The Story of Western Science
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Julia Kaziewicz for clearing permissions with her usual cheerful energy, and to Richie Gunn for bringing his own particular style to the illustrations.
To Greg Smith and Justin Moore for reading drafts and making meticulous, thoughtful suggestions (many of which I ignored, so any errors that remain are mine alone).
To Michael Carlisle at Inkwell and his very efficient assistant Hannah Schwartz for their expert management.
To the friends who have patiently listened to me talk about my mo
st recent enthusiasm, for much longer than they probably wanted: Liz Barnes, Mel Moore, and Boris Fishman. Hope the wine helped.
Finally, as always, to Starling Lawrence at W. W. Norton, whose faint praise is worth more than most people’s adulation. Also to the amazingly capable Ryan Harrington, and the rest of the Norton crew who have been helping to bring my projects to the finish line since 1999—including but certainly not limited to Francine Kass, Michael Levantino, Stephen King, Don Rifkin, Nancy Palmquist, Eugenia Pakalik, Golda Rademacher, Elizabeth Riley, Nomi Victor, and Joe Lops. And to Tracy Vega, Meg Sherman, Kristin Keith, and the rest of the wonderful Norton sales force: Thanks for all you do.
Index
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
abaton, 5, 7
Abu al-Dinawari, 165
abyssal plains, 146
Academy of Science, French, 112
Acceleration, Law of, 98
acid, defined, 188n
acid rain, 153
Action and Reaction, Law of, 99
actualism, 131
Adams, Francis, 7–8
adaptation, 184
Advancement of Learning (Bacon), 56–57, 68
Aesculapius, 5
African continent, 142
Against the Mathmaticians (Sextus Empiricus), 11
Age of the Earth, The (Holmes), 103, 134, 138, 140
air:
pressure and volume of, 83–84
as prime entity, 11, 13, 37–38
air pump, vacuum experiments with, 83
Albucasis, 190
al-chemia, 84–85
alchemy, 56, 84–85
Alexander the Great, 27, 105
Alexandria, Egypt, 64, 105
Alfonso the Battler, king of Spain, 43
algebra, 219
“Allegory of the Cave,” 25
alleles, 201
Almagest (Ptolemy), 1, 37, 40–45, 47–48, 65
Alpher, Ralph, 246
altruism, 202, 205
Alvarez, Luis, 151–52
Alvarez, Walter, xviii, xix, 103, 132, 149, 151–54, 252, 255–56
Amazon rain forest, 170
America, Americans, 132, 142, 144, 151, 178, 179, 185, 188, 189, 196, 206
colonies in, 157
religious influence in, 180, 209
American Naturalist, 184
ammonites, 121, 152
Amsterdam, University of, 106
analogy, analysis by, 3, 9–10
Anatomic Exercise, The (Harvey), 69
anatomy, 9, 63–69, 72, 106, 115, 120–21, 129
Anaximander, 11
Anaximenes, 10–11
animalcules, 161, 164, 166
animals:
behavior, 180
categorization of, 19, 159, 164–66
extinct, 120–24
prehistoric migration of, 142
vast variations of, 168
Annals of the World (Ussher), 106
Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix, The (J. D. Watson), 198
anthropology, 204
anticatastrophism, 131
anti-Semitism, 188
ants, 202, 204, 205
“Aphorisms” (Bacon), 61–62
Aphorisms (Hippocrates), 1, 3, 7
Apiarium (Cesi), 89
Apollo, 5, 23
Apollo 8 moon expedition, 151
Arabatzis, Theodore, 226
Arab science, 41, 43, 84
Archimedes, 1, 21, 27–31, 32, 35, 48, 81
Archimedes’ Principle, 28
Archimedes’ screw, 29
Archytas, 26–27
Aristarchus of Samos, 29–31, 32, 48
Aristotelian tradition, 24, 41, 46, 66–67, 105, 120, 144
challenge to, 55–62, 83
Christian theology and, 76n
Galileo’s refutation of, 70–79, 97
Aristotle, xviii, 5, 10, 16, 26–27, 58, 65, 70, 81, 86, 89, 111, 120, 159
animals categorized by, 19, 159, 164, 166
change as progress for, 16–20, 32
essential nature for, 17, 24–25
four elements of, 11, 13, 37–38
legacy of, 19
arithmetic, 21–22, 25–26, 70
Armageddon (film), 256
arsenic, 84
Asaro, Frank, 152
Association for the Study of Systematics in Relation to General Biology, 182
asteres planetai (wandering stars), 39
asteroids, 151–52, 154
astrology, condemnation of, 56
astronomy, astronomers:
ancient, 4, 26, 37–41, 48–52, 240
Arab, 41, 43, 84
European, 55, 70, 73–74, 85, 88–89, 105, 116, 117, 131, 181, 216, 253
