Talk:History of science/Archive 8

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

Science in China

In the last 24 hours there have been a series of reverts, back and forth about this version, mostly pertaining to science in China. First, please note and follow the three revert rule. Second, it may be helpful to discuss the version here to come to some kind of consensus. What is it about the new version people dislike, and what was wrong with the older version? Best, -TeaDrinker (talk) 19:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The main problem is that the new additions seem like mostly unsourced OR. --Tsourkpk (talk) 16:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

There is at least one mispelling by the anon; the text which the anon is hitting was formed by Needham's monumental work Science and Civilization in China which asks Needham's Grand Question: why didn't scientific method arise in China? Apparently one reason is that the age of Discovery in China ran out of cash. The voyages of Zheng He were not followed up, whereas the voyages from Europe 'hit the jackpot'. Needham, for example, faults the lack of knowledge of the laws of mechanics which were still in the process of formation in the West. There was no scientific revolution. Needham, by the way, was a sinophile. China has caught up in science, it is fairly clear; for example, Nobel laureate C. N. Yang, in a public lecture, has stated that everything he needed to learn in physics, he learned in his Chinese university schooling. What Yang needed and got in the U.S. was what are the current problems which need to be solved?. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 16:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to correct my mispelling, but the work I wrote is certainly sourced. Needham's "grand question" can be answered simply that the scientific did arise in China, which can be easily supported if you look at historical facts. One of the problems of historians like Needham that study the history of a people whose language they do not understand is that they suffer from a severe impairment in accessing historical records. Historical records are written in a language that is not easily grasped by even a person fluent in a language, so much more one who does not even have that. Unfortunately, translations often lose the essence of the meaning of a text, and many terms are of course not translatable.

With this in mind, there was no European scientific revolution until modern times because of important historical factors, but science definitely existed in China since ancient times. The critical steps of hypothesis, experimentation, observation, and theorization all existed in China at least since the Han dynasty when the world's first paper was invented. Please refer to these sources: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.60/.

The insertion that the ancient Chinese philosophical framework prevented them from practicing science is pure rubbish when you consider the facts. Confucius, one of the greatest philosophical influences on ancient Chinese thought, taught in the Analects that ultimately finding "the Way" consisted in "the investigation of things". This investigation was interpreted to be the highest endeavor of man, and it may be one of the factors behind the flourishing of universities and scientific learning in China when Europe at the same time was immersed in religious mysticism and superstition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.176.84 (talk) 19:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is a citation which directly contradicts 99.255.176.84's claim: See Page 467 of H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry, 1994, Chicago, Chicago University Press.

In-line citations are definitely in order here. It is unfortunate that the literature of the ipl site you list above refers to concepts which have little credibility in our current time. If you look at the theory of the Chinese seismometer from 124 CE, it refers to dragons etc. We have been trained to disregard those concepts.

Some bridge articles to translate those concepts to more palatable terms are probably in order. When Newton framed the mechanistic view of the world he moved world civilization away from the unobservables, while still keeping the work of the Ancients, such as Apollonius, Archimedes, etc. Their work survives in the current edifice called Science. But not dragons. What the article needs is concrete scientific advances, their citations, and perhaps some sub-articles. The current List of Chinese discoveries is very much in this vein; perhaps you might wish to summarize some items from this list to buttress your POV.

I would not be so quick to denigrate Needham; he spent a lifetime studying science and civilization in China, and his research has been extended.

Here is a link to a biography of Needham The man who loved China by Simon Winchester (2008)

There is a difference between technology and science. The Four Great Inventions are technology. If you want a starting point for science, Thales' speculation on the nature of matter is considered by some to be the beginning of science. Now I am not an expert on the corresponding Chinese literature, but where are the citations for the analog of Thales? I am aware that air or qi is very important to Chinese civilization, to the extent that a mother will blow on a child's hurt to soothe it, but where is the Chinese literature that speaks to the phases of qi, in a similar way as Thales' phases of water?

Needham identified wu wei (going with the grain of Nature) as the highest form of action in Chinese thought. Reference: p. 474 of H.F.Cohen

You may wish to consider the observations of the 1054 supernova in the Crab Nebula. Chinese, Arab, and even possibly Native American astronomers observed and recorded it. (for the Native American petroglyphs see Page 23 Malvin Ruderman (1986) "Old and New Neutron Stars", Highlights of Modern Astrophysics ISBN 0-471-82421-6 ) Does this say that science was ongoing in pre-Columbian America? No. In order for science to flourish, there needs to be a critical mass of thinkers, a scientific community which is observing, hypothesizing, experimenting, commenting. There needs to be an awareness that science is important enough to fund and support, whether individually, or by a larger society of supporters. That is what I was trying to emphasize when I wrote of the failure of the voyages of Zheng He. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Hajj and science

In addition, there was the Hajj, which facilitated scholarly collaboration by bringing together people and new ideas from all over the Muslim world.

Citation need, no? Faro0485 (talk) 15:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

It sounds reasonable and intuitive, just relying on common sense. I don't see why you would need a citation for something like this - that would be like needing a citation for saying apples are red. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.176.84 (talk) 20:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Reasonable and intuitive it may be/ or not. However, if a bit of text is questioned, then a citation should be provided to back up that intuition. Vsmith (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

If its reasonable and intuitive enough that means that it doesn't need a citation. Furthermore, if you aren't going to participate in the discussion on Science in China then don't edit my work out because then it is just vandalism. What I wrote is sourced and if you want to dispute it you can join the discussion instead of unreasonably vandalizing my work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.176.84 (talk) 03:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we remove that mention on "hajj and science collaboration" Faro0485 (talk) 00:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Commented out per talk. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Science in the Islamic world
This article may be inaccurate or unbalanced in favor of certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Perhaps we can remove that tag? Faro0485 (talk) 14:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I am unclear about the reasons for the unbalanced/inaccurate tag. Can someone justify it please? In the absence of a response in 9 or 10 days, I propose to comment it out. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 19:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the original reasons for the section on Islamic science being "unbalanced towards certain viewpoints" were something along the lines of the following:

1. The section is too long for an article that is already at 90 Kb and should be a more focused overview. In a number of sections, the article digresses off the point into unnecessary detail. Specifically in the Islamic section, for example, there are two blockquotes on a single point: that Islamic philosophers developed the scientific method. (For an overview article, more than one blockquote on a single point should probably be avoided.) Some other sections such as Greek and Chinese science are a little too long as well.
2. The section supports a single view: that the Islamic world invented science (or to quote the source cited, that science was "the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world"). Recognition of the Arab contribution to science is certainly and deservedly gaining strength, but there should be some mention of criticisms.
3. There is no mention or discussion of the limitations to science in the Islamic world. See, for example, the preceding section on Chinese science, which outlines cultural limitations, and the following section on Medieval Christian science, which outlines the socio-economic limitations of the Black Death.

There are also few things mentioned such as cultural history, historiography and philosophy of history, which are not generally regarded as sciences. It's been a while since I've edited this article, and I'm currently on a long wikibreak, but I hope to gather source materials together and come back to improve the article on these issues in June. --Grimhelm (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. have fun; no pressure on the time. We await your contribution. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 20:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Taking out those two quotes and refering the Views of Historians and Scholars section on Science in Medieval Islam would most likely be a starting point, no? Faro0485 (talk) 04:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Image:Meccanismo_di_Antikytera.jpg

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Citation?

In prehistoric times, advice and knowledge was passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. The development of writing enabled knowledge to be stored and communicated across generations with much greater fidelity. Combined with the development of agriculture, which allowed for a surplus of food, it became possible for early civilizations to develop, because more time could be devoted to tasks other than survival.

Many ancient civilizations collected astronomical information in a systematic manner through simple observation. Though they had no knowledge of the real physical structure of the planets and stars, many theoretical explanations were proposed. Basic facts about human physiology were known in some places, and alchemy was practiced in several civilizations. Considerable observation of macrobiotic flora and fauna was also performed.

The following above needs inline citation. Faro0485 (talk) 14:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Which line specifically needs Citation? Can you highlight problem areas? --67.132.247.216 (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 14 days and keep at least five threads.--Oneiros (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd tread cautiously for two reasons:

1. For an inactive page like this, a much longer period, say 270-360 days seems appropriate.
2. Given the structure of the existing archives, be careful how you code MiszaBot's options -- I'm not even sure if it can handle this structure.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Activity: The last ten threads will always be visible, so 90 days shouldn't be a problem.
2. Structure: What's the problem? They are named "Archive 1" ... "Archive 7".--Oneiros (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Given the current level of activity, I doubt the bot will start before 2011.--Oneiros (talk) 19:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

harvnb-style citation

When SteveMcCluskey fixed the Sarton citation I decided to cast it into the harvnb format. Unfortunately, when one uses Author|Year in the citation the software links are very picky and insist on the format yyyy instead of 1927-48 which would be the real citation. I will submit a bug request to see if this has been recently fixed. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 04:16, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

It's good now; many thanks to Svick for showing me the missing piece which fixes the ref. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to editors to vote/discuss definition of science in Talk:Science

There has been an extensive discussion on the Talk:Science of what the lead definition of the science article should be. I suspect this might be an issue that may be of interest to the editors of this page. If so, please come to the voting section of the talk science page to vote and express your views. Thank you. mezzaninelounge (talk) 18:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Revise lede?

The opening sentence of this article does not tell the reader what the history of science is, but rather begins with a discussion of what science is. This is unhelpful, and at odds with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. A search through the archives shows that the lede's present definition of science was developed as the result of lengthy discussion, nonetheless, I suggest replacing the opening paragraph with something like:

The History of science is the study of the historical development of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. Given the dual status of science as objective knowledge and as a human construct, good historiography of science draws on the historical methods of both intellectual history and social history.

I've deliberately left the definition of science open for further discussion, since many recent historians of early science, e.g., Lloyd, Pingree, and Clagett, have proposed quite open-ended definitions of science. Comments welcome. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

SteveMcCluskey, your formulation then makes the starting point of the article regularities or uniformities, because humankind tends to seek the regularities in nature (which leads to science - see, for example time in physics#Markers of time) or in a system of practice - see for example culture#1946–1968: Symbolic versus adaptive. In fact, it seems to make the starting point for the lede 'that which science and history have in common'. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 09:58, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I understand. I guess history could use a few words of explanation, as much as science or their intersection, but something along those lines as suggested would be a good idea.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 10:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Here a suggested opening that is about the HISTORY of science: The History of Science, especially of the physical and biological sciences, until the late 20th century was seen as a narrative celebrating the triumph of true theories over false. Science was portrayed as a major dimension of the progress of civilization. In recent decades, postmodern views, especially influenced by Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), the history is seen in terms of competing paradigms or conceptual systems battling for intellectual supremacy in a wider matrix that includes intellectual, cultural, economic and political themes outside pure science. New attention is paid to science outside the context of Western Europe. Rjensen (talk) 13:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that both Ancheta's and Rjensen's comments could fit further down in the article -- perhaps even further down in the lede -- but I was concerned primarily with the content of the opening sentence. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Recent Revert

A series of recent edits removed the material about the nature of the history of science from the lede, proposing a new article on the historiography of science. It seems appropriate to discuss that proposal here before the reversions are restored. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:22, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Definition of science

If we want to reopen the discussion of definitions of science as appropriate to the history of science, here are a few I've collected over the years:

For our purpose, science may be defined as ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them. William C. Dampier-Whetham, Encyclopædia Brittanica, 11th ed., s.v. Science (1911)

Science comprises, first, the orderly and systematic comprehension, description and/or explanation of natural phenomena and, secondly, the [mathematical and logical] tools necessary for the undertaking. Marshall Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity, (1955)

Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. Niels Bohr, "The Unity of Human Knowledge," (1960)

What I mean by a scientific astronomical theory is then a mathematical description of celestial phenomena capable of yielding numerical predictions that can be tested against observations.... I do not wish to call an astronomical theory scientific until it gives us control over the irregularities within each [planetary] period and thus frees us from constant consultation of observational records. Asger Aaboe, "Scientific Astronomy in Antiquity," (1974)

Science is a systematic explanation of perceived or imaginary phenomena, or else is based on such an explanation. Mathematics finds a place in science only as one of the symbolical languages in which scientific explanations may be expressed. David Pingree, "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science," Isis, (1992)

We will use “Science” here as a conventional placeholder.... The mark of science, in that usage, lies in the aims of the investigation and the subject matter – the bid to comprehend aspects of the physical world – not in the degree to which either the methods or the results tally with those of later inquiries, let alone modern science. G. E. R. Lloyd and Nathan Sivin, The Way and the Word, (2002)

Note that most of these comments either implicitly or explicitly avoid any comparison with the methods and findings of modern science, while Aaboe represents something of an outlier in that regard. I tend to favor the view of most of the other historians quoted here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

SteveMcCluskey, May I add Jacob Bronowski (1956, 1965), Science and Human Values ISBN 0-06-097281-5 p.52, which is part of chapter III 'The sense of human dignity': "I do not think that truth becomes more primitive if we pursue it to simpler facts. ... In the language of science, every fact is a field - a crisscross of implications, those that lead to it and those that lead from it."

