental illness and also a theory which explains human behavior.
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • Mesoamerican civilization - Were isolated from the accumulated scientific knowledge of Africa, Asia and Europe.
  • Developed on their own and became much more self-reliant.
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • The most advanced MC was the Maya civilization that was well on its way to develop true science.
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • Maya hieroglyphs - They knew how to make paper and had pictorial script that allowed them to record all knowledge on long strips of paper folded harmonica-style into books.
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • Dresden Codex - Contains predictions of solar eclipses for centuries and a table of predicted positions of Venus.
  • unlike others, made predictions by aligning stars with two objects that were separated by a large distance, a technique that achieved great accuracy of angular measurement.
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • Tlachtli - Game played by Meso-American civilizations from earliest times.
  • earliest inventions: manufacture of rubber -- use of rubber ball in tlachtli
• Scientific Revolution in Mesoamerica

  • American people = horticulturalists
  • plants that originated in Meso-­America:
  • corn (maize), papaya, avocado and cocoa.
• Asian Scientific Revolution

  • Japan is probably the most notable country in Asia in terms of scientific and technological achievement, particularly in terms of its electronics and automobile products
• Asian Scientific Revolution

  • Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China together produce a staggering 90% of the world’s digital gadgets
• Scientific Revolution in Middle East

  Egyptians: Excelled in such applied sciences as medicine, engineering, and surveying; in Mesopotamia greater progress was made in astronomy and mathematics.
• Scientific Revolution in Middle East

  • Alphabet - Is probably the greatest accomplishments invention of the Ancient Middle East
• Scientific Revolution in Middle East

  • Hyksos period (17th century BC)
  • The Northwestern Semites living in Egypt adapted hieroglyphic characters—in at least two slightly differing forms of letters—to their own purposes
• Scientific Revolution in Africa

  • The applied sciences of agronomy, metallurgy, engineering and textile production, as well as medicine, dominated the field of activity across Africa.
• Scientific Revolution in Africa

  • Nubian Builders - Calculated the volumes of masonry and building materials, as well as the slopes of pyramids, for construction purposes
• Scientific Revolution in Africa

  Nubian Builders

  In the field of medicine, the common principles and procedures were hydrotherapy, heat therapy, spinal manipulation, quarantine, bone- setting and surgery
• Scientific Revolution in Africa

  • Nubian Builders: Various types of metal products have been used over time by Africans, ranging from gold, tin, silver, bronze, brass, and iron/steel.
• Information Revolution

  • Prove as significant to the lives of people.
• Information Revolution

  Computer technology

  The root of this change, and continuing advancements in that technology seem to ensure that this revolution would touch the lives of people.
• Information Revolution

  Impact of Information Revolution

  Of the Information Revolution is just beginning to be felt. But it is not "information" that fuels this impact. It is not "artificial intelligence.