NDLI: What’s Wrong with Talking About the Scientific Revolution? Applying Lessons from History of Science to Applied Fields of Science Studies

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What’s Wrong with Talking About the Scientific Revolution? Applying Lessons from History of Science to Applied Fields of Science Studies

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Orthia, Lindy A.
Copyright Year	2016
Abstract	Since the mid-twentieth century, the ‘Scientific Revolution’ has arguably occupied centre stage in most Westerners’, and many non-Westerners’, conceptions of science history. Yet among history of science specialists that position has been profoundly contested. Most radically, historians Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams in 1993 proposed to demolish the prevailing ‘big picture’ which posited that the Scientific Revolution marked the origin of modern science. They proposed a new big picture in which science is seen as a distinctly modern, western phenomenon rather than a human universal, that it was invented in the Age of Revolutions 1760–1848, and that science be de-centred within the new big picture: treated as just one of many forms of human knowledge-seeking activity. Their paper is one of the most highly cited in the history of science field, and has the potential to transform the way that science educators, science communicators, science policy-makers and scientists view science. Yet the paper and historians’ scholarly response to it are not well-known outside the history discipline. Here I attempt to bridge that disciplinary gap with a review of scholarly papers published 1994–2014 that cited Cunningham and Williams or otherwise discussed the Scientific Revolution, to gauge the extent of support for the old and new big pictures. I find that the old big picture is disintegrating and lacks active defenders, while many scholars support aspects of the new big picture. I discuss the significance of this for scholars in ‘applied’ fields of science studies such as education, communication and policy.
Starting Page	353
Ending Page	373
Page Count	21
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00264695
Journal	Minerva
Volume Number	54
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	15731871
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2016-05-10
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	History of knowledge History of science Non-western science Science communication Science education Science policy Educational Philosophy Philosophy Social Sciences Sociology of Education Higher Education
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
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