--Ancheta Wis (talk) 22:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I've copied your collections to my personal list. I'm under the impression that science is actually something coherent and therefore definable, but that a universal ontology philosophy of truth, existence and proofs is lacking wherein to define 'science'. The question requires research. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 05:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Epistemological problem

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the conditions under which you can have scientific knowledge and methods to achieve this knowledge, as suggested by the etymology of the word. (Definition of continental Europe) In a more narrow epistemology can be identified with the philosophy of science, the discipline that deals with the fundamentals of the various scientific disciplines.

It should be noted that in the Anglo-Saxon culture the concept of epistemology is instead used as a synonym for the theory of knowledge, the discipline that deals with the study of knowledge in general.

In this article is not defined the word "science" and in its this word is used as "pratical or better material knowledge". Science for european epistemology is a specific philosophy evolved from Empirism. This article is an "history of practical knowledge" but no "history of science". In the "science" concept is impossible include the practical knowledges of China and India before XIX century, because their methods not aswered the epistemologic question as western scientific method. Have you understand ?

So it need that in the head of the article must be a better clarification about the word "science" and "scientific method". It need to organize separate chapitre with all "proto science" and put in its the "pratical or better material knowledges", and reorganized the index.

Andriolo

--84.223.59.197 (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Example

History of Science:

Proto-science: early culture ecc Egypt, Mesopotamia, ecc. Chine India Islamic ecc.

Science: Historical bases The born with renaissance Illuminism e development ecc ecc

I would have an opinion  ?

--84.222.75.233 (talk) 13:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Andriolo

Andriolo, Richard Feynman would have said you are missing a concept. Yes, you are certainly correct about the history of philosophy (ie. natural philosophy) up to the 17th c., but our understandings of the world changed, especially in the 20th c. Take light, for example. A strict philosophical view based on 17th c. propositions would be completely wrong about light, philosophically, today. What has happened is the physics of today turns into the philosophical views of tomorrow. It's all turned around now. (See Feynman, Character of physical law and google "philosophically completely wrong") See also defeasible reasoning --Ancheta Wis (talk) 14:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

« Veritas est adaequatio intellectus ad rem; adaequatio rei ad intellectum; adaequatio rei et intellectus. » S. Tommaso d’Aquino

The axiom (light) is no important for the scientific method, the scientific method is based on Scepticism (philosophy) and Empirism (philosophy) so the method destroy continually the axioms the himself has created. And it will created new axioms that it will devour . The method exist indipendently. It is alone.

Example Newton model of “gravity force” has a bug. The bug is originated by the method (into the general model of universe that the method has created), because it can’t make a relation between the “gravity” with “existing mass”. The method is ri-modulating the two axioms. The “gravity” with a series of modify teories and the matter with the “dark matter”. Following, probably it will modify a series of axioms that are in relation with the two that in this moment are not stables.

The human need of answers, but the answers are irrelevant for the scientific method, better only the logic relations are relevant for the method. Infacts the scientific method, in continental Europe, isn’t considered philosophy because it don’t gives a whole answer or creates stables propositions, but it make infinite new pieces in infinite new relations without end.

I am a teacher of history, I do not believe in individual genius. If you put the mind of Einstain in the “homo habilis era” the better thing that he can do is “light the fire”.The “model of relativity” is a consequence of the scientific method.

Andriolo

The method that was fetus in greek world, and it is born during western renaissance is substantially a logic algorithm that Jung would say that works in the collective mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.74.135 (talk) 20:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

About Feynman, i see wikipedia eng "I don't like that they're not calculating anything, I don't like that they don't check their ideas" (no difference from Galileo, this is a foot print of the method.....;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.74.135 (talk) 21:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

And the latest LHC comparison of a prediction of string theory with experiment shows that at least parts of string theory are wrong. It shows the risk that individual scientists take in their claims. So Feynman has been vindicated in this case.

I agree with you that a scientific method is not philosophy and you are quite right that Feynman as genius existed for his time, and not for all time. We are fortunate that we know some of the names of the millennia of scientists before him. It is the task of history to record them and the claims of those who were right. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 22:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but now I realize that I have been misinterpreted, because at the begin I have written “Science is a specific philosophy ecc ecc.” . In this case I would mean philosophy of Science. That is something else than the Scientific Method that I described later. I noticed that the Epistemology is substantially Philosophy of Science in Europe, while in Anglo-Saxon world Epistemology is Theory of knowledge.

So I arrive to the problem:

If we consider the continental european perspective, this article should be divided into two sections: In this case Science is intended as results of the Method

History of proto-science (or history of pratical or material knowledges etc)

History of science

If you consider the Epistemology as theory of “knowledges etc”. And consequently you intend Science not only as Method results but as human “knowledges”. The article is ok. Otherwise is better explicate that exist this epistemological question in the introduction.

Andriolo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.73.35 (talk) 14:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Example, in the article there is a contradiction : ".....Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by researchers making use of scientific methods......" OK for European Epistemology

and after in that article is written Science in Early Culture, Science in China, Science in India ecc. OK for Anglo-Saxon Epistemology that has Science as "Knowledges" but NO for continental European Epistemology

It need resolve this question. I hope to be clear...

Ciao

Andriolo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.76.48 (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Remember that this is an article about the history of science, not the philosophy of science. Discussions of epistemological questions are more philosophical than historical.

You've raised a good point about including definitions of science in the body of the article; at the moment they are only discussed in a footnote to the article and above on the talk page. Something like that could very easily be introduced into the body of the article, but note that historians of science (and some philosophers influenced by the history of science) tend to avoid the kind of science / proto-science / non-science demarcation favored by many philosophers of science. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:47, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, English is an international language so i think need to consider what the “words” mean in the mind of foreigns little students. Science, for me and not only, mean conceptes or inventions created from Scientific Method..

I see the USA educational system isn’t the better about non-practical studies. In future, with private schools I have fear that in Italy will be the same. The Epistemology question is no only speculative but is important to identify a phenomenon. I try to give examples:I

Rocket: for USA Epist. is invented in China for Europe Epist. is invented in Germany from Von Braun.

Atom for USA Epist. is “created” in Ancient Greece in Ionia, although some Indians (Jains) have a respectable other “mythical oral” opinion, for Europe Epist. atom is “created” during Illuminism.

Steam Engine is born in Hellenistic era or in Western Europe during Illuminism ? Heliocentric system is of Aristarchus or of Copernicus ?

With “european epistem.” we can discriminate between Von Braun rocket and the rocket of Medieval China or between the Hellenistic Steam Engine used to open the doors or games and Industrial Revolution Steam Engine. While for your Anglo-Saxon method the two things are put on the same level and it is impossible understand because from a certain point of history the technology development began to accelerate.

The tecnology of Egypt substantially remain invariated from 3000 year as the China with slow changes. While the Western-world in only 350 years it passed from a reconstitued Roman-Hellenistic type tecnology to Space tecnology.

Something must have happened ? o no ?

My opinion is that we can not put Science on the same level of “knowledges” and we must discriminate. In the article we must say that the “Science” exist and it is different.

But is only an opinion.

Andriolo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.76.48 (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Andriolo, if somehow we can make some progress on this point, then we can improve the article, which is the goal of all of us who edit this page.

Joseph Needham (2004) Science and Civilisation in China VII.2 would have disagreed with your assessment of China's science and technology. You probably should provide citations.

More to the point is the state of global science and technology; Needham asserted that physics in both China and the West had merged by the time of the Jesuit presence in China, with the merger of Chinese chemistry and biology with their Western counterparts not far behind (to the point where the Chinese had synthesized insulin before the West), while Chinese medicine and Western medicine are not yet merged to this day. Needham even asserted that Western agriculture had benefitted from 2200 year prior Chinese technology, just about the point where you maintain the West started accelerating away from the rest of the world. For example Stevinus' wind-driven wagon in Holland came 1000 years after the Chinese had already mounted sails on wagons. The exploitation of petroleum with a 2300 year priority is only one example from a staggering list of Chinese inventions which were consistently ahead of Western technology up to the Qing dynasty. So today's economic dominance by China can be viewed as a reversion to the mean, with the past 350 years as interlude only.

And it's not just technological invention. Newton's first law of motion has an 1800 to 2000 year prior in the Mohists (who were among the hundred schools of thought suppressed in the burning of books and burying of scholars during the triumph of the legalists in the Qin dynasty).

But we are currently in a global phase of civilization; China and the West are all part of the same phenomenon. It's not too helpful to speculate just where China might have been if the Mohists had survived. And, I must say, it's appropriate to come to an understanding about usage, for example about terminology, as you are pointing out above. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I used the word “China” to indicate a pre-scientific and a continuous civilization which is thousands of years old. In its place I would have used “Europe” but it is not possible. Urban civilization in the West, at some point was reset, with the drammatic end of “Ancient world”. And the Hellenistic-Roman world was not strictly European. My purpose was to say that between the sixteenth and seventeenth century in Western Europe something new happened. It was created something that has brought enormous tecnological progress in human civilization as never before. Both the Scientific Method and the Science were borned. The Scientific Revolution in this article seems don’t exist. And the article don’t differencieate between what is created by the Scientific Method and what it is not. To sum up, they also were aware of what they were doing, see Descartes “Discour sur le méthode". Tomas Hobbe said that the method is democratic, and it have no cultural connotation but it can work only with “natural reason” of the man. This is the opinion not only Tomas Hobbe but also all french philosophers. The science(knowledges) of Chine had not “critical enquire”. But all us we are agree that in XIX century the “Scientific Methods and Science” became a “global world phenomenon” to see Japan Meji era.

I take my informations on “La rivoluzione scientifica dal Rinascimento a Newton”, Gruppo editoriale L’Espresso. Il fascino della Magia e l’immagine della Scienza.

Your article is good but with some “words” details in the head will be better.

Ciao e good job.

Andriolo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 10:24, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Citizen science

The thread above this one raises an issue about the definition of science. Today's New York Times science section (always on Tuesdays) p. D3 discusses Citizen science in "Managing Scientific Inquiry in a Laboratory the Size of the Web". One POV listed in the article, by Alex Wright, is that participants in Citizen science are doing the work of scientific instruments. Another POV listed in the article is that participants need to get more credit before they can be considered scientists; for example Hanny van Arkel's astronomical discovery of Hanny's Voorwerp.

