Dear FISers, I was intrigued with the recent exchange between James, Jerry and others. Taking the central topic --limitations of ancient science, particularly Aristotelian one, to develop into modern science-- from another angle, my contention is that the main transformations from Ancient to Modern science did not concern the "core contents" (e.g., logics, mathematics) but the social procedures of knowledge validation. "Tribunals" and "witnesses" judging experimental "facts" together with an "invisible college" of learned societies and learned journals. Those new social procedures arouse and were made possible by a new informational vehicle to disseminate knowledge in a new, far more efficient way: the printed book. At the stake are the limitations of the cognizing individual: the auxiliary "memories" that have been central along the knowledge accumulation enterprise: numbers, writing, tablets & papyri, codices, printed books, computers... without them, no knowledge accumulation possibilities.
The printing press ("the Gutenberg Galaxy", McLuhan dixit) so revolutionized the knowledge world that in the first century of its existence there were more printed books circulating that handwritten ones in the accumulated history of mankind. This phenomenon was behind the scientific revolution, and the new social procedure of knowledge validation: by "verificatio experimentalis" (with oral "disputatio" persisting, but now in the background). In our times, we are living another period of intense transformations, and new social procedures that have been instantiated around knowledge validation, e.g.: "simulatio computationalis", the computer as a cognizing instrument itself. The "data deluge", with another words. These are too rough comments, obviously, and I have cavalierly jumped upon the other and more genuine scientific revolution in the 19th Century --machine driven. Given that science is finally a modality of social "accumulation" (creation, elaboration, validation) of knowledge, with very peculiar and stringent standards (so its transformative power and prestige), my contention is that some of its main transformations along history have had external social causes, very humble ones quite often (see for instance the history of the "0" figure). best wishes --Pedro PS. Thanks again to Zhao for his elegant text; I wonder whether we could organize a future discussion session focused in the humanistic-scientific "fusion" around the informational streak. Let us invite Main, Mihir, and also co-ordinate with other artists already in fis list --Jim Cogswell, Luis Rico... -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis