Assignment Physical sicence

ASSIGNMENT

Topic:

 Development of Science in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Periods

The History Of Science and Impediments in the Past

It is not within the scope of this essay to attempt a full account of the history of science and of the 

development of science philosophy in the historical period. Consideration will be limited to some 

specific characteristics of four major episodes that are significant to scientific practice today. 

To study the history of science in conjunction with its philosophy is greatly more important than 

just antiquarian curiosity. It makes us understand the various lines of thought and reasoning which 

drove the hypotheses and discoveries of the great contributors to progress and makes them worthy of 

application today and reconsideration in the light of the more recent discoveries. 

2. Science Matures

2.1. The Greeks; the Harbingers 

Between 600 and 300 BC Ancient Greece harbored many philosophers fundamental to the 

development of what we know as our western philosophy and this period also saw the early flowering 

of several branches of natural sciences such as astronomy, mathematics and biology. Science history of 

course goes even further back to ancient Egypt (and later Alexandria). The study of the sciences at this 

time went hand-in-hand with the growth of art and aesthetics, principally literature, theatre and pottery. 

It is the combination of these very varied cultural activities that makes us refer to the Greek as the 

harbingers of our western civilization. 

In the context of this essay the concurrent development of science and philosophy is of interest and 

in particular the development of methodologies to manage dialogue about controversial issues. There 

were many disputes in Ancient Greek society, not at least about state affairs (Plato) and the value of 

democracy. The last chapter of this treatise will examine Plato’s ideals in detail but here he will be 

quoted only as reporter on the dialogues of Socrates and commentator on the so-called sophists. 

Socrates was not much of a natural scientist like Euclid, Democritus or Archimedes in later times. 

His concerns were mainly religion and virtue. It is, however, the style of his conversations that makes 

the dialogues relevant for scientific issues. It is of course known as investigation by Socratic 

questioning. The technique is to make an amiable approach to your counterparty with a series of 

ostensibly naïve questions, present yourself as being rather ignorant and praise him for his answers but 

persist with the interrogation until a kind of embarrassment emerges. This technique attempts to create 

doubts about your interlocutor’s largely biased convictions and invites further investigation of issues 

from a new angle. It is a way of “teaching” that is very different from indoctrination, amounting rather 

to a method which induces ‘learning’ through self reflection. 

As an example of a Socratic interrogation, see Plato’s version of a discussion with Euthyphro 

on piety [1]. 

Euthyphro was a sophist and practiced a form of teaching which both Plato and Socrates despised. 

The sophists in both Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire specialized in the application of the 

tools of philosophy and rhetoric, though mathematics was also taught. In general, they claimed to teach 

“excellence” predominantly to young statesmen and aristocrats. Their rhetorical techniques were found 

to be extremely useful for young noblemen looking for public office. Their teachings, although 

controversial, had a profound influence on the direction of thought in the fifth century B.C. Theyturned away from the theoretical natural science to practical examination of human affairs and the 

betterment and success of human life. They had great impact on the early development of law and, 

indeed, were the world’s first lawyers. Their status resulted from extremely developed argumentation 

skills. In this respect it should be noted that the search for judicial truth is not equivalent to that for 

scientific truth. The first is based on the opinion of the ‘judges’, the second on the evidence that 

Nature provides. 

The modern usage of the term sophist describes a person who reasons with clever but fallacious and 

deceptive arguments and sophism as a false argument to mislead someone. Today therefore the term is 

sometimes more loosely applied by critical scientists to colleagues who inflict their own very strong 

convictions on the public and politicians on the importance of anthropogenic impact, for example on 

the physical environment.

The middle ages

The medieval period is frequently referred to as the “Dark Ages”. This is, in a sense, a retrospective 

view on the intermediate period between the ancient Greek republics and Roman Empire and the onset 

of the Renaissance. The latter was followed by a period named The Enlightenment, the “Age of 

Reason”, which revived the spirit of the ancient thinkers and reconsidered the established convictions 

of the whole of the historical period. Today’s historians are, however, of the opinion that these Middle 

Ages are not as gloomy and sterile as previously thought. The Dark Ages are felt to deserve our study 

because there is irrefutable evidence that several fields of the arts flourished and interesting discoveries 

were made in sciences such as chemistry, transmitted to Europe from old Alexandria through the 

Arabs in the 13th century. At that time also the oldest universities were established (Oxford 1167, 

Cambridge 1209, Montpellier 1220, Padua 1222, Sorbonne 1253, Valladolid 1292). 