One relationship to the thread above is that citizen science is a global phenomenon. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The scientific revolutions aborted

I agree the “Catai” was more advanced than contemporary western in many fields, the westerns were aware of that, infact to see “Milione” of Marco Polo and not only.

I think that Song dynasty technology was stupefacient to see the paintings and ceramics but some social circumstance probably didn’t create the “humus”. Perhaps without Yuan invasion the things would be different. But the method is not born in China indipendetly, and they haven’t the awareness.

In western there is also another case of scientific revolution aborted is in the Roman-Hellenistic World, to see the Hero of Alexandria and Ctesibius automatons. In Italy is normal to find mechanical remains: water mills, tubes, piston, pumps, valves, taps, threaded joints, lead solder joints and other mechanical remains of roman period. You can see this italian sites some example,

http://www.kijiji.it/annunci/libri-e-riviste/lecco-annunci-cesana-brianza/tubi-e-valvole-dell-antica-roma/9970761

http://www.mixers2b.it/storia_del_rubinetto.html

http://www.museodelrubinetto.it/storia_rubinetto.php?id_sez=8&id_pag=43 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 11:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

but if you will come to Rome you can visit a museum. We know that existed mechanical drills and hammer(?) (ital. maglio). In a little museum where I live exist granite tubes, pierced from a machine. When we go in bathroom and we open a tab to wash our hands with hot water, we are using a classic “roman” but I prefer “mediterranean” pre-scientific tecnology. I will not mention here the construction techniques and the phenomenon of air pollution in Rome.

Is not a case that in Italy until Scientific Revolution, the “Ancient World” was the reference. But from few classic books respect to the complex that existed, we suppose that they haven’t the scientific mentality. When I was a student my teacher told that Hero proposed machine to use the water in the rivers around Rome but the proposal was rejected, because it is not necessary, there are the slaves. I think that exist similar history, perhaps in China ?

When the archaeologists excavate Rome they have a strange sensation. If in the place of ancient Rome, we put Paris of 1800. We would find substantially the same things and the certainty, that our advanced civilization will be eternal, falters.

Andriolo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 10:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

P.s: Today if you will go in Italy perhaps the water that you will drink, it is passed throughs aqueducts built during Roman times and restored during Renaissance, obviously the lead and bronze are removed during the XX century because, the our "Science" discovered the harmful of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 13:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It is incredible I don't find a english traslation for the word "centuriazione"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 14:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC) http://www.google.it/images?hl=it&client=firefox-a&hs=E1M&rls=org.mozilla:it:official&q=centuriazione&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=EYobTYS5G9Gt4QalkLGGAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDsQsAQwAw&biw=1024&bih=637 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.59.195 (talk) 19:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Stoic physics

Shmuel Sambursky was professor at University of Jerusalem in the 1920s (and I realize I owe him an article). Anyway he studied the stoics; where is there coverage of stoic physics in this article? It would serve to unify ancient science in Greek and Hellenic (ie think Roman, since the Romans thought of themselves as Hellenes) times with ancient China. This would have the effect of neutralizing the Aristotelianist slant in the article. As the stoic physics article demonstrates, the West would have freed itself from some errors several millennia ago, which we suffer to this day. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I get the impression that nothing of the stoic physics is used today, and I recognize nothing of what we today would call science or even experimentation/observation in their system. I think it is an extinct system. Is it relevant really? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for responding; when I read the Stoic physic article, this is what I get out of it:

1. The insistence on a material basis for everything is a Stoic idea. That, by the way, was Francis Crick's reason for the search for a material basis for the gene, complete with a geometrical description. Crick/Feynman might not have been such confirmed atheists had we been more materialist two thousand years ago.
2. The fluctuation in the dynamical continuum (this is Sambursky's phrase) that started the Big Bang is one of the incipient ideas which the Stoics write of. Think spacetime foam.
3. The Stoic idea that a kind of cross between air and fire was the basis for the universe is strikingly similar to the qi of ancient China. And that did not preclude Chinese insistence on an empirical basis for their science and technology. (This is from Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China)

All of this is meant to point out that there is nothing special in the comfort zone of today's articles. We could be covering more in the current 3.5 million articles, such as reaching out to the readers in China. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Maxwell's portrait

Can't we find a better portrait of Maxwell. I realize he died early, of cancer. But this portrait must have been of him in his last days. He looks ghastly. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

You may wish to examine Commons:Category:James Clerk Maxwell for alternatives. --Allen3 ^talk 13:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I incorporated one of the portraits of a Maxwell as I imagine him. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Metallurgy

I have improve a litte the section of Indian metallurgy. But the history of the stainless steel it is very very complex. Indeed, before the eighteenth century, the discoveries were accidental and sometimes not reproducible as in Delhi Iron pillar. For example, the Ferrum Noricum that contending to Indian Iron the best quality in Roman Empire was stainless steel because it had into a percentage of Titanium derived from unconscious processes. I remember the drunk man in Toledo that created the inimitable first Sword of Toledo that are better than those of Damascus, tempering the sword into the urine rather than in water by mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.77.86 (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

See this link: http://de.wiki.x.io/wiki/Stadt_auf_dem_Magdalensberg (about stainless steel). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.77.86 (talk) 13:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC) And also http://www.dieuniversitaet-online.at/beitraege/news/ferrum-noricum-ein-synonym-fur-qualitat-und-harte/69/neste/61.html

Origins of Maize

A recent edit removed the discussion of the domestication of maize with the justification that "removed reference to maize that is not supported by the reference, which addresses age of last common ancestor but not of domestication." In fact both references, the NY Times article and the PNAS article, explicitly discuss the time and place of the domestication of maize:

"If maize is the product of a single domestication event as our results indicate, then its origin can be pinpointed to a specific geographic locality.... it is possible to estimate the date of this event with the microsatellite data ... [to] 9,188 B.P. (95% confidence limits of 5,689–13,093 B.P.)."

I have reverted that edit (along with another major edit to the Lede discussed above). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Sentence (in lead) about the "natural world", "scientific methods", and emphasizing "experiments"

In this edit, I had done a couple of things. First, I changed "natural world" to "world". Second, I changed "scientific methods" to "scientific method" (forgot to mention the second part in the edit summary - sorry!). Machine Elf 1735 (talk · contribs) changed it back, writing (including quoting my edit summary at the start) '“The "natural world" is generally taken to not include human beings” in this context, it refers to natural philosophy in contradistinction to supernatural explanation.' In my second edit, I summarized my edit as follows: 'OK, if you want "natural" in there, let's specify "humans" (plus be a bit more accurate regarding the scientific method, etc - observational sciences like astronomy still use the scientific method)'. Machine Elf 1735 (talk · contribs) then changed it back (again), writing 'why on Earth wouldn't the natural world include humans? / there's no single “scientific method” / undermines meaning of “emphasizes… experiment"'.

I don't want to get into an edit war, so I'm taking it here to see what others think. Three points:

• The Nature article, to which "natural world" links, says in its lead section (emphases added):

Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural, the supernatural, or synthetic.

I also note the antonyms of artificial (including "natural"), manmade (including, again, "natural"), and natural. I furthermore note the distinction between the "natural sciences" and the "social sciences". I do not disagree that, properly speaking, everything that humans do is de facto natural, since we are natural creatures; unfortunately, a significant number of people do not regard this as true.

• I would be interested in hearing about the alleged different "scientific methods" that Machine Elf 1735 claims exists, including citations for each of them and why they cannot be summed up as "the scientific method with different means of application suitable for different sciences", as is my contention. In support of my side of the argument, I cite (as the most readily available reference to me) the section entitled "The Scientific Method" from chapter 2 of:

Leedy, Paul; Ormond, Jeanne (2005). Practical Research: Planning and Design (8 ed.). Merrill Prentice Hall (copyright Pearson Education, Inc).

Note that the text in question is not meant for one variety of scientific research, but includes material for both the natural sciences and the social sciences.

• In regard to experiments, I note the Experiment article's Observational science section. I also cite the book referenced above for my contention that, while experiments are the ideal, sometimes observations must substitute for experiments, and this does not make the sciences in question any less sciences.

So, I suggest that the sentence in question (in the lead) does need changing. I would be happy - if other commitments don't cause a problem - to help with coming up with a compromise phraseology. Allens (talk) 20:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Some comments, in case they help:

• I am not convinced by either side of the argument which focuses on whether humans are part of nature or not. This is a complicated point, but in the end even Aristotle talks of human nature. Of course Aristotle thinks there is both nature and natures. And so on.
• I think the point about the word choice for "world" or something like it is truly difficult. We had the same discussion on the Science article and I suggest looking at the discussion there, which had several good-natured participants.
• The last bit about method or methods is for me less interesting than the question of whether science's core is really getting a good description here. What do all things called scientific have in common? Again I would suggest looking at the science article where this has also come up frequently.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:44, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. As I indicated above, I actually do think that humans and their activities are "natural"; I simply have reason to believe that some readers of the page may not, and may thus misinterpret the phrase "natural world" (linking to Nature) without clarification. (I will take a look at the Talk:Science page at the discussions there, however, including on definitions of what is science.) I strongly suspect that the question of science's description/definition will depend - particularly on this page! - on whether one counts as "science" that work done prior to the scientific method. (As both a scientist and as a teacher of research methods, I don't, but I realize that others may disagree.) Allens (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that humans are part of nature in some way. But according to some traditional schemes, the minds of humans, or some part it, and things they cause to come into being, are not natural, but artificial. You might want to also look at Nature (philosophy). Anyway, I am not sure that this point is the most important one for this passage. It would be pretty easy to find a wording that avoids taking a position?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I would think so; would Machine Elf 1735 (talk · contribs) care to suggest a clarification? I'll leave a message on that editor's talk page requesting a look at this. Allens (talk) 13:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

A chapter in a recent historical study of science has this to say about scientific methods:

"Scientific method, like science, was thus never one thing. It was many potentially useful things." The author goes on to discuss the ways in which the concept was a "valuable source of rhetorical weaponry" for individuals and groups who used various definitions to distinguish science (what they were doing) from non-science (what others were doing).

Daniel F Thurs, "Scientific Methods," pp. 307-335 in Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers, and Michael H. Shank, ed., Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2011. (quotation at p. 310). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Another historian of science, G. E. R. Lloyd, has this to say about scientific methods:

"...quite what the scientific method or methods consist in is itself intensely problematic. We cannot assume that there is a consensus on this issue in principle. Moreover in practice the methods adopted by today's scientists are in many cases very different from the neat schema of the hypothetico-deductive experimental method, as that is taught in schools. That schema plays an important pedagogic role, in introducing the pupil to certain model pracitces, but it is an idealization. It is one that certainly does not capture the complex processes by which a researcher decides his or her next moves in following up their hunches, getting round the difficulties, devising new protocols to crack the problems."

G. E. R. Lloyd, Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections: Philosophical Perspectives on Greek and Chinese Science and Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 15. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Regarding the first, I argue that one needs to distinguish particular applications of the scientific method in different fields from different scientific methods. Regarding whether scientists actually put into practice the method taught in schools, I suspect that the answer will differ depending on whether one looks at what people specifically state or what can be deduced from what they do. This has come up with my students' attempts to extract hypotheses from articles - they typically can't find (because it isn't there) a direct statement of the hypothesis/hypotheses concerned, whereas with a bit of logic one can frequently figure out what hypothesis is being actually tested by the research described.