and geology, 106, 110
modern advancements in, 239–43, 247
naval, 145
rediscovered manuals of, 43–45
astrophysics, 154, 245, 247
ataraxia (peace of mind), 33–34
Atlantis, 13
atomic theory, 136n, 226–32
atomists, atomism, 12, 18, 32, 34–35, 50–51, 61
atomos (undivided), 226
atoms, 154, 196, 220, 231
as building blocks of matter, 32–35, 85, 226
as prime entity, 9, 11–12
primeval, 244, 245
radioactivity and, 136–37, 192
structure of, 228–30, 229
Aubrey, John, 82, 84
Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 166
Augustinians, 175, 176
Australia, 167
Austria, Austrians, 141, 157, 175–76, 180, 218, 232
Autobiography (Darwin), 172
Avery, Oswald, 193
Avicenna, 107
Avogadro’s Number, 227n
Axtell, James, 99
Babylonians, 38, 105, 190
Bacon, Francis, xx, 53, 55–62, 63, 221, 249–50
experimental method of, 57–58, 61, 66–68, 72, 82, 87, 100, 108, 111, 121, 122, 135, 224, 227
bacteria, 194
bacteriophages, 194
Baghdad, 84
barometer, 89
basalt, 150
bassin de Paris, 123–24, 126
Bateson, William P., 177–78
Beadle, George, 192–93
Beagle, HMS, Darwin’s voyage on, 167–68
Becquerel, Antoine-Henri, 136
bees, 89–90, 202
Belgium, 243
Bellarmine, Robert, 76–79
Berengario da Carpi, Jacopo, 64
Berg, Lev, 180
Berkeley, George, 215–16
Berlin University, 232
Berry, Edward, 144
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, 180
Berzelius, Jöns, 187, 192
Bessarion, Johannes, 44
Bible:
Authorized Version of, 109
contradictions to, 49–50, 76–77, 82, 118
in creation and age of earth, 106, 109–10, 112, 117, 128, 134–35, 137
as mirrored in science, 124–25
Big Bang theory, xviii, xix, 245–48, 256
bile, 6
biochemistry, 185–98, 206, 255
biological determinism, evolutionary biology vs., 206–11
biologie, use of term, 159
biology, biologists, xviii, xix, xx, 89, 120, 157–63, 172, 180, 189, 191, 194, 207, 252
biochemistry in, 185–98
birth of, 159–60
“central dogma” of, 197
chaos theory in, 255
and destiny, 199–211
evolutionary, 203, 208
inheritance in, 174–78
natural selection in, 164–73
quantum theory and, 236
synthesis of various areas of, 179–84, 236
biometry, 180
biophysicists, 195
Birch, Thomas, 80, 89<
br />
Black, Joseph, 226
black bile, 6
blackbody radiation, 230
blended inheritance, blending, 174, 176
blood, 6
cells, 188
circulation of, 65–68, 92
hemophilia, 190–91
Bohr, Niels, 231–35
Bohr-Rutherford model, 231
Bologna, University of, 64
Boltzman’s Constant, 227n
Book of Plants (al-Dinawari), 165
Born, Max, 225
botany, botanists, 111, 115, 129, 158, 174–78, 181, 186
Boveri, Theodor, 177–78, 189
Boyle, Robert, 53, 80–87, 89, 92–94, 197, 226
Boyle’s Law, 84
Brahe, Tycho, orbital scheme of, 55
bread mold (Neurospora), 192–93
Bretz, J. Harlen, 149–52
Brief History of Time, A (Hawking), 248
Britain, British, 56, 63, 82, 112, 113, 118, 124, 132, 157–58, 166, 170, 177, 185, 194–95, 200, 218, 223, 239, 244
Brongniart, Alexandre, 123
Brown, Robert, 227
Brownian motion, 227
Buckland, William, 128–29
Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de, 103, 105, 110–14, 116, 118, 157–59
Buoyancy, Principle of, 28
Butler Act (1925), 180
butterfly effect, 253–56
Byzantines, Byzantium, 41, 43
calculus, 97–99
calendars, ancient, 4
California, University of, at Berkeley, 151–53
Cambridge University, 94, 95, 99, 147, 166–67, 185, 200, 226, 245
Cavendish Laboratory of, 195
capillaries, 68
Carmelites, 76
catalysis, 187, 192
catastrophism, xix, 118, 119, 121–25, 128, 159, 166, 208
dismissal of, 128–33, 134–35, 150, 152
resurgence of, 149–54
vs. uniformitarianism, 161
cathode rays, 226
Cavendish, Henry, 226
cells:
bacterial, 194
differentiation of, 181
division of, 189
first observation of, 186
in genetics, 175, 177, 184, 192–94, 236
research into, 187–97, 199-201
Cepheid stars, 240–41
Cesi, Federico, 81, 89
chalk, 123
change:
catastrophic, see catastrophism
through enzymes, 187
evolutionary, see Darwinism; evolution
in living things, 159–63
outcome determined by, 253–56
process of, 16–20, 32
purposeful, 16-18, 180
slow and gradual, see uniformitarianism