When we talk about Science
or Scientist , we often tend to overlook the fact that the word Scientist was
coined by the British philosopher William Whewell in 1833. It follows that the
scientific geniuses like Newton
or Galileo were not known as ‘scientists’ during their lifetime. Although I am
not sure by what names they were designated, we can always hazard a guess that
they were perhaps called ‘natural philosopher’.
Nevertheless the scientific Revolution with all its
ramifications have reconstructed our world views that largely started with the
works of Copernicus( On the revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,1543). With his
heliocentric model of the solar system ,Copernicus dislodged Ptolemy’s
geocentric model that dominated the science of astronomy for several centuries.
Equally important is the work of Andreas Vesalius( On the
workings of the Human body,1543) that explained the human anatomy with
considerable accuracy.
A beginning was made that enabled human beings to understand
his body as well as the universe and the inexorable march of science surged ahead that received further momentum with the arrival
of Galileo and Newton
on the scene.New discoveries and inventions in Science began to play the most crucial role in furthering knowledge,driving economies and shaping cultures. Bacon in his monumental work 'Novum Organum'(1620) went to the extend of branding printing, gunpowder and
compass as inventions that transformed literature, warfare and
navigation. Scientific study of every conceivable phenomena
under the sky with its emphasis on instrumentalism, empiricism and above all falsifiable
hypothesis came to acquire the status of an absolutely objective academic discipline.
Everyone started to believe that science is objective and unlike humanities
beyond personal whims and caprices.
This was the view about science for long. But is science
really neutral? Can science and
scientific theory ever be influenced by ideas
of culture? Language? Or ideology?
I shall try to throw some light on it in my next post.
