A History of Western Science

Rienk Vermij is a Professor at the Department of the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology of the University of Oklahoma. His research topics include early ideas on earthquakes, the reception of Copernicanism, and the Enlightenment. He has published several books and many articles.

Contents Introduction Part I. The Scientific Revolution1. Antiquity and the Middle Ages       Greek philosophers and nature       Greek mathematics       Medicine in antiquity       The classical tradition in mediaeval Europe2. The sixteenth century: the Aristotelian worldview in decline       New intellectual currents: humanism and hermeticism       Natural history and medicine       Mathematics and ‘natural magic’       Astronomy       Philosophy of nature3. The seventeenth century: a new worldview       Galileo and a new view of the heavens       Descartes and mechanistic science       The emergence of an experimental tradition       Mathematization of science       The mathematical science of Isaac Newton       A revolution in the prevailing worldview? Part II. Autonomous science: methods, theories and researchers 1700-20004. The eighteenth century: disseminating the idea of science       Knowledge and practice: instruments       Collecting and classifying: natural history       From alchemy to chemistry       Newtonian mechanics and its problems5. The nineteenth century (i): science at the service of the rationalization of society       A ‘scientific’ system of measurement       The modern hospital       Observatories, measuring stations and a global science       Science and Western imperialism6. The nineteenth century (ii): professional science       Universities and professors       Women in science       Laboratories       Classification and conferences       The rise of the experiment: physiology       Measuring and experimenting in the study of nature       Further mathematization       Statistics7. The twentieth century: industrial science       The rise of industrial science       The science of measurement       Research institutes       Control and modelling       Independence under pressure Part III. The scientific worldview8. The origin of the world       The Bible and the new image of the world       The development of geology       The origin of the universe9. The nature of life and the origin of human beings       Early scientific ideas about humankind and its place in the world       The idea of evolution       Darwin’s contribution       Descent       The mysteries of the mind       The mechanism of heredity       Heredity and evolution       A science of human beings?10. The nature of reality       A rational world?       The building blocks of real