Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, The
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Format: ebook
ISBN-13: 9780062199256
Description: From the Introduction...

There were systems of knowledge we call ‘sciences' before 1572, but the only one which functioned remotely like a modern science, in that it had sophisticated theories based on a substantial body of evidence and could make reliable predictions, was astronomy, and it was astronomy that was transformed in the years after 1572 into the first true science. What made astronomy in the years after 1572 a science? It had a research programme, a community of experts, and it was prepared to question every long-established certainty (that there can be no change in the heavens, that all movement in the heavens is circular, that the heavens consist of crystalline spheres) in the light of new evidence. Where astronomy led, other new sciences followed.
Table of contents: label: Dedication; label: List of Illustrations; label: Introduction; label: 1
title: Modern Minds; label: 2
title: The Idea of the Scientific Revolution; label: Part One
title: The Heavens and the Earth; label: 3
title: Inventing Discovery; label: 4
title: Planet Earth; label: Part Two
title: Seeing is Believing; label: 5
title: The Mathematization of the World; label: 6
title: Gulliver's Worlds; label: Part Three
title: Making Knowledge; label: 7
title: Facts; label: 8
title: Experiments; label: 9
title: Laws; label: 10
title: Hypotheses/Theories; label: 11
title: Evidence and Judgement; label: Part Four
title: Birth of the Modern; label: 12
title: Machines; label: 13
title: The Disenchantment of the World; label: 14
title: Knowledge is Power; label: Conclusion
title: The Invention of Science; label: 15
title: In Defiance of Nature; label: 16
title: These Postmodern Days; label: 17
title: ‘What Do I Know?'; label: Some Longer Notes; label: A Note on Greek and Medieval ‘Science'; label: A Note on Religion; label: Wittgenstein: No Relativist; label: Notes on Relativism and Relativists; label: A Note on Dates and Quotations; label: A Note on the Internet; label: Acknowledgements; label: Endnotes; label: Bibliography; label: Index