My next reading is Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, a 1994 book by biologist Paul Gross and mathematician Norman Levitt. Their book was a response to the "Science Wars" of the 80's and 90's, when the zeitgeist of certain people in humanities (and to a lesser extent social science) was "Science is just, like, a Western patriarchal heteronormative yadda yadda construct of the people at the top of the power structure." And, to be clear, their claim wasn't merely that the culture of researchers in the natural sciences was "just, like, a Western yadda yadda construct"; that claim is not entirely wrong, though surely the many non-Westerners who contribute quitie productively to the advancement of modern science would have a thing or two to say in response, as Arun Bala noted. Some went further and claimed that the body of scientific knowledge is somehow a subjective thing that arises more from our own cultural biases than any sort of meaningful, objective engagement with something that has a reality independent of our understanding of it.
With the benefit of 23 years of hindsight, as well as two and a half years of reading and blogging about cultural factors that affect the modern academy, this book feels like it missed the point. As I've said before, the modern academic left mostly does not question science. Yeah, there are a few weirdos talking about "natural" medicine, and a lot of liberal academics deny research on the predictive validity of standardized tests, but those cases are remarkable for being unusual. Most liberals, academic or otherwise, strongly support science. They might not understand it as well as they think they do, and it's possible that if they understood certain results better they would reject them, but the "Science March" was very much a thing of the left. Oh, there was probably some conservative somewhere in the audience, but it was understood as being primarily about liberal stances on environmental issues, health issues, etc., as well as opposition to the superstitions of religious conservatives (who are currently rallying around a twice-divorced casino owner and confessed sexual harasser or worse...). So, outside the academy, science is widely regarded as a thing of the left. This is probably to our detriment (I'd rather that my professional and intellectual passion be respected across the spectrum), but it is most definitely NOT what Gross and Levitt feared might come to pass. The "post-modernist" critics of science did NOT win over the non-academic left to their cause.
On campus, I'm sure somebody somewhere is still banging on about Newtonian mechanics being an artefact of white male culture, but hardly anyone pays attention to them. Administrators say "STEM! STEM! STEM!" all day long. There are certainly some people in the humanities and social sciences who grumble about this STEM obsession, but they are, at worst, expressing a bit of (understandable) jealousy, and more often are engaging in sincere defenses of things that are worth preserving. They aren't questioning our knowledge claims.
What has happened is an obsession with inclusion in STEM, because STEM is on the pedestal, and some of this comes with demands to change the culture of how STEM professionals work, but not with insistence that our knowledge is some subjective product of an arbitrary and weird culture. Nonetheless, some of the more damaging aspects of the push to transform STEM (mainly a demand that we reject meritocratic elitism in favor of getting every available warm body into The Pipeline) share roots with the Science Warriors of the 80's and 90's. So it is worth studying this phenomenon of the past, in part to understand those roots, and in part to understand how those predictions failed. We can learn a lot about how we got to where we are if we understand how old predictions went astray.
A final note, before we get going: As far as I can tell from examining the first two chapters and the index, Levitt and Gross missed/ignored the more technocratic rumblings of STEM reformers in the 90's. Sheila Tobias wasn't in the index, though she wrote They're Not Dumb, They're Different in 1990. I looked for some prominent education researchers but did not find them in the index. The National Science Foundation is not mentioned. This book really does seem to be focused, which is not a bad thing (all good books have a chosen scope) but does point to how they missed what actually happened. Ultimately, I think they spent too much time thinking that the crazier ideas espoused by humanities professors would be able to take root in the wider public, and in exactly the form in which they were originally espoused. But ideas don't work that way.
OK, let's go.
Showing posts with label Arun Bala. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arun Bala. Show all posts
Friday, September 1, 2017
Friday, August 26, 2016
Bala, chapter 13
I was not aware that the Jesuits were operating schools in China and moving in Chinese astronomical circles in the 16th century. Good job, Fathers.
Bala, chapter 11
Two quick thoughts on chapter 11: Bala finally lists an impressive roster of Chinese technologies that reached Europe in the late Middle Ages. Second, apparently the Chinese and Arabs understood blood circulation well before the Europeans did. And while he does not present firm evidence of Chinese medical texts reaching Europe, he notes that there had been extensive direct interaction between Europe and China before Europeans figured out the circulatory system, so it is quite plausible that Europeans were influenced by the Chinese in this area.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Bala chapter 9
This chapter is about atomism. Apparently atomic ideas held a place of prominence in Islamic science, for theological reasons, but were marginal in Greek science because Aristotle rejected them. It is thus hard to argue that atomism in modern science is a Greek legacy. More interestingly, the Arab philosopher Averroes argued in favor of Aristotle and in the process offered an argument in favor of science and against clerical philosophy, one taken up by European scholars to the alarm of the Church. Ironically, his defense of incorrect science was used to carve out a space in which science could eventually thrive.
