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Lecture 1: INTRODUCTION

1.

The process of consciously changing natureand the universe has been characterized byperpetual conflict. The dominant consensuseshave continually been challenged, modified andviolently overthrown. Thus innovations loadedwith historical potential tend to be at firstridiculed, or persecuted and suppressed, only tobecome in due time, the new ruling dogma. Thestruggle between old and new has rarely beendignified. The innovators come in many colors, ofwhich the green of jealousy and purple of rage arefashionable shades. The essence of humanbecoming has been sharp conflict and gradualprogress.

(Adaptation of a quote from The Ascent ofScience, by B. Silver)

2. The importance of the contradiction (See

the list of my abbrvtns.

3. The central relevant for us is the unity andstruggle between:-

(A) Indian Culture of civilizational scale (ourCommunity AMBIENCE)

(B) Euro-centric Modern Science, 400 years old

(our Professional/Institutional AMBIENCE)

The latter overshadows the former.

4. Our focus in these lectures is on the history of thelatter movement and its impact on the Indian civilization.

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5. Hist. of Science was born as an academic discipline,only about 100 years back. And during this time it hasevolved:-

from Orthodox History of Scienceto Social History of Science

6. Orthodox History of Science

(i) Anecdotal Chronologies as time lines(ii) Biographies of Great Scientists(iii) Histories of particular Disciplines of scienceetc.

7. Social History of Science looks at

(i) Constitution & Development of theCommunity of Science practioners

(ii) Its hierarchical partitioning into Disciplines(iii) Its Institutions for professional exchange,

networking, and regulation.(iv) Relationship between the Scientific

Community and the Public.(v) Governments Science Policyetc.

8. Upto 1930s the Orthodox History of Science wasthe ruling dogma. For it, books were written by individuals,the objective being

(i) To motivate younger entrants.(ii) Gain support of the Public and

9. Another part of the dogma was the concept ofTrue Science as

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(i) True laws of science discovered byscientists as disinterested seekers oftruth.

(ii) There application for the benefit of the

society

10. History of Science was viewed as

S A D B Y C formula

Scientist A made the discovery B in the yearC.

11. This was seriously questioned in the 20th centuryfrom two sources:-

(i) Relativity and QM cast doubts on the claims ofNewtonian orthodoxy that Newtons laws do not involve anyhypotheses. The new skepticism is well expressed asfollows:-

Newtons laws are simple to state andinvolve little mathematical complexity. Theirsimplicity is deceptive, howeverthey combinedefinitions, observations from nature, partlyintuitive concepts, and some unexaminedassumptions on the properties of space and time.

KLEPPNER AND KOLENKOW

(ii) The communist movement of USSR and otherEuropean countries which claimed that scientific work is justanother form of labor, determined by social needs, andregulated by social struggles and institutions.

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12. This has led to division of historians and critiquesof science in two camps.

(i) The internalists who still hold the old opinion

that scientific work is determined by thescientific community alone, who possess thecriteria to distinguish between valid and invalidscientific work.

(ii) Socialists and social historians of science

13. The socialist historians/sociologists of science holdthe view that scientific practice is determined by thefollowing 4 factors:-

(i) Theoretical and experimental expert practice of ahierarchical community of scientific professionals,whose work is determined by objective nature andscientific epistemology.

(ii) The state of technology, instruments, laboratoryprocedures and data collection methodsexisting at the time, primarily worked by non-

elite technicians and support staff.(iii) Politico-economic social order which selectively

funds research and education, and controls therewards and punishments machinery

(iv) s of culture and philosophy in the socialambience around, which shape the imagination,metaphor and analogies of the scientific community.

I call the above point of view Hessen Zilsel Rosethesis.

14. The 8 references

1. Building Scientific Institutions in India: Saha &Bhabha

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by R. S. AndersonOccasional Paper Series #11, Centre forDeveloping Area Studies, Mc-Gill University,Montreal (1975)

2. Asimovs Chronology of Science andDiscovery

By Isaac AsimovPubl. Grafton Books (1990)

3. A Peoples History of Science: Miners,Midwives, and Low Mechanicks

by Clifford D. Conner,

Publ. Nation Books, (2005)

4. Atom and Individual in the Age of Newton: Onthe Genesis of the Mechanistic World Viewby G. FreudenthalD. Reidel Publishing Company (1986)

5. Cultivation of Science in 19th Century Bengalby R. KochharIndian J. Phys. 82 (8) 1005 1082 (2008)

6. Biology Under the Influence: DialecticalEssays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health

by R. Lewontin & R. LevinsMonthly Review Press, New York (2007)

7. Companion to the History of Modern ScienceEd. R. C. Olby, G. N. Cantor, J. R. R. Christie,

and M. J. S. Hodge Routledge (1990)

8. The Ascent of Scienceby Brian L. Silver,Publ. Oxford Univ. Press (1998),

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15. Search for a new synthesis. To this end a criticalstudy of:-(i) History of science

(ii) Philosophy of science(iii) Frontiers of Science research(iv) Sociology & psychology of science(v) Politics of scienceetc.