However, more important is that this seems to be an area where sources disagree, and this should be reflected in the sentence in question, as should that sciences can do research using observation as well as experiments. Allens (talk) 23:39, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Give it a rest.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 08:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure Allens seriously believes there's only true scientific method… No doubt every practice the ‘same’ method, in spirit. Apparently the user would agree, but prefers a fantasy in which their contention was “"the scientific method with different means of application suitable for different sciences"” and that I'm an entrenched polemic adversary who “claims” that “alleged” scientific methods “cannot be summed up” that way. Obviously, if the user were to undertake an exhaustive analysis of my two edit summaries, they would find my only comment on the subject was: 'there's no single "scientific method"'. As far as I'm concerned, they're welcome to change scientific methods to the scientific method, absent the unrelated remarks that needlessly detract from the article. Frankly, apart from the abuse of language, I agree different means are applicable for different sciences. Does the ‘the same means’ leading to ‘the same ends’ come in handy for the more lack-luster of the soft sciences? Surely the least squishy of the has-been anointed, don't traffic in matters of opinion?

Perhaps the user would be interested in explaining why they “note” so many “citations” for no apparent reason. I can't find a preview of ed. 8, but I'll take the user's word for it that chapter 2 contained a section called Scientific Method. Is there a reason to “note” that apart from the title? I have no problem stipulating it presumptively verifies the many sciences are transubstantiated under one ousia, or that different means the same, whatever… No sense wasting time on the bogus:

“Note that the text in question is not meant for one variety of scientific research, but includes material for both the natural sciences and the social sciences.”

It's meant for students, in general. It includes no such material for the sciences. Compare:

The Yellow Pages is not meant for one variety of scientific research, but includes material for both the natural sciences and the social sciences.

Introduction

Practical Research: Planning and Design is a broad-spectrum, cross-disciplinary book suitable for all courses in basic research methodology. Many basic concepts and strategies in research transcend the boundaries of specific academic areas and such concepts and strategies are at the heart of this book. To some degree, certainly, research methods do vary from one subject to another: A biologist might gather data by looking through a microscope, a historian by examining written documents from an earlier time period, and a psychologist by administering tests or systematically observing people's behavior. Otherwise, the approach to research is the same. Regardless of the disciple, the researcher identifies a question in need of an answer, collects data potentially relevant to that answer, analyzes and interprets the data, and draws conclusions that the data seem to warrant.

Students in the social sciences, the natural sciences, education, medicine, business administration, landscape architecture, and other academic disciplines have used this text as a guide to the successful completion of their research projects. […] Essentially, this is a do-it-yourself, understand-it-yourself manual.

2 Tools of Research

… The tools that researchers use to achieve their research goals may vary considerably depending on the discipline. The microbiologist needs a microscope and culture media; the attorney, a library of legal decisions and statute law. We do not discuss such discipline-specific tools in this chapter. Rather, our concern here is with the general tools of research that the majority of researchers, regardless of discipline and situation, typically need to collect data and derive meaningful conclusions.

Yawn.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 08:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I suggest two points about the lede.

• Scientific methods should be treated in plural because

• Historians of science cited above (and philosophers of science not cited) treat it as such (after all, this is an article about history of science)
• The Leedy and Ormond book cited above is a textbook, not an example of scholarly research.

• I agree that the phrase "by experiment.", added in these edits, can be readily deleted from the lede -- astronomy, whose history I study, is an observational, not an experimental science.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

On my wish list

(I'm not qualified for WP:BOLDing myself on this).

On my wish list: The history of history of science. AFAIIM2K (as far as I imagine myself to know) the history of science as a history-science have improved lately to be more reflective about the relation of science towards religions, politics and economy, rather than an idealistic heroic cavalcade of lonely genii conquering. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Ordering of discplines

Is there a particular reason why physics is ordered as the first natural science (in the modern science section)? How were the others ordered afterwards? It doesn't seem to follow any objective order except for that which some would argue as the "purity" of the discipline. Not really a crucial subject in terms of substance, but I'd like to know if there was logic behind it. NNN15 (talk) 00:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the length of this reply but your question led me to look at the tplable of contents of George Sarton's Guide to the History of Science (1952). He placed the more abstract sciences at the top of his list and the biological and social sciences near the bottom, with little emphasis on the social sciences. His organizational structure influenced the thinking of many historians of science and, to some extent, is followed in this article.

History of Special Sciences

• Logic

• Western Logic
• Eastern Logic

• Mathematics — Bibliography
• History of Mathematics

• General Mathematics and Special Subjects Not Covered in the Following Sections
• Arithmetic, Algebra, Theory of Numbers
• Geometry
• Mathematical Analysis
• Statistics

• Astronomy
• Physics

• Mechanics, Including Celestial Mechanics
• Heat — Thermodynamics
• Optics
• Electricity and Magnetism

• Chemistry
• Technology, "Inventions"

• Navigation
• Metrology
• Chronometry and Horology
• Photography

• General Biology and Natural History

• Botany and Agriculture
• Zoology

• Geodesy and Geography
• Geology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology
• Meteorology
• Anatomy and Physiology
• Anthropology, Ethnology, Folklore
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Medicine

• Dentistry
• Epidemiology
• Gynaecology and Obstetrics
• Pharmacy and Toxicology
• Veterinary Medicine

• Education
• Sociology
• Prehistoric Archaeology

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

see also the ordering (especially section 6) by Robert Kilwardby (13th c) de ortu Scientiarum (from the garden of science) -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Library of Alexandrea destroyed by Arabs

"The Library of Alexandria had been destroyed by 642, shortly after the Arab conquest of Egypt" - this is disputed in it's own article, and regarded as being false history. Faro0485 (talk) 05:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The library has undergone much destruction and reconstructions from Caesar onwards. The fundamentalist Christians also did their damage, surely the Arabs closed the library definitively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.74.45 (talk) 22:17, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Arabs encountered no library in Alexandria. It was long gone by that time. They conquered Edessa at roughly the same time, and preserved the libraries and scholarly institutions there. Qed (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

House of Wisdom

In similar fashion to the medieval universities from the twelfth c., a a British scholar, Jim al-Khalili, has identified the Baghdad House of Wisdom as a cause for the success of Islamic scientists from the ninth c. for 5 centuries, until the sack of Baghdad. Might this merit a mention in the article? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Dimitri Gutas in his book "Greek Thought, Arabic culture" (pg 57-60) is very skeptical of the role of this "bayt al-Hikma". It probably existed, but there are only two passing references to it, and they are insufficient to establish its role in the translation movement or any other academic purpose it may have had. The claimed events that happened there also have no explanatory value. What matters is that the translation events happened, not that they happened at some particular library. Qed (talk) 01:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

About of the Fall of Constantinople there is only a little raw....

The importance of crisis of Byzantine empire in XV century and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 were crucial for the development of science in western europe.

With the intellectuals, arrived lot of ancient books. For example Marciana library of Venice is founded from Bessarione. With refugees began the study of greek language to approach to ancient books with the original language. The importance of byzantine refugees for humanism example in Padua and Bologna universities or in Florence accademies is undubitable.

The emphasis in the 60s and 70s of XX century on the arabic wire often is founded on the ideologies of post-colonial Europe and in the political correctness. This emphasis has hidden the byzantine wire that is not less important...

--84.222.74.45 (talk) 21:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

You need to explain this. The importance of this event to humanism is not in dispute, but that's not science. Science is always characterized by specific scientific works. For example, snell's law or the intro-mission theory of light are examples of actual science from before this time. You can't just say things like "was important to science", you need to explain how, otherwise this is just a claim. Qed (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

The scientific revolution is born in humanism. The humanists were often scientists. In this age, in Europe the scientists were hundreds in various fields, they published often the works with movable type. Only an example about optics: Francesco Maurolico (Greek: Φραγκίσκος Μαυρόλυκος, Frangiskos Mavrolikos; Latin: Franciscus Maurolycus; Francisci Maurolyci; Italian: Francesco Maurolico; September 16, 1494-July 21 or July 22, 1575.

Mathematics: natural science?

Sorry to barge in from the cold but there does not seem to be an entry for "mathematics" under the various sciences listed in the "natural science" section. Was this discussed in the past? Tkuvho (talk) 17:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The explanation is simple: Mathematics is not listed as a science because it does not qualify as a science. The scientific method requires that hypothesis and predictions be tested to confirm correctness. This is not possible with mathematics as it is a form of logic (e.g. there is no means to independently test and verify that 1+1=2). Mathematics is instead one of the primary "languages" used by science. --Allen3 ^talk 19:01, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Mathematics has always been considered marginal in definitions of the history of science. Here are two recent ones:

• Science comprises, first, the orderly and systematic comprehension, description and/or explanation of natural phenomena and, secondly, the [mathematical and logical] tools necessary for the undertaking. Marshal Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity, (1955)

• Science is a systematic explanation of perceived or imaginary phenomena, or else is based on such an explanation. Mathematics finds a place in science only as one of the symbolical languages in which scientific explanations may be expressed. David Pingree, "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science," (1992)

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The closest one could call it science is formal science which also includes things like computer science and decision theory, as opposed to natural science which is what most people would mean when they talk about the history of science. I guess the theory of the scientific method would actually count as formal science but that's not enough to include all the rest of it in. Dmcq (talk) 13:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, mathematics is generally considered a borderline case of science. It has many characteristics of a science, and mathematicians are sociologically closer to scientists than to people working in other fields of research. The scientific method is a valid argument to exclude mathematics from the sciences, but not a very good one. Mathematics is not about 1+1=2 but about much more advanced stuff. There are scientific experiments in mathematics, such as checking a statement about all numbers for many numbers to see if a counterexample comes up. They just don't have the same prominence as in other fields because mathematics is the only field in which something better can be attained: strict proof. One can also argue that mathematics is not concerned with nature, though ultimately numbers and the rest of mathematics are part of observable nature in a wider sense. In addition, mathematics has historically engendered disciplines of science and engineering such as physics or very recently computer science. Hans Adler 13:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Mathematics however has historical ties to (non natural sciences fields) as philosophy, economics or arts as well. And while physics might have the strongest ties to mathematics, in particular since 20th century various areas within the humanities and social sciences increasingly rely on mathematical methods. In fact there is even humorous exploitation of that trend by Tom Lehrer (singing about the mathematization of the social sciences, see sociology at 7:20 min)--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Ooh, I wonder if a friend of mine will stay one if I send her that link to Tom Lehrer ;-) Dmcq (talk) 09:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

This thread discuss if mathematics is a science. The article defines science as "a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world". It is clear that mathematics does not belong to the natural world. But most mathematics is theoretical knowledge about the natural world. Moreover, until 18th century, and even 19th century, physicists and mathematicians were usually the same people, and it is therefore difficult to dissociate physics from mathematics. For example, are Kepler laws mathematics or celestial mechanics? (By the way, Kepler laws, that are the starting point of celestial mechanics are not even cited in the article.) When Newton did shown that Kepler laws may be deduced from gravitational law is that mathematics or mechanics? Who can pretend that the mathematics he has developed for this purpose is not "theoretical knowledge about natural world"? More recently, when a mathematician, like the field medal Cedric Villani explains some physical phenomenons, which were not understood by the physicists, is that formal science of natural science?

On the other hand, while the introduction assert that "science is knowledge about the natural world", there are sections about political science, sociology, psychology, linguistic, economics, ... Is that "natural world"?

Knowing if mathematics is science is controversial, even among mathematicians. I do not know if there are reliable sources asserting that mathematics is not science. There are many such sources asserting that it is science, at least the work of Auguste Comte, who not only considered it as science, but rated it at the first science.