However, given the paucity of evidence for atoms during the time in question (my recollection is that evidence for them didn't really come into play until the 18th century) it is hard for me to treat older ideas for or against atoms as no more than wildass speculation. Like string theory.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Bala, Chapter 7
In Chapter 7 Bala makes three main points:
1) Copernicus' work relied on trigonometric advances made by Indian mathematical astronomers and carried back to Europe by Jesuits who had done missionary work in India. I think he makes a good case here, though a lot of it relies on details of archaic mathematical techniques that I know little about. Modern algebraic and trigonometric notations make so many calculations so easy that it's often nearly impossible for somebody not trained as a historian of science to read even Isaac Newton's work, let alone the work of astronomers trained in the Ptolemaic tradition.
2) Copernicus rejected an ugly Ptolemaic concept called the "equant", something that I can't bother myself to deeply comprehend because (like everything else involving planets in the Ptolemaic model) it's such an ugly thing. Apparently the Arab astronomers loathed the equant because they saw the universe as a manifestation of God's perfect, pure divine will, and the equant was just freaking ugly. Certainly Copernicus must have read some of the Arab critics of the equant, but before we judge the magnitude of their influence on Copernicus I must say that I recall reading in Kuhn's Copernican Revolution a few years ago that European astronomers apparently spent several centuries trying to introduce some new concept that could simplify planetary motion. I take this to mean that everyone, not just the Arabs, was aware how ugly Ptolemy's model of planetary motion was. A longing for a simpler, unifying model seems to be a universal personality trait among physical scientists.
3) While Bala doesn't claim a line of influence from India to Copernicus on this point, he notes that Indian astronomers had also tried heliocentric models, and had tried to answer the "OK, but if the earth is spinning so fast why don't we fly off?" objection by invoking physical models that involved the earth carrying us along. Their physics was hardly Galilean, but there are at least parallels in that they attempted to simplify the universe with a heliocentric model coupled to a theory of motion. Interesting stuff.
1) Copernicus' work relied on trigonometric advances made by Indian mathematical astronomers and carried back to Europe by Jesuits who had done missionary work in India. I think he makes a good case here, though a lot of it relies on details of archaic mathematical techniques that I know little about. Modern algebraic and trigonometric notations make so many calculations so easy that it's often nearly impossible for somebody not trained as a historian of science to read even Isaac Newton's work, let alone the work of astronomers trained in the Ptolemaic tradition.
2) Copernicus rejected an ugly Ptolemaic concept called the "equant", something that I can't bother myself to deeply comprehend because (like everything else involving planets in the Ptolemaic model) it's such an ugly thing. Apparently the Arab astronomers loathed the equant because they saw the universe as a manifestation of God's perfect, pure divine will, and the equant was just freaking ugly. Certainly Copernicus must have read some of the Arab critics of the equant, but before we judge the magnitude of their influence on Copernicus I must say that I recall reading in Kuhn's Copernican Revolution a few years ago that European astronomers apparently spent several centuries trying to introduce some new concept that could simplify planetary motion. I take this to mean that everyone, not just the Arabs, was aware how ugly Ptolemy's model of planetary motion was. A longing for a simpler, unifying model seems to be a universal personality trait among physical scientists.
3) While Bala doesn't claim a line of influence from India to Copernicus on this point, he notes that Indian astronomers had also tried heliocentric models, and had tried to answer the "OK, but if the earth is spinning so fast why don't we fly off?" objection by invoking physical models that involved the earth carrying us along. Their physics was hardly Galilean, but there are at least parallels in that they attempted to simplify the universe with a heliocentric model coupled to a theory of motion. Interesting stuff.
Bala, Chapter 6
Three interesting points in Chapter 6:
1) Apparently a lot of Chinese technological innovations spread to Europe via the intermediary activity of Mongol merchants. Alas, too few examples are given, with most of the writing focusing on the geopolitics of European-Mongolian-Chinese interaction and too little on the specific innovations that made their way to Europe. That makes it hard for the reader to really appreciate the type or extent of Chinese influence.
