|
History 30B, Spring 2000Science and Society since the Scientific Revolution |
|
|
History 30B, Spring 2000Science and Society since the Scientific Revolution |
Note that some of the questions
are judgment calls. If you can make a good case for answering
differently, that's perfectly fine. The main point is to
bring in the major issues that show up in the answers below.
1. The lowly breadfruit tree: what is its broader significance? Put it in the context of eighteenth-century exploration and comment on the practical interests of European natural historians.
The breadfruit tree was the subject
of one of Joseph Banks's attempts to transplant native species
from one region of the tropics to another. Banks was the
natural historian who accompanied James Cook on his first voyage
to the South Pacific, where he collected a great variety of botanical
specimens. Then he oversaw a vast network of collectors
and classifiers from his metropolitan location in London's Kew
Gardens. Like many natural historians of the later eighteenth
century, Banks gained access to foreign species through his nation's
colonial ambitions. He intended in turn to serve those ambitions
by harnessing the knowledge of plant, animal, and mineral resources
in the economic support of imperial expansion. In particular,
he wanted to transfer the breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies
in order to provide cheap food for slaves. This was only
one of his several schemes, which also included transplanting
tea between China and India.
2. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment complicated the relations between science and religion. Describe at least two different ways in which eighteenth-century scientists sought to formulate the relationship.
The relations between science
and religion were never unequivocal during the Scientific Revolution
and the Enlightenment. Many scientists felt that their work
was serving to make plain God's wisdom and purpose in the world.
Alongside the book of revelation (the Bible) they placed the book
of nature (natural philosophy and natural history). This
standpoint found expression in the tradition of natural theology,
which used evidence from nature to argue for God's existence and
goodness. Running parallel to natural theology was a movement
called deism, which saw a slightly different sort of evidence
of God in the natural world. This stance, prominent among
many adherents of the mechanical philosophy, viewed God as a great
watchmaker who created the world's mechanism and then stepped
aside to let it run by its own laws. Finally, many of the
philosophes viewed the established Church and dogmatic religion
as hostile to the Enlightenment spirit. For them, unlike
the other two sorts of scientists, science became an enemy of
religion, a view they propounded with great energy and conviction.
3. How do we reconcile Newton's famous statement "I frame no hypotheses" in the Principia with the profusion of physical hypotheses in the Opticks? In answering the question, explain what is meant by a hypothesis and characterize Newton's attitude. What role do hypotheses play in the program of mechanical philosophy that took inspiration from Newton?
Newton's famous statement "I
frame no hypotheses" was meant as an admission of his provisional
inability to provide a physical explanation of gravity.
For Newton, then, a hypothesis was a physical mechanism that stood
behind and was responsible for the observed phenomena. He
considered hypotheses an integral part of natural philosophy,
and here the evidence from the Principia can be reconciled with
that from the Opticks once we recall that Newton's statement was
no rejection of hypotheses in general. Indeed, the program
of mechanical philosophy that took from him its inspiration was
characterized precisely by the framing of hypotheses. The
mechanical philosophers sought scientific explanation in the arrangement
and movement of little particles (corpuscles) whose behavior could
hardly be apparent to the senses. Such hypotheses were then
supposed to account for the phenomena, which they were meant to
predict by mathematical deduction.
4. During the eighteenth century, institutions like museums, zoos, and botanical gardens grew by leaps and bounds. What were the reasons for and the consequences of this development?
Museums, zoos, and botanical
gardens grew so dramatically because of the eighteenth-century
expansion of the institutions that sustained natural history.
Whether state-supported academies or private circles or clubs,
such institutions created new loci for assembling the collected
specimens. This was necessary in part because local natural
history networks, as wel as voyages of exploration, were bringing
in ever greater numbers of samples. Of course, museums,
zoos, and botanical gardens had existed long before, but this
development gave them new impetus and resources. As a first
result, classificatory projects were advanced: the processes
of nomenclature and taxonomy were greatly aided by the possibility
of comparing diverse specimens. The collections also became
sites of education, not only for science students, but also for
the public at large, who often enjoyed looking at the materials.
As an interesting side effect, such institutions also provided
employment opportunities for people who became something like
full-time scientists.
5. Describe the neptunist and vulcanist theories of the earth's history. What model of historical transformation does each postulate? What is at stake in the conflict between them?
The neptunist theory, advanced
particularly by Werner in the last quarter of the eighteenth century,
proposed that the earth's features were formed by a two-stage
process. First a great ocean covered the earth and deposited
the geological strata by sedimentation. Then these strata
were exposed as the ocean evaporated. Alternately, the vulcanist
theory, usually associated with Hutton around the turn of the
nineteenth century, postulated the formation of the earth's mountains
by a volcanic process that relied heavily on the great temperature
of the earth's interior. These mountains then eroded, resulting
in deposits on the sea surface that were responsible for the strata
that would eventually be lifted back up above sea level.