My conclusion is that, excluding mathematics from the history of science, as it is presently, is not only a historical error, but, as a large proportion of scientist consider mathematics as science, this breaks the neutral point of view policy of Wikipedia.

D.Lazard (talk) 16:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

(This comment is directed to no one in particular.) This article (correctly) includes the history of mathematics, in several places: there're sections on the sidebars for it, it's mentioned in the various sections on historical science in different regions and eras, etc. However, it's missing from the sections on modern science. This is obviously an oversight that should be corrected; the natural thing to do would be to create a section called "Mathematics" under "Modern science"; the person who creates this section can decide whether to put it under "Natural sciences" or in its own heading, and then we can have a wonderful argument about which of those two choices is right. But I don't see the point of having the argument before the section exists. --JBL (talk) 16:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to depend on histories of science and say what they say and only put in the maths connections that occur with at least some regularity. I would only include that amount which would be considered applied mathematics, which would include most of what Kepler and Newton did as well as ancient astronomy. However I believe there is already a lot in the article about maths which should not be there. Dmcq (talk) 17:30, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Mathematics#Mathematics as science section has some useful discussion and references on mathematics as a science. It looks like there are reliable sources on both for and against math as a science. There are also the book MATHEMATICS:The Science of Patterns by Keith Devlin; (reviews are at [1] and [2]) and the similarly named book Mathematics as a Science of Patterns by Michael Resnik. --Mark viking (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

There are already a number of discussions of mathematics at various points in the article, including Babylonian discussions of Pythagorean triples, Egyptian geometry, the Pythagorean tradition, the Euclidean idea of rigorous proof, Indian mathematics (including the concept of zero), Chinese math (including an approximation for π). In sum, there seems to be enough precedent for including some math in this article (despite Clagett and Pingree).

Discussions on whether maths is a science or not are not really relevant. What is relevant is reliable sources on the history of science. We should not apply logic saying some books say maths is a science this is a history of science therefore we should stick in maths history. What do books on the history of science say, that is what should be summarized here. Dmcq (talk) 20:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

As noted above, George Sarton included history of mathematics in the history of science, but then he also included the history of logic. Since there's already a page dedicated to the History of mathematics, probably we should only have a small discussion of the history of math here, with a link to the main article. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:11, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That was just a big bibliography, it wasn't a history. I mean histories. Dmcq (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The issue of "natural science" versus "formal science" that dominated the discussion above is a bit of a red herring. I would suggest replacing "natural sciences" by "exact sciences" and including an entry on mathematics that shouldn't be any longer than that on physics. "exact sciences" is a more precise formal opposite of "social sciences" for the purposes of classification. In this way we avoid an endless debate on the precise nature of the mathematical sciences, and fix a blatant omission in the list under "exact sciences". Would anyone like to propose a brief paragraph? Tkuvho (talk) 14:47, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The red herring is sort rather anglophone. The the distinction between "exact sciences" as a formal opposite of "social sciences" is bullshit, compare Auguste Comte idea of sociology as queen of science. Mathematics as other sciences has its roots in philosophy, not in techne and mathematics is, like linguistics, a Formal science, thats not fitting in any of the categories. Earth science is about a much more complicated topic than physics. The article parrots popular believes, but has no current value or roots in actual philosophy of science. Serten II (talk) 09:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Bruno Latour

Now we have a rather selective quote of BL's take on global warming used to dismiss the whole postmodern stuff. The larger picture is sort of more interesting and less easy listening. ;-) Serten II (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

See WP:WEIGHT about showing the main points of view. Is the postmodernist idea that all science is relative and a cultural construct really the current main view as is suggested by the amount of stuff in that section? Have you got anything showing what you stuck in really is a major view rather than just some selection you thought of? Dmcq (talk) 21:21, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Undue Weight and wrong article. Latour has never been a postmodernist sensu stricto (at least not in the strawman version you come up with) nor has he converted to positivism. Even worse, he sees "exact natural science" as a sort of religious faith, which is quite in line with e.g. Robert Merton Thesis or Max Weber. Latours Edinburgh lectures and his current books are about the "natural" and its close relation and reliance of religious views. If you want to look on the outcome of the US science wars in the anglophone realm, Harry Collins is the one to quote. Serten II (talk) 04:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC) PS.: You don't need Postmodernism to assume that Science is a social construct, - Herders and Hegels Zeitgeist was much earlier, neither Max Weber nor Merton nor Thomas Kuhn were postmodernist at all. Serten II (talk) 04:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

You have not produced anything to support your interpretation of weight.

You seem to read your own mind more than what is in front of you. I never mentioned global warming and there are other things in that citation as well, do you have a hangup about global warming? The paragraph with the citation in never mentioned Thomas Kuhn. What evidence have you for your view of the relative weight of Harry Collins compared to Bruno Latour? As far as I can see Bruno Latour has many more citations. I'm sure it must be a big annoyance having to produce evidence for the weight you assign but Wikipedia requires that, it probably has been influenced too much by the realists and positivists of the past and doesn't realize it would be so much better off if it accepted it was just a social construct, and of course weight should be assigned by any random person coming along claiming sociological expertise. So therefore either produce evidence of weight, or remove all the stuff you stuck in and that bit by Bruno Latour can go too, or just accept having a bit of balance to your unbalanced POV stuff. Dmcq (talk) 12:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you asking for an article on 1880 level? The "stuff I stuck in" is based on actual sources, and expanded the article with a basic overview of some of the waves of science studies in the last hundredfifty years. Of cause Thonas Kuhn is included. Collins wrote about the third wave of science studies and was part of a high level science conference dealing with the results of the science wars. Try WP:Civil instead of building castles in Spain. Serten II (talk) 13:04, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I know he wrote stuff. I asked for evidence of the relative weight. Dmcq (talk) 13:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be able to diss Latour, and dissmiss him in parallel, sounds like a Jesuit background, but nothing logic or comprehensible. You want to quote him, so its up to you to provide evidence. This article is about history of science, right? Actually, Latour developed a method to research the development of scientific evidence based on his coverage of the lab work of Roger Guillemin (RG later won a Noble Prize in Biology). Latour became a Science Po prof, that's the French Ivy league and was awarded the important Holberg Prize, e.g. for challenging "fundamental concepts as the distinction between modern and pre-modern, nature and society" ;) I may prefer Humboldtsches Bildungsideal - philosophy as the basis for all sciences (which includes the humanities) and no preference for the tekkie stuff, but latours actor-network theory is an important topic here. Serten II (talk) 14:07, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Just quoting the sort of stuff you seem to go by. Also read WP:NPOV, I'm not here to promote my own views. Just because I think someone is writing rubbish doesn't mean they aren't a major force. So you acknowledge Latour is okay for inclusion. Fine. I was just reading a bit more by Harry Collins at [3]. So this is the sort of stuff you want as your authority with talks about science warriors and witch hunts and how his critics misunderstood him. How about things like [4]. I liked the bit there about Sandra Harding: "She also claims that the very ideas of objective reality and of value-neutrality are myths invented by neurotic males to satisfy their perverted psychological needs. Therefore, she urges that science as we know it be overthrown and replaced by another kind based on female ways of knowing." Don't you think most of this sort of thing should be stuck in the Science Wars or Sociology of the history of science and what's here be basically just the lead summaries of those? Then there needn't be this selection of people here with their various views but no evidence of the main positions? Dmcq (talk) 14:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

As said, you lack basic AGF. If you want to ridiculize gender studies, do with your fellows, I won't. Keep your bad dreams about warriors and witch hunts at home, not my business. I think Abdelkader Aoudjit After the Science Wars review is OK, and the book he talks about should be included. The book gives a fair idea of the the aftermath of the Socal hoax and e.g. the paper about the ‘the Hubble constant’ should be of interestes as well for tekkies. Just try the notion about Kuhn. Quote Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) famously challenged the notion that there is a sharp distinction between scientific theories and other kinds of belief systems, that observation is theory-independent, and that science describes what the world is really like independent of what people think. He also argued that the historical and political contexts in which theories are embedded influence paradigm shifts in scientific thinking. Thats rather relevant. Take Alhazen, which is quoted in the lede, he had good ideas about physics and optics, but no impact in his lifettime. 1000 years ago, he grew up in the wrong society. Serten II (talk) 15:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I was quoting Aoudjit, the one you say should probably be included, about the feminist science. How are we to know what should be or should not be included from the ones he listed? I said nothing about it being ridiculous. The stuff about warriors and witch hunts came from the one you said I should look at instead of Latour. That is why I was suggesting most of this should be in those articles which can devote space to them and just the summaries be put here. I seem to be repeating myself about evidence and weight. It seems you have your own ideas about weight but can't produce evidence and are throwing around accusations of incivility and lack of good faith as a substitute. Can I ask you to please address the subject matter and what is said rather than the person thanks. Dmcq (talk) 16:14, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

evidence and weight: As explained to you several times, Latour has developed a whole school of science philosophy, and he built that school on studies about top notch gentec research. I would prefer less spite and hatred against my work here. If you want to expand the article, try to get a basic idea of the topic. Its not simple tekkie stuff. Serten II (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Deal with the topic and stop attacking me. Your thoughts are not enough as evidence of weight on WIkipedia. Unless I see some such evidence I think we are done here. Dmcq (talk) 17:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I describe what you do and what you fail to provide. Have you ever written an article? Its sort of a tragedy that you try to ignore Bruno Latour basic work on Science, but feel free to use snippets of him when you believe he parrots your faith. You failed to support your edits, which are not at all due weight or suitable for this article. Innsofar were far frome being done here. Serten II (talk) 15:45, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

China and India

I think the China and India sections are still a little too long. This has been a problem for a while and I may work on it myself. The China section is much worse than the India section. There are certain sentences that are repetitive, and I am not sure if a few of the claims in both are even true (especially for China). As a new editor, I would also like to ask why, if most science came out of Europe after 1500 AD, why are the sections on the Renaissance, and on Europe post 1500 AD, some of the shortest in the entire article? As far as the section on Europe in the Middle Ages, I am removing the following sentence in the paragraph about Marco Polo..."This led to the increased influence of Indian and even Chinese science on the European tradition". I haven't seen any evidence for this claim, ever, that Marco Polo brought back "science" from India and China. India contributed some mathematical knowledge by other means during other periods, and perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Marco Polo learned about a couple Chinese inventions, but I have never read anywhere about him learning actual "science" from those two civilizations that Europe wouldn't have already had anyways by that time. Therefore, I reworded the sentence to something more plausible Pierceunique (talk) 04:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

"Existence of science"

I'm encountering the following claim in a few history of science articles:

"Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, asserts that the very existence of science, as it is understood in the modern sense, is rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic civilizations during this time."