2) Having already noted that the Arabs added a lot to what they received from the Greeks, Bala points out another problem with a narrative of Greek learning merely being passively held in reserve by the Arabs: It's just plain weird. It's almost a death and resurrection narrative. Europe reaches great heights under the Greeks, then there is a decline, the spirit of Greek learning is held in secret by the Arabs, then it is reborn in Europe. Even if we leave aside the lack of agency on the part of the Arabs, it's a good amount of self-abasement by the Europeans.
I've seen other writers argue that there was nothing particularly dark about the Dark Ages; Bala's analysis is that Europeans did this so that they could save face when they adopted Arab science and technology. Something went wrong after the fall of the Roman Empire, but eventually Europeans re-discovered their glorious heritage. They can claim a redemption, rather than admitting that they learned something from the Arabs.
3) In this chapter Bala emphasizes something that I also noted in an earlier post: It's kind of weird to claim that Western Europeans and Greeks were part of the same civilization. When the Greeks were doing philosophy the people of Western Europe were mostly illiterate farmers, herders, and fishermen. (Like most other people on earth for most of human history.) In fact, a lot of the Western Europeans of the Renaissance and early modern era were actually descended from people who had entered Europe as barbarian invaders. What, exactly, is the link between Western Europeans and ancient Greeks, beyond the fact that they both speak Indo-European languages and Greek writings eventually made their way to Western Europe?
Besides, as Bala notes, Hellenic civilization extended throughout much of the Mediterranean, especially the eastern Mediterranean, and into Egypt. And, what do you know, Arab/Muslim civilization is/was in those regions. The people of Egypt, Syria, and Turkey today are at least as connected to the Greeks as the people of the British Isles are. Yeah, the Turks, Egyptians, and Syrians got their religion from the Arabian peninsula, but Western Europeans mostly practice an Abrahamic faith as well. OK, a few eccentrics do rituals at Stonehenge, but the similarities between Christianity and Islam are at least as strong as the ancient Indo-European ties between Celtic and Greek mythologies.
One point Bala hasn't emphasized yet is that even if one wanted to make a narrative of Dark Ages, from an intellectual standpoint there was nothing very productive or enlightened about the Roman era. The Romans contributed comparatively little to math, science, or philosophy. The fall of the Roman Empire might have been a point of political, military, and economic decline for Europe, but the point of intellectual decline probably came with the integration of Hellenic civilization into the Roman Empire. Just sayin'. I love Italians, being a quarter dago and all, but we didn't contribute much to science until Galileo, you know? (Fortunately, Galileo was sufficiently awesome that for the remainder of time Italians can point to him and feel sufficiently justified, just as Newton did for the English.)
1) Apparently a lot of Chinese technological innovations spread to Europe via the intermediary activity of Mongol merchants. Alas, too few examples are given, with most of the writing focusing on the geopolitics of European-Mongolian-Chinese interaction and too little on the specific innovations that made their way to Europe. That makes it hard for the reader to really appreciate the type or extent of Chinese influence.
2) Having already noted that the Arabs added a lot to what they received from the Greeks, Bala points out another problem with a narrative of Greek learning merely being passively held in reserve by the Arabs: It's just plain weird. It's almost a death and resurrection narrative. Europe reaches great heights under the Greeks, then there is a decline, the spirit of Greek learning is held in secret by the Arabs, then it is reborn in Europe. Even if we leave aside the lack of agency on the part of the Arabs, it's a good amount of self-abasement by the Europeans.
I've seen other writers argue that there was nothing particularly dark about the Dark Ages; Bala's analysis is that Europeans did this so that they could save face when they adopted Arab science and technology. Something went wrong after the fall of the Roman Empire, but eventually Europeans re-discovered their glorious heritage. They can claim a redemption, rather than admitting that they learned something from the Arabs.
3) In this chapter Bala emphasizes something that I also noted in an earlier post: It's kind of weird to claim that Western Europeans and Greeks were part of the same civilization. When the Greeks were doing philosophy the people of Western Europe were mostly illiterate farmers, herders, and fishermen. (Like most other people on earth for most of human history.) In fact, a lot of the Western Europeans of the Renaissance and early modern era were actually descended from people who had entered Europe as barbarian invaders. What, exactly, is the link between Western Europeans and ancient Greeks, beyond the fact that they both speak Indo-European languages and Greek writings eventually made their way to Western Europe?