The spiritual world in Europe was however dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, and it is 

easy to summarize its influence: obedience to the Church’s enforced doctrines without questioning. 

This, of course, impacted on science, as Galileo Galilei still experienced in 1616 when he presented 

the evidence that the Earth was circling the Sun, instead of the other way round, and that sunrise and 

sunset are caused by the planet’s rotation around its axis. Even in 1636, Galileo had to have his last 

work, Discorsi, smuggled for publication to The Netherlands, where the scientific age of reason had 

found acceptance. An advantage of this national situation was that Leiden University (founded in 

1575), in particular, profited from being viewed as a haven for many learned men from other European 

countries, reflected in the image of its coat of arms as ‘Presidium Libertatis’ (Stronghold of freedom

Modern Science after the Industrial Revolution 

If we accept the growing authority of experimentation then but also into today’s science, it 

undeniably took increased momentum during the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century. 

Concurrently with industrialization the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes tookThis transition was essentially the change from manual production to machinery. It led to increased 

chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, enabled by the increasing use of steam power 

as an energy source produced by the burning of coal. 

The working of the steam engine is based on two laws of thermodynamics relating to the 

transformation and conservation of energy and the amount of work that can be delivered by a heat 

transfer process. Rather remarkably, these laws were shaped (e.g., the second law by Clausius 1865) 

long after the first workable engines were constructed (James Watt 1781). Clausius restated Carnot’s 

principle (1824) as the Carnot cycle that helped early engineers tremendously to improve the 

efficiency of the steam engine. On the other hand it is also noteworthy to consider how far such 

discoveries go back in our modern times but yet are still of the greatest importance for many branches 

of modern science.

Science  Today 

We have in the first instance to isolate the essence of the results of the progress that really has been 

made over the last centuries as it affects our improved understanding of the processes of Nature. 

A crucial development has been cross-fertilization among particular disciplines, physics, biology, 

chemistry and mathematics. This does not just relate to multi-disciplinary approaches in studying 

phenomena but also, critically, to the recognition that discovered natural laws in a specific branch 

might have a bearing on others. We have already mentioned the general importance of thermodynamic 

laws and of the Darwinian principle of natural variation being applied to understand the force from the 

environment for selection of structures of increasing complexity. The two principles come together in 

what is today named “complexity theory”, formerly termed “chaos” or “catastrophe theory” and, in a 

sense, misnamed. At root, the theory concerns merely the recognition that chaos need not necessarily 

be a permanent state in non-equilibrium systems that show a natural tendency for self-organization. It 

is the philosophy that underpins observations on how things by evolution come into being that counts 

here. It helps to improve our current understanding how today natural processes function [4] is. 

We have also to mention the phenomenon of serendipity, which has been of great importance over 

the whole history of science in achieving progress. This is the gift of discovering or recognizing or 

relating unexpected things. This simple principle was given a new dimension through the assumption 

of an approach which started with a highly improbable assumption within a current scope and working 

out its consequences. Most of these will inevitably be considered useless and even crazy, but the odd 

conclusion might in fact turn out to be something really unexpected and innovative. In anticipation of 

Section 8 on the current state of climatology, an example of this is the assumption that CO2 need not 

function as what is called a “greenhouse gas”. It is obvious from the latest report of the UN 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2013) that it is too daring an assumption for some 

thousands of scientists working in this field to consider the possibility that the effect of CO2 on climate 

is probably strongly exaggerated or might even be nil. 

Some other examples of a conservative attitude among scientists will be given in Section 4, “The 

importance of skeptical voices”. The approaches mentioned above how to make science progress are 

not being fully exploited today. This is probably an inborn error in its advancements caused by the 

degree to which specialization is required to contribute to groundbreaking research. This fatally hampers 

the spiritual multidisciplinary approach. This is a quote from a popular book on complexity [4]: 

At a dinner party the hostess introduces the Great Man to her guests: “This is professor 

Hackensplacken. He is an authority on crocodiles.” The professor smiles modestly: “My 

dear lady,” he says, “you do me too much honour. It is on the crocodile’s eyelids that I am 

an expert.” ))

The next section deals with various expected impacts of science philosophies on the

Conclusion

Science and technology has a profound impact on all of humanity's activities. ... The impact of science and technology on modern society is broad and wide-ranging, influencing such areas as politics, diplomacy, defense, the&6) economy, medicine, transportation, agriculture, social capital improvement, and many more.

Referance

https://www.mdpi.com

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