The source is here, and it does seem to support this general idea (though perhaps the terms are hyperbolic). Could I have some advice in assessing a) the reliability of this source and b) if it is reliable, the proper context to place it in? I could take this to RSN as well but I thought it might be useful to ask here first, especially for part B. Thanks, Sunrise (talk) 06:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Religions and scientists

Why are Arabic and Persian scientists identified by their religion while European scientists by their nationality or ethinicity? perhaps there should be one standard and so-called "European" scientists should be referred to as Christian scientists.. Mrdthree (talk) 09:06, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

"Lost page" of the "Wealth of Nations"

I'm working through articles containing "the to", often a sign of a badly-worded sentence. There's one here in the "Economics" section, which was added in this 2011 edit. The sentence, and perhaps the paragraph, needs rewriting by someone who understands the subject. If the source is really a "lost page" then how is this important enough to be mentioned in this overview article? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:07, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Discovery

The "discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus" is mentioned. I am not sure what this has to do with science. Anyway, his arrival was the third, after those of the American Indians and the Vikings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.24.21.188 (talk) 15:17, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

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"Science in the periphery"

An editor has now twice inserted a top-level section - a whole chapter - on what seems to be a very minor topic. I reverted this once as undue and now bring it to other editors' attention for their opinion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I am that editor. As the cited article in question

Twidale, C.R. (2009). ""Obscure" references: a cautionary tale". Studia Geologica Salmanticensi. 45 (1): 59–89.

explains the contributions to science from lesser known societies far from the centers of higher learning in Europe are less known but still important to the development of science. The section needs rather than being remove an expansion. The article cannot stay with the development in a handful of European countries but need to incorporate the history of the "periphery". Lappspira (talk) 15:59, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that it is a minor topic, but equally, I don't think it should be a top-level chapter. It seems to me that the story given in the text as it stands is part of the story of modern science, so maybe it should be a subsection there. — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:02, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe a small subsection, with more citations. I'm not terribly convinced, for the simple reason that major scientists like Linnaeus and von Baer were quite able to work in places far from Paris, Bologna, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, and people don't really feel the need to talk about whether their workplaces were peripheral. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Because they're white and we live in a world governed by systemic racism so it's valuable to ensure we include those people? Feel free to add references to Linnaeus and von Baer if you want.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BerthaLJorkinS (talk • contribs) 17:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

This article continues to be anti-European

Years ago I came on here and got involved in this discussion, bringing up the fact that this article had a very pro-Muslim, Indian, and Chinese bias on the topic. Now I have come back and I see the problem has been improved but there is still a lot of work to be done.

As someone else already mentioned, science in itself is mostly a European achievement, and Wikipedia seems to be the only "Encyclopedia" that gets this wrong. I have read all sorts of books on the history of science, and they all somehow miss these achievements that your article claims that China came up with before the West did. One very good book on the topic is "Human Accomplishment" by Charles Murray. He draws his information from sources from all over the world, and still comes to the conclusion, backed up by plenty of data which he provides, that the West has dominated not just in science but in other areas as well. Any book that tries to claim otherwise (and there are few in number), usually has a pro-Asian bias to begin with. I have yet to read a book strictly on the history of science that DOES NOT devote most of it's attention to Europe and there is a reason for that.

Also , as someone else mentioned, we need to distinguish between what is real science and what is NOT real science. I would like to list some specific quotes from the article that are downright irresponsibly lacking in facts:

"By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but the knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favour in 1601 by his predictions.[41]"

This is strictly a hypothesis based on an excuse. If the evidence isn't there, then it didn't happen.

"From antiquity, the Chinese used an equatorial system for describing the skies and a star map from 940 was drawn using a cylindrical (Mercator) projection."

Nope, the first Mercator map was invented by Mercator, a European, just as the history books say.

"The use of an armillary sphere is recorded from the 4th century BC and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BC."

There is no evidence of anybody knowing that the Earth was round other than the Greeks and then later Europeans after the Renaissance.

"To operate the crowning armillary sphere, his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive." What type of power?

"The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries 'learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture.'[46] "

This is an example of your bias. You say nothing of all the things that the Chinese in turn learned from Europeans at the same time. And what exactly did China have that could really be called "science" as opposed to practical technology? Is there a historical source that actually lists all these scientific discoveries that Europe supposedly learned from China?

"Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, early seismological detectors (Zhang Heng in the 2nd century), the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), matches, the independent invention of the decimal system, dry docks, sliding calipers, the double-action piston pump, cast iron, the blast furnace, the iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the wheelbarrow, the suspension bridge, the winnowing machine, the rotary fan, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the raised-relief map, the propeller, the crossbow, and a solid fuel rocket, the multistage rocket, the horse collar, along with contributions in logic, astronomy, medicine, and other fields."

I've noticed that Needham's name comes up over and over on this topic as if he is the only one who says these things. Even Charles Murray in "Human Accomplishment" researched Needham's work, but STILL came to the conclusion that 95% of science has come out of Europe. As for the inventions you list, some of these are legitimate, others are not, some have obscure origins, and finally others were actually much cruder and primitive than what we are to believe they actually were.

"However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into what we might call 'modern science'. According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature"

Perhaps because there never was real science in China to begin with.

"This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from circa 1000, in his Book of Optics."

But it wasn't enough to constitute a scientific method, which is why , for centuries, up until the politically correct period, Muslims have never been given credit for it.

"In mathematics, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. What is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Sabian mathematician Al-Battani (850-929) contributed to astronomy and mathematics, while Persian scholar Al-Razi contributed to chemistry and medicine. "

No mention of all the influences from Greek math?

"Heliocentric theories may have also been discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi,[60] Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said al-Sijzi,[61] Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī.[62]" You say "may have", which is the key phrase here. What is this based on? This is where falsehoods get turned into facts, completely fabricating history.

"Muslim chemists and alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern chemistry."

Even though just about every book on the history of Chemistry spends very little time talking about Islamic achievements.

"As well as this, Europeans began to venture further and further east (most notably, perhaps, Marco Polo) as a result of the Pax Mongolica. This led to the increased influence of Indian and even Chinese science on the European tradition."

While it is true that Europe became reaquainted with Greek science through arabic texts, as well as Persian, Indian, and Greek math, it is factually irresponsible to say that Europe learned SCIENCE from China and India at this time. What science are we talking about and how come it hasn't been mentioned in the average history book? Read the book "MARCO POLO" by Michael Yamashita. In it, Marco Polo describes India as quite backwards, and while he was impressed with China, the book says nothing about him learning any so-called "science" from there.

"The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work being done, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings.[88]"

This proves my point. It is funny that certain biased history books want to claim that Europe during the Renaissance learned science from the Middle East, India, and China, yet in books on the actual history of science in particular, it is only Greek names that get mentioned when listing specific scientists that Europe learned from. Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.127.153.183 (talk) 02:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. This article about science doesn't seem to distinguish between science (started in Europe) and technology (ancient China, Egypt, etc). Wikipedia has a tendency to be overly politically correct in some areas. It also is specifically anti-Christian. Lehasa (talk) 14:57, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't quite think the situation is so dramatic, i.e. that the article is "anti-European". If you look at the very large modern science section, it goes into great detail about advances that mostly took place in Europe. That said, there is a lot of crap and puffery in the article (the stuff about the Pax Mongolica for one), and the India, China, and Islamic sections are written from a fan's point of view. If you feel the article needs work, the way to do it is to be WP:BOLD (and get an account) and edit the article accordingly. Complaining on the talkpage is unlikely to achieve anything. As a rule of thumb, any unsourced claim is fair game for removal. By the way, do not indent your paragraphs, otherwise wikipedia treats them as quotes and it makes your talkpage posts very difficult to read. Athenean (talk) 03:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

If there is work to be done, the only way is to get an account and get the work done. That's how things are done. :-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I cannot agree with all the point of your rant. I am not an expert on China, so I will omit comment on those points, but I know quite a bit about the Arab scientific history:

>> "The use of an armillary sphere is recorded from the 4th century BC and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BC."

> There is no evidence of anybody knowing that the Earth was round other than the Greeks and then later Europeans after the Renaissance.

The Arabs, who were very familiar with the Greek pre-sciences were very well aware that the earth was round. Abu Rayhan Biruni improved Eratosthenes estimate for the circumference of the earth using pure trigonometry (that the Greeks didn't have) and better observations than were available to the Greeks.

>> "To operate the crowning armillary sphere, his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and the world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive."

> What type of power?

At the time, water power (from flowing rivers) would have been the only continuous readily available power source. And BTW, this was heavily exploited by the late Roman periods through the time of the Arabic empire and beyond. I am unaware of the degree to which the Chinese may have learned this from the Arabs or simply developed it on their own.

>> "However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into what we might call 'modern science'. According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature"

> Perhaps because there never was real science in China to begin with.

No, absolutely not. The Chinese had at least some rudimentary science. We know this because their scholars had been invited to exchange their knowledge at Islamic centers such as the observatory at Maragheh, which they exploited.

>> "This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from circa 1000, in his Book of Optics."

> But it wasn't enough to constitute a scientific method, which is why, for centuries, up until the politically correct period, Muslims have never been given credit for it.

You're dead wrong. Any plain reading of Alhazen and Avicenna shows that the Arabs invented the scientific method, and it can be attributed to absolutely nobody else. This has nothing to do with political correctness. Tracing the history of this shows quite clearly that the first Europeans espousing anything similar to "the scientific method" in the early days had clearly read Alhazen at least (and probably Avicenna as well).

>> "In mathematics, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. What is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Sabian mathematician Al-Battani (850-929) contributed to astronomy and mathematics, while Persian scholar Al-Razi contributed to chemistry and medicine. "

> No mention of all the influences from Greek math?

Of course the Greek math had an influence, but that's in the main article already. But you are shifting the goal posts. All science is built on the work of people before them. Nobody in their right mind is claiming that science came ex nihilo (except maybe you). Even the Greeks were highly influenced by the Babylonians/Chaldeans and the Egyptians before them.

As to the specific topic of algebra, the Greek influence is actually quite indirect. Diophantus probably influenced the Indians who in turn influenced al-Khwarizmi. The first concept of an algorithm, obviously comes from Euclid's gcd algorithm at the very latest. But the reason why we use the name "algorithm" (named for Al-Khwarizmi) is that he gave so many of them, and used that as the basis for practicing all of number based mathematics from arithmetic until algebra. His unifying principles of algebra and arithmetic is unique to him, and is in no way indebted to the Greeks (though it is fair to say he owes at least something to the Indians).

>> "Heliocentric theories may have also been discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi,[60] Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said al-Sijzi,[61] Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī.[62]"

> You say "may have", which is the key phrase here. What is this based on? This is where falsehoods get turned into facts, completely fabricating history.

I have not gone over the complete history of what is being referred to above, however it is well known that the Indians, posed a heliocentric theory of the universe and that Muslim scholars addressed the issue by arguing against it. The correct way to view this is to realize that the topic was well known to them and analyzed, but that they didn't have sufficient evidence or mathematical models to come to the right conclusion. (Which is fair -- not even Copernicus had this; only with Galileo and Kepler did heliocentrism start to become the reasonable explanation.)

>> "Muslim chemists and alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern chemistry."

> Even though just about every book on the history of Chemistry spends very little time talking about Islamic achievements.

Every book? You have a library with every book in it? Anyhow, this is complete nonsense. The Arabs were critical to the discovery that matter was preserved, in a number of special cases, that one could not "transmute" metals from one form into another, the isolation of alcohol, the descriptions of acids versus alkalais and so on.

I have not done a deep dive into this yet myself, however on the surface, it looks to me as if **both** Alchemy and Chemistry came out of the Arabic tradition. And the Europeans, like idiots, gravitated towards the Alchemy version of the science first, ignoring the Arab discoveries until the 18th century.

> It is funny that certain biased history books want to claim that Europe during the Renaissance learned science from the Middle East, India, and China, yet in books on the actual history of science in particular, it is only Greek names that get mentioned when listing specific scientists that Europe learned from. Why is this?