Besides, as Bala notes, Hellenic civilization extended throughout much of the Mediterranean, especially the eastern Mediterranean, and into Egypt. And, what do you know, Arab/Muslim civilization is/was in those regions. The people of Egypt, Syria, and Turkey today are at least as connected to the Greeks as the people of the British Isles are. Yeah, the Turks, Egyptians, and Syrians got their religion from the Arabian peninsula, but Western Europeans mostly practice an Abrahamic faith as well. OK, a few eccentrics do rituals at Stonehenge, but the similarities between Christianity and Islam are at least as strong as the ancient Indo-European ties between Celtic and Greek mythologies.
One point Bala hasn't emphasized yet is that even if one wanted to make a narrative of Dark Ages, from an intellectual standpoint there was nothing very productive or enlightened about the Roman era. The Romans contributed comparatively little to math, science, or philosophy. The fall of the Roman Empire might have been a point of political, military, and economic decline for Europe, but the point of intellectual decline probably came with the integration of Hellenic civilization into the Roman Empire. Just sayin'. I love Italians, being a quarter dago and all, but we didn't contribute much to science until Galileo, you know? (Fortunately, Galileo was sufficiently awesome that for the remainder of time Italians can point to him and feel sufficiently justified, just as Newton did for the English.)
Bala, chapters 4&5
The short version of these chapters is that you need to think very carefully before concluding either that one culture got an idea from another, or that a culture really developed an idea from its own heritage rather than contact with another culture. For instance, both the ancient Greeks and the ancient Chinese had an idea of atoms. But modern Europe did far more to develop atomic theory in its current form than China did. Therefore, one could not credit the Chinese with developing a scientific understanding of atoms free from European influence. While there is an understandable desire to give due credit to non-European civilizations, credit for our modern understanding of atoms rests with Europe.
On the other hand, the Europeans and the Arabs both read the ancient Greeks, but the Europeans did not do much to build on Greek physics until they had contact with the Arabs, who had done a lot to further develop the subject. Therefore, the Arabs deserve a share of credit for Europe moving physics forward.
Monday, August 22, 2016
Bala, first three chapters
The first few chapters of Bala's book are mostly occupied with critiquing previous studies of the rise of science. Bala notes that when historians take up the "Why not there?" question in regard to some other society, they often wind up citing factors that could also apply to the West in the late Renaissance and early modern eras (when science emerged). For instance, the Chinese bureaucracy is sometimes critiqued for making society too orderly, but the Western European countries that made important contributions to the Scientific Revolution also had reasonably efficient civil services (except Italy, which gave us Galileo despite not having enjoyed orderly, punctual, and efficient bureaucracy since the Roman era).
Also, when critics get to the Greeks, instead of asking "Why didn't the ancient Greeks develop modern science?" the response is never "Well, they were deficient in X, Y, and Z..." but rather "Oh, come on, cut them some slack!" If the justification for the slack is the magnitude of their contributions, well, I certainly agree that the Greeks did amazing things for math and philosophy (and also technology, at least via Archimedes), but the Chinese had some pretty amazing technological achievements by the standards of the pre-scientific era. And the Muslims did a lot to preserve and extend Greek achievements, with Ibn Al Haytham decisively debunking some bad Greek ideas about light and vision. Why do historians respond to "Why not China?" or "Why not the Muslims?" with a list of defects rather than a list of excuses?
On the other hand, some historians apparently cut Greece some slack because of a perceived continuity between the Greeks and modern science. If the continuity is simply that the early modern scientists were influenced by the Greeks, well, yes, especially in regards to mathematics, but remember that Galileo's greatest achievement was to debunk Aristotelian physics rather than improve it. On the other hand, if it is perceived cultural continuity, I don't really know what that means. Modern science mostly came from Western Europe, not Greece. The Europeans who gave us science had a range of religious views, but they were mostly from Christian backgrounds (plus a handful of Jews), not pagan Greek backgrounds. If we're going to say that Aristotle and Newton came from the same culture then I think we have to include Mesopotamia and Egypt in that culture as well. The cultural lines from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece are at least as clear as those from Greece to England. Frankly, the English are weird. Separated from the Continent in multiple senses, they charted their own path after the collapse of Rome. They have a legal tradition built on Anglo-Saxon law rather than Roman law. They split from the Roman Catholic Church (and in a very different manner than the Greek Orthodox Christians). Even the language is weird compared to most other European tongues.