The conflict between them centered on different processes considered
to be at work in the earth's formation (sedimentation, lifting,
erosion, etc.). It did not intrinsically have much to do
with Scriptural debates over the Noachian deluge.
6. Did a strong commitment to mechanistic explanation help or hinder the study of living beings in the first part of the eighteenth century? Use one or more examples to illustrate your case.
In some strange way, a strong
commitment to mechanistic explanation indirectly helped the study
of living beings. Under the inspiration of various versions
of the mechanical philosophy, physiologists of the later seventeenth
century had postulated mechanical explanations of plant and animal
processes like growth, reproduction, and nutrition. These
optimistic hopes, however, had proved unsustainable; the
mechanistic accounts were far too simple. Thus by the first
part of the eighteenth century, a reaction against strictly mechanical
explanations had set in. Even as it opened the door to debates
about vitalism, this reaction had the beneficial effect of provoking
physiologists to look for other sorts of explanations. An
example is animal digestion, initially conceived as a mechanical
process of grinding and crushing. In part because that explanation
fell flat, people began to investigate the chemistry of digestion,
which led to various unpleasant but productive experiments to
capture and analyze digestive juices.
7. Claim: Alchemy is unscientific. Take a position and argue for or against it. (Explicit note: either position is acceptable if you make a good argument.)
Although we now think of alchemy
as unscientific, it can be hard to maintain that view for the
early eighteenth century. At the least, many people whom
we now recognize as scientists (for instance, Newton) saw alchemy
as an integral part of natural philosophy. For them it provided
another way to try to read the book of nature. Thus as a
search for the most hidden principles of chemical transformation,
it could provoke careful and systematic experimental studies.
Also many alchemical recipes and procedures were taken directly
over into chemistry. Nonetheless, we have to admit that
such criteria cannot paper over some features that are hard to
call scientific. The more mystical forms of alchemical explanation
did lead to concrete and testable hypotheses, but like the esoteric
tendencies of alchemical texts they could make chemistry more
mysterious rather than less.
8. What were subtle (imponderable) fluids in the eighteenth century? Explain how they were introduced into natural philosophy and give two examples of how they were put to use explaining phenomena.
Subtle fluids were weightless
fluids pervading all space and bodies that could be postulated
as the basis of certain physical properties. They were introduced
into natural philosophy in part on the authority of Newton, who
had played with the idea of explaining gravity by an ether.
Two good examples of eighteenth-century subtle fluids were electricity
and heat. Bodies manifestly could take on an electrical
charge, which seemed to flow from one to the next with no transfer
of mass. Electricians argued at length about the nature
of this or these subtle fluids, which was also put to work in
explaining electrical attraction and repulsion. Similarly,
heat was an obvious candidate for a subtle fluid: it manifestly
accumulated in bodies and was transferred between them.
The assumption that heat was a fluid of this sort was put to practical,
quantitative work in notions like heat capacity and latent heat.
9. What is the Urpflanze (primal or archetypal plant)? What is its significance in Romantic botany?
The Urpflanze was Goethe's idea
of a model plant, to which he attributed at least as much reality
as the various existing plants. He formed the notion by
identifying the features he considered characteristic of all plants,
abstracting them from their concrete material instantiation.
If all individual plants had accidental deviations from the plan,
still the basic idea existed and governed their structure.
This idealist understanding of botany was appealing to many proponents
of romanticism (even if it is sometimes hard to classify Goethe
himself as a romantic). In some ways it merely intensified
existing notions of classification, presuming the preexistence
of an order in nature, its causal power to govern individual instances,
and its ideal accessibility to the human mind. Alexander
von Humboldt found Goethe's idea appealing in botany, and zoologists
like Richard Owen did analogous things with animal organization.
10. Where did women fit into the scientific world of the eighteenth century? Consider the various ways they could become involved, as well as the forces that blocked their access.
In the eighteenth century women were often quite involved on the margins of science, though they rarely had the opportunity for full and independent participation. One model was that of Lavoisier's wife, who helped him carry out and record his chemical experiments. As an assistant to a male scientist (for instance, a husband, brother, or father) women could often participate in a subordinate fashion. In polite society they could also take on the role of spectators at demonstrations or auditors at lectures - though their presence sometimes led to comments critical of the seriousness of such events. In natural history women were often involved in collecting networks, as botany in particular was considered an appropriate occupation. In only a few cases, however, did women gain the opportunity to engage in science as independently as did Madame du Châtelet, the French Newtonian. For that to happen there were still too many powerful assumptions that female minds were unsuited to scientific pursuits; and it was only a rare woman, usually of high social status, who was able to get past such obstacles.