Perhaps because you didn't realize the Alhazen, Avicenna, and, Al-Khwarizmi, are not Greek names? Qed (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

They are few names and none of them is a modern scientist. The religious precepts prevented the use of the 1455 Gutenberg movable type printing until 1729 for Constantinople and 1794 for Egypt. The religious scholars of the university al-Azhar, however, destroyed the printing machine and threw the pieces in the port of Abu Qir in Alexandria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.133.5.107 (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I think Isaac Newton got it right when he wrote about being able to see further because he was 'standing on the shoulders of giants' In other words what he achieved was built upon the work of all those who had gone before him. And those who had gone before were a vast collection from all over the world. There is no question for example that the Islamic world had made (and also preserved) some remarkable scientific discoveries. But it was only Europeans who eventually developed the systematic 'scientific method' of enquiry which made modern science possible. There may be a danger in bending over backwards trying not to give offence to other continents. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.35.207 (talk) 10:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I disagree, this article claims to be about the "History of Science" that should include its total history from all over the world, it's irrelevant what form of science dominates the world today as that does not change what form of science was present throughout the rest of history. You can't and shouldn't change history based on what happened in the future. You can change perspective and opinion of that past, however those things are subjective there are many that argue that modern science is progress and there are many who argue that it is not. It depends what your values are what your view on that is, and those kinds of opinions have no place in wikipedia. Including everything here is much more neutral a retelling of history than not including it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BerthaLJorkinS (talk • contribs) 17:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

To the editors with interest of the history of science

I have provided some text in Carl Sagan's page with academic sources on Carl Sagan's misconceptions about the history of science in Middle Ages, and his belief in the "Conflict thesis" which is utterly refuted by the historians of science.

However, I fear that there are some with no knowledge about the history of science, who probably will not grasp that Sagan did indeed hold some popular misconception (Dark Ages Myth, Hyapatia-myth, Library of Alexandria-myth and especially the Conflict Thesis he believed in)

Here it is:

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Carl_Sagan#Criticism_section_again

Perhaps you all should attend the discussion and clarifying the issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by En historiker (talk • contribs) 22:40, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Project proposal: Enrichment of multilingual STM terms

Hallo all,
I would like to propose a research project aimed to enrich the Wikitionary in the STM (scientifical, techncal, medical) domain.
As a starting point lays the observation that many terms (typically named-entities) are present in scientific literature sources, but they do not still have an entry even on the English Wikitionary, which has the best coverage. This situation is even worse for some "new" terms, which are certainly of interest, and for non-English Wikitionaries.
On the other side, it has to be observed that some of the information which is not available on the Wikitionary can be extracted from Wikipedia. Hence the project objective are:
a) the Wiktionary will be extended for STM relevant terms in English and Italian as well, for thousands of terms.
b) The whole process will be validated for two languages (English and Italian) having different coverage and characteristics between Wikitionary and in Wikipedia.
The result would be very useful for who works in the research field.

Tasks:
1) I will identify from the the STM English literature from the sampled areas, including hot topics (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) and some new terms which are not present in the English Wikitionary;
2) Then, I will create such new English Wikitionay entries with a semi-automatic supervised process which will include as much as possible what can be inferred from Wikipedia (e.g. term disambiguation, different translations, etc.).
3) Then, I will validate this entry process for the italian language also, which is my native language: in this case, I will directly enrich manually the entries in the cases when the algorithm identifies names which can not be inferred from Wikipedia.
4) Then, I would document this (multi-language) process in a detailed pseudo-code, resulting in a open-access paper as a further project. I think that this result is preferrable than delivering a language-specific implemented piece of code, since creating/mantaining software should be further tasks.

To support the project proposal please leave a comment at the bottom of the project page.
Thank you,
Best
--Marco Ciaramella (talk) 13:38, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

The Americas?

Why is there no mention of American pre-colombian peoples? The Inca had advanced drainage systems, the Maya had advanced mathematics and architecture as did the Aztecs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.171.219.143 (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

India: Linguistics and metallurgy

Linguistics is not related to science, especially ancient Indian linguistics.

Metallurgy: Iron and steel in India- these are clearly technology, not science. It is well established that the science of metallurgy was developed in the late 18th century.

Science is concerned with the study of nature and natural phenomena. Technology is about techniques of production. Science was used for, and in some cases developed to explain technology. Examples include chemistry, developed for assaying ores and metals, thermodynamics, developed to explain the efficiency of steam engines, but fundamentally important to physical chemistry, and metallurgy, developed to understand properties of metals, particularly iron and steel. Metallurgy was developed to understand, among other things, why steel from new processes, such as Bessemer, became brittle and failed. Also, metallurgy was advanced by investigations of high speed steel.Phmoreno (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with you that the section headed metalgury does primarily contain information about metal working instead of the scoence of metal structure/behaviour. I would disagree with you greately in the case of linguistics and say that it is very much a methodical study of the way human's structure and build language.—T.E.A. (Talk•Edits) 14:32, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Linguistics isn't a physical or natural science. Miscellaneous facts do not need to be here.Phmoreno (talk) 16:24, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

You are correct, liguistics is neither a physical nor a natural science, but it does fall under larger the umbrella of social sciences, like psychology. I would I say that such information is definitely not miscellaneous an important example of how linguistics developed as a science. —T.E.A. (Talk•Edits) 21:28, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Linguistics is not in any of my history of science books and does not fit into the article flow. We need to end up with a modern theory of the universe, which takes us through chemistry, Newtonian physics, electromagnetic theory and special and general relativity.Phmoreno (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The giants Kepler, Galilei, Newton passed over with just a couple of words

Einstein gets a couple of lines. Many of the greats are not even mentioned. Turing, Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Becquerel, Hertz, Pauli, Watt, Joule, Mach, Volta, Gauss, Linnaeus, Fleming, the Curies, von Helmholtz, von Braun, Roentgen... to name a few. While there are pages long essays on China, India and Islamic countries, full of myth, falsehood, exaggeration; deliberate, politically motivated story telling. I'm not going to assume good faith. This is a deliberately bad article and there have been clear motives in making it an article of false information, undue weight, political narrative building, anti-learning and entirely unencyclopedic.

This the history of science? How the scientific process and method were born and developed and practised? The wiki-project is beyond help. The state of this article after 14 years. The social construction of knowledge by ideological advocates. This is sick. A kid who reads this article and takes it seriously. What a false view of history and science will he get. What a false view of the world he lives in. And to think there are writers here on wikipedia, deliberately dishonest to want just that. 188.67.176.203 (talk) 14:40, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Any claims the the article contains "falsehood" should be accompanied by detailed proof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.24.21.188 (talk) 15:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

As you point out, this article shows a strong bias towards extreme political correctness. Science was started by white men. Maybe this is sad and unfortunate, but it is true. Why? Because science started in Europe and Europe was white at the time. Why men? Because Europe was also patriarchal (as was the rest of the world at that time) and so women were simply not allowed to go to university, write technical books, etc. The truth about the history of science should not be changed just because people don't like certain aspects of it.

The same goes for Christianity. The Christian worldview, the Christian understanding of God, was essential for science to being. It was one of the three or four necessary components for the scientific revolution. However, with rabid anti-Christian sentiment in today's society, there is no way that this will ever make it into Wikipedia. Lehasa (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the Christian understanding of God was detrimental to science and European civilization in general. Christians' obsession with a mythological figure did not help them advance. Dimadick (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

You think that, but if you go and look for evidence (positive and negative evidence) you'll find the opposite of what you think. Check your biases. This obsession with "a mythological figure" gave rise to most of the early universities and hospitals and spread literacy around the world. Freedom of slaves also. I don't think you've investigated for yourself the positive benefits of Christianity. The media just highlights the negative ones, but you should have a look for yourself - you'll be pleasantly surprised. Lehasa (talk) 17:30, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

A critical question no Christian apologist or "Holy Science" adherent has ever been able to answer satisfactorily: Why, then, has the Christian world in the thousand years when Christianity ruled the (western) world – from Late Antiquity (c. 400) to the Renaissance (c. 1400) – not produced anything close to the Scientific Revolution or at least genuinely important scientific findings, and why did it take the rediscovery of ancient pagan treatises and re-establishment of pagan values to spur exactly that development?

In fact, it's not only the early modern greats who are given short shrift; after a foray into pre-Aristotelian speculative philosophy – which Aristotle crucially turned into an endeavour much more comparable to modern science by making it more systematic and testing speculative explanations against empirical evidence – the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which produced such eminent and influential scholars as Archimedes, Hero, Ptolemy and Galen, are also neglected. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:23, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Eurocentrism in Scientific History

I reverted the edit because it was unsourced and apparently copied, but the editor's sandbox is User:Towenaar/sandbox and shows sourced content. They are likely (and welcome) to reinstate their edit (I left a message at their talk page about the distinction between copying the wikisource and the web page text). —PaleoNeonate – 02:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

This is more of a question of historiography of science, rather than the history of science per se. While the first paragraph is coherent and relatively well-sourced, the content belongs more in historiography of science, which has a separate article, than this article, which is already very long. The second paragraph is poorly sourced and written, incoherent, and even self-contradictory. Specifically:

In contrast to the Eurocentric view, historians argue evidence of East Asian influence in the scientific revolution. This not only unsourced and unsubstantiated (which historians? what evidence?), but the next sentence mentions that Copernicus "used calculations of Islamic astronomers", which has nothing to do with East Asia or a scientific revolution, and even somewhat contradicts the initial assertion.

His findings were focused on the earth's rotation on its axis every twenty-four hours and its orbit around the sun every 365¼ days. This is well-known, but again off-topic and irrelevant.

These findings led Copernicus to his heliocentric system, using knowledge known to Chinese astronomers based... Chinese astronomy believed in a Flat Earth until well into the 17th-18th centuries, so this is an extraordinary claim. Second, "using knowledge known" is not only very poor prose, but it is also not the same as "influenced by". It is one thing to cite other scientists (influence), it is quite another to use knowledge independently arrived at by another civilization.

His heliocentric planetary theory was published in 1543, the same year the Greek works of Archimedes were translated from Arabic into Latin And? This is off-topic.

The change in philosophical mindset as well as astronomical improvements gained by the Jesuits research in China is used as evidence to argue for its influence in Copernican work as well as Arab calculations and translations of Greek texts. This is not only badly written (what is "its"?) but also entirely unsourced while being an extraordinary claim. The Jesuits were active in China mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries, long after Copernicus, thus to suggest they brought back knowledge used by Copernicus is quite an extraordinary claim. In fact, the Jesuits are mainly known for introducing Western astronomical knowledge, such as the Spherical Earth, into China, rather than the other way around.

For these reasons, I am moving the first paragraph to historiography of science. The second paragraph is unfortunately unsalvageable. Khirurg (talk) 20:15, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Khirurg 's removal of Reliable source regarding Yajnavalkya as Fringe, i sense OR here

just now, Khirurg has removed academic surces as pop sci and Fringe, even though both the authors are renowned academic physicists and scholars with published reseach papers and books, and publisher also publishes scientific journals, books etc, second source is well known springer (which publishes sci journals). So can the editor provide evidences by citing reputed scientific sources that reason he is mentioning is not merely his/her opinion and based on scholarly concensus that claims of Yajnavalkya's astronomical contributions have been rejected? Even if the editor proves that it may be a fringe theory, even then, based on what WK regulations, removal of these sources which meet criterea of Reliable source can be justified and why can't the editor not simply (if proven) mention them as fringe etc and cite other sources refuting them, can the editor mention these rules which enables him to completely omit such academic sources because that clearly violates WK rules. Zombie gunner (talk) 08:01, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

First paragraph

I think the definition of science is unnecessary in the introduction. I would cut both sentences.

We may assume, as the reader will, a loose and inclusive definition of science. This is the proper approach to history. We're not trying exclude anything or draw some kind of line around what science is and isn't. The demarcation problem doesn't belong here, in the top-level, most introductory place in all of Wikipedia.

