A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low MechanicksWe all know the history of science that we learned from grade school textbooks: How Galileo used his telescope to show that the earth was not the center of the universe; how Newton divined gravity from the falling apple; how Einstein unlocked the mysteries of time and space with a simple equation. This history is made up of long periods of ignorance and confusion, punctuated once an age by a brilliant thinker who puts it all together. These few tower over the ordinary mass of people, and in the traditional account, it is to them that we owe science in its entirety. This belief is wrong. A People's History of Science shows how ordinary people participate in creating science and have done so throughout history. It documents how the development of science has affected ordinary people, and how ordinary people perceived that development. It would be wrong to claim that the formulation of quantum theory or the structure of DNA can be credited directly to artisans or peasants, but if modern science is likened to a skyscraper, then those twentieth-century triumphs are the sophisticated filigrees at its pinnacle that are supported by the massive foundation created by the rest of us. |
Contents
VVERE HUNTERGATHERERS ST UPI | 23 |
WHAT GREEK MIRACLE? | 117 |
4 | 188 |
WHO WERE THE REVOLUTIONARIES | 248 |
WHO WERE THE WINNERS | 349 |
7 | 417 |
506 | |
513 | |
Other editions - View all
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks Clifford D Conner Limited preview - 2009 |
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks Clifford Conner Limited preview - 2005 |
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks Clifford D Conner No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
Academy African Alexandre Koyré American Amerindians ancient Aristotle artisans arts astronomical Bacon Baconian became Benjamin Farrington Bergasse Bernardin Big Science Boris Hessen Boyle Boyle's Brahe cartography century B.C.E. chemistry China Chinese contributions crafts craftsmen created culture Darwin discovery Eamon early Edgar Zilsel empirical ence Europe European evidence example experience experimental Farrington foragers Galileo Gilbert Greek Greek Miracle Groote Eylandt Hessen historians history of science human Ibid ideas ideology important Indian industry innovations intellectual invention iron island J. D. Bernal knowledge of nature labor learned maps mathematics mechanical medicine merchants method miners modern science named navigators Needham Newton observed ocean original Paracelsian Paracelsus people's history philosophy plants Plato political practice produced Quoted Robert Robert Boyle sailors scholars Science in History scientific elite Scientific Revolution scientists slaves social stars Strabo theory tion trade traditional voyages women writing wrote Zilsel