Thoughts? Disagreements? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:59, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The current solution can probably be improved upon but we have our own demarcation problem, or, as we call them, disambiguation problem, to consider. In other words, this is one of those articles where different editors and readers have very different expectations about what they are going to find, and that can make it important to clarify the article coverage early in the article. To clarify: I think for many/most editors who work on such topics, there is only one real science which now belongs to the whole world. Other people find that a bit non-inclusive and would see the topic we cover as Science as "Modern", "Western" science.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:29, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

CharlesGillingham, I disagree. I think the definition of science should be mentioned to establish the scope of this article. It is actually quite broad and inclusive (e.g., includes mathematics and the social sciences). Removing it will lead readers to assume that science is just the natural sciences (see the archive for past discussions). danielkueh (talk) 04:44, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

That is exactly why I argue that we shouldn't presume to define it here -- it's arguable.

I believe that it's fair to say there is no precise definition of science that is acceptable to all philosophers & sociologists of science. The demarcation problem is unsolved. Thus, as I say, it's presumptive for a historian to define science. David C. Lindberg, in the introduction to The Beginnings of Western Science, wrote "every meaning of the term 'Science' ... is a convention accepted by a sizable community, which is unlikely to relinquish its favored usage without a fight." And then he recommends that "The historian, then, requires a broad definition 'science' -- one that will permit the investigation of the vast range of practices and beliefs that lie behind, and help us understand, the modern scientific enterprise."

I agree with Lindberg that history requires a loose and inclusive definition of science. Let the reader's commonsense definition of science stand -- they know what "science" means, at least as well as they know what "sports" or "art" means. No definition at all is better than a precise definition that no professional (other than E.O.Wilson) would find adequate. This is an article about history -- I would just cut straight to the history and leave off the philosophy. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk)

"Let the reader's commonsense definition of science stand." I'm afraid their common sense definition is likely to be very different from yours, mine, and Lindberg's. Even Lindberg, as you mentioned, provided some sort of definition of science, which is not inconsistent with one used in this article. My point is a practical one. A definition of some sort is needed to establish the scope of this article. Otherwise, you'll have editors/readers arguing back and forth on whether we should or should not be covering the development of mathematics, social science etc. You'll see that in the discussion archives. danielkueh (talk) 05:31, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

The reason people are arguing back and forth is because there is no simple definition that will work for history. If you commit to any definition, then there are always ways to criticize it or to criticize contributions based on it. That's Lindberg's point. And I disagree, by the way, that he settles on some explicit formal definition -- he thinks that's folly.

History of science is not just about science -- it's about things that are a part of science, but aren't science by the definition you've given. For example, when you are talking about Paleolithic or Bronze Age cultures, you have to discuss technology, because they made important discoveries that would later become part of science. The same is true of China -- Joseph Needham explicitly uses a definition of science that includes technology. With technology, there's no naturalistic "theory", there is just this interesting and useful thing, or technique, that will be important to science. If you're going to mention the pre-Socratics, you have to talk about theories that are not empirical, because the dialectic method they developed is essential to science. If you're talking about the High Middle Ages in Europe, you have to mention the founding of University of Paris, because independent institutions are an essential part of science and a big step forward, but they didn't really do empirical science there -- sporadically if at all. Similarly with India: the invention of zero is an essential step in the history of science, because without it you can't make accurate mathematical models. You don't get accurate Islamic trigonometry and astronomy, so you don't get Copernicus, and Galileo might never have decided that God wrote the universe in mathematics. But there is nothing particularly "empirical" about Gupta dynasty mathematics, despite its centrality in the history of science. Even Newton's "action at a distance" isn't science by any definition that mentions "naturalism" or "mechanism" -- it's alchemy.

You see what I mean? There's no way to draw a line around science with a short sentence or two that's actually going to work for history.

On top of that, you have all the late 20th century sociologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers arguing that a definition like the one in the article doesn't capture what scientists actually do or what is required to make science work -- it's not really a verifiable empirical theory of what the scientific enterprise is. It's over-simplified, prescriptive, and, above all, arguable. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 14:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I think DK is correct (if I am understanding correct) that the solution for us is simpler: we just need to use a practical definition. It should ideally be one which is common, and easy to understand the boundaries of. But also, if a topic is covered in another article (for example mathematics) then we use links to that article instead trying to handle everything in this article. Actually we can break up a topic any way we like as long as we don't create multiple articles which all claim to be the main coverage for a topic. If we can split a topic into several topics, then in principle we can eventually split the article for that topic, just to make sure our articles are not too long.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Andrew, that's what I'm saying. danielkueh (talk) 17:08, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

There is a lot here and I don't want us to get bogged down addressing every single detail. In the interest of staying focused on whether we should retain, delete, or modify the last two sentences of the first lead paragraph, I will just mention the type of changes I would not be against. I'm open to removing only the second sentence but keeping (and modifying for prose) the third sentence on the three major branches of science and of course retaining the wikilink to the science article itself, which already has a definition of science. The reason why I think the third sentence is important is because it needs to be made clear to the reader (and any other interested editor) that this article doesn't just cover the development of the natural sciences but also includes the social and formal sciences. danielkueh (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

That would work. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:31, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Done. danielkueh (talk) 01:14, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2018 and 5 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cbbeli.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 18 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): OsteWiki.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Reorganization proposal.

It seems to me that the organization of the article is a bit misleading. Here are several points:

All of the world's Neolithic and Bronze Age civilizations developed advances in husbandry, astronomy, mathematics -- slightly different, of course, but sufficiently similar to support a unified approach to the Neolithic and Bronze Age everywhere. So this first section, in my view, should cover: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, Shang & Zhou, Maya astronomy, and maybe Polynesian navigation (just because it's amazing).

I wouldn't split Egypt and Mesopotamia out from this. My impression is that, in our modern understanding of world history, that there isn't such a direct connection between Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia and the civilizations (Greek, Persian) that followed them. The Bronze Age collapse was a pretty significant cultural break. Although some knowledge filtered through, I don't think it's accurate to consider this all part of the same historical story that led directly to European science.

I also think that India Golden Age (the Gupta) should have it's own section, partly because this is a post-Hellenic development, and clearly inherited Greek ideas and influenced Islamic ideas.

I see no reason to mention European science until the high Middle Ages (e.g., founding of the University of Paris), because Europe didn't really have any role in the story, and there's no reason to mention all the regions that didn't participate in the project -- e.g. central Africa, Indonesia etc.

That is, I would write it:

• Neolithic and Bronze Age Innovations: Indus, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Shang/Zhou, Maya, Polynesia
• Classical and Medieval Science (this is a coherent story, where each influences the next)
  • Greek Natural Philosophy
  • Hellenistic Science
  • Indian Golden Age
  • Islamic Golden Age
  • High Middle Ages
• Chinese Science
• European Scientific Revolution
  • Rennaisance
  • 17th century (Brahe to Newton)
• 18th century
• 19th century

and so on.

Any thoughts? Objections? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:52, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. That's not how it is laid out in most secondary sources. danielkueh (talk) 04:46, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Good point. --- CharlesGillingham (talk) 14:48, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Support This is very much the organization in Cambridge History of Science Vol I It would be lots and lots of work, though. ch (talk) 18:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Looks similar to what we already have here. danielkueh (talk) 18:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Alan Turing

Isn't Turing worthy of mention? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:09, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Optics

The words "microscope" and "lens" do not appear on the page, and the word "telescope" appears only in the context of radio astronomy. Should this be rectified? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:26, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Short description & approaches

I am not sure that the re-direct from New Science, or the pointer to The New Science are required at the top of the article. I don't think this is a plausible mix-up with 'history of science' Dunstanne (talk) 13:26, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I have no opinion either way. On a side note, I reverted this edit [5] as I'm not sure this article is the best place for this. It detracts from the main focus and topic of this article. Perhaps History of science and technology or Historiography of science is a better destination for this sort of preface? Plus, I do not see a "previous chat" that calls for its inclusion. danielkueh (talk) 16:54, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Danielkueh: As a historian of science, I think it's vital that people have a good, brief overview of how the history of science is produced and a summary of expert before reading that history. Most pages on the history of big topics have a section on approaches or historiography or periodisation, explaining in a concise way the key things that people need to know to better understand the context of what they are reading on the rest of the page. I think this content should be on this page, and that it's short enough, so I'm restoring it to the page. Zeromonk (talk) 11:34, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. I did not find it informative. Quite the opposite. It's vague and reads more like an original research text WP:OR. And I question the selection of sources and the choice of certain details being highlighted. danielkueh (talk) 11:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not OR. If you think it vague you're free to clarify it. If you think it poorly sourced, you're free to find further sources. If you think it can be better-worded you're free to make or propose edits to that end. But you need to stop edit-warring to remove an entire section that only you have expressed concern over, when multiple editors - including me now, and so at least three - think it should be included. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

The burden is not on me to find better sources or to clean up someone else's work (see WP:BURDEN). I'm insisting that there be discussion and that consensus be reached. There can be multiple outcomes here, not just deletion. Stating one's credentials and then putting a section back in is not reasonable. And just because you happen to agree with the other two, it doesn't mean you can just close this discussion and then just restore the section without further input. If you that's your approach in general, then clearly, you're not interested in collaborating in good faith. danielkueh (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Please feel free to point out where you think I said the burden was on you to do anything; or where you think I tried to close a discussion (hint: "you're free to make or propose edits...". It is you who is increasingly out of order, and you need to drop the hostile attitude. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Now you're just being ridiculous by playing word games and engaging in ad hominem attacks. And if there is anyone who is acting "out of order" or has a "hostile attitude," it is you. I have nothing more to say to you. Good luck and have a nice life. danielkueh (talk) 13:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, I now see that, in making your second revert, of a second editor, you cited WP:BRD. I suggest you go and re-read that page, and note that it explicitly says not to make such reverts. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:16, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you should be the one to re-read it: "To follow BRD specifically, instead of one of the many alternatives, you must not restore your bold edit, make a different edit to this part of the page, or engage in back-and-forth reverting. Talk to that one person until the two of you have reached an agreement." danielkueh (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Danielkueh: It was not my edit that I restored. I invite you to reread WP:BRD-NOT (esp. point #2) please. I'm happy to discuss (with the piece of content there for other folks to see what we're discussing seems to make the most sense to me). Let's WP:AGF please. I've invited folks at Wikiprojects Science and History of science to get involved in the discussion to bring in some more perspectives. Zeromonk (talk) 12:43, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Zeromonk: If you think that point #2 was my reason for reverting your edit, then you are either misrepresenting or misinterpreting my position. It is absolutely disingenuous to claim to have an interest in discussion, only to have a bold edit restored in its entirety with no edits or modifications. If you want editors to see it, then you can easily post it here for all to see and discuss. Once it is restored and you have the numbers on your side, you are free to just ignore my concerns and objections. I may be many things but I am not a fool. I have been editing WP for over 16 years and I have worked collaboratively with other folks on very difficult topics. I know when a discussion is still open and when it is done. danielkueh (talk) 13:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: History of Science to Newton

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2022 and 12 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wernerheisenberg1901, Wehl0000, Azizam29 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Patt0400 (talk) 18:04, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Two topics: Referencing, and GA project

1. The referencing format is, of course, inconsistent. I propose a change to {{sfn}} and {{sfnm}}, as seen in Logic and Black Monday (1987) (Currently a featured article candidate). I'll do that, if no one disagrees. Will wait a few days for replies to this first proposal.
2. After that, I'm gonna spend maybe a couple of months reviewing and revising the entire article, with a WP:GAN attempt in mind. Anyone who wishes to help is welcome. You can reply to this second proposal any time you want. :-) § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 06:20, 16 May 2023 (UTC)