Besides the fact that Egypt and Mesopotamia gave us writing, arithmetic, geometry, agriculture, sailing, walled cities, etc. etc. etc., European culture was strongly influenced by an Abrahamic faith. Of course, Judaism had many differences from other Semitic religions, and Christianity picked up influences from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, but if you want to go there you aren't going to find an argument that clearly separates Christianity from the Middle East, because Mithraism and Zoroastrianism have deep Iranian roots.
Anyway, that was a long digression on things besides the emergence of science, but if we're going to draw a line from Aristotle to Newton then we have to include a whole lot of other people in the same civilization. Otherwise we have to recognize that modern England and ancient Greece were two very different civilizations, and we can't cut the Greeks any slack that we wouldn't cut for other civilizations.
Besides, if the Greeks taught us anything, it's that you can be awesome at math and bad at physics. That's an important lesson.
One other thing that I learned from Bala: While Greek mystical and philosophical traditions treated the heavens as being very different from the earth, the Chinese treated them as being subject to the same principles. They would have been OK with Galileo finding mountains on the moon and moons around Jupiter, and Newton assuming that objects fall to earth for the same reason that the earth is attracted to the sun.
Also, when critics get to the Greeks, instead of asking "Why didn't the ancient Greeks develop modern science?" the response is never "Well, they were deficient in X, Y, and Z..." but rather "Oh, come on, cut them some slack!" If the justification for the slack is the magnitude of their contributions, well, I certainly agree that the Greeks did amazing things for math and philosophy (and also technology, at least via Archimedes), but the Chinese had some pretty amazing technological achievements by the standards of the pre-scientific era. And the Muslims did a lot to preserve and extend Greek achievements, with Ibn Al Haytham decisively debunking some bad Greek ideas about light and vision. Why do historians respond to "Why not China?" or "Why not the Muslims?" with a list of defects rather than a list of excuses?
On the other hand, some historians apparently cut Greece some slack because of a perceived continuity between the Greeks and modern science. If the continuity is simply that the early modern scientists were influenced by the Greeks, well, yes, especially in regards to mathematics, but remember that Galileo's greatest achievement was to debunk Aristotelian physics rather than improve it. On the other hand, if it is perceived cultural continuity, I don't really know what that means. Modern science mostly came from Western Europe, not Greece. The Europeans who gave us science had a range of religious views, but they were mostly from Christian backgrounds (plus a handful of Jews), not pagan Greek backgrounds. If we're going to say that Aristotle and Newton came from the same culture then I think we have to include Mesopotamia and Egypt in that culture as well. The cultural lines from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece are at least as clear as those from Greece to England. Frankly, the English are weird. Separated from the Continent in multiple senses, they charted their own path after the collapse of Rome. They have a legal tradition built on Anglo-Saxon law rather than Roman law. They split from the Roman Catholic Church (and in a very different manner than the Greek Orthodox Christians). Even the language is weird compared to most other European tongues.
Besides the fact that Egypt and Mesopotamia gave us writing, arithmetic, geometry, agriculture, sailing, walled cities, etc. etc. etc., European culture was strongly influenced by an Abrahamic faith. Of course, Judaism had many differences from other Semitic religions, and Christianity picked up influences from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, but if you want to go there you aren't going to find an argument that clearly separates Christianity from the Middle East, because Mithraism and Zoroastrianism have deep Iranian roots.
Anyway, that was a long digression on things besides the emergence of science, but if we're going to draw a line from Aristotle to Newton then we have to include a whole lot of other people in the same civilization. Otherwise we have to recognize that modern England and ancient Greece were two very different civilizations, and we can't cut the Greeks any slack that we wouldn't cut for other civilizations.
Besides, if the Greeks taught us anything, it's that you can be awesome at math and bad at physics. That's an important lesson.
One other thing that I learned from Bala: While Greek mystical and philosophical traditions treated the heavens as being very different from the earth, the Chinese treated them as being subject to the same principles. They would have been OK with Galileo finding mountains on the moon and moons around Jupiter, and Newton assuming that objects fall to earth for the same reason that the earth is attracted to the sun.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Next book: The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science by Arun Bala
The next book will be The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science by Arun Bala. I picked it up on a whim at a used bookstore. Originally published in 2006, the book opens by referencing the "Science Wars" of the 1990's, when idiots ran around saying that "Science is just a Western cultural construct rooted in assumptions that are something something Western hegemonic patriarchal racist something something and that's just, like, your opinion, man." On the first page, Bala makes an important point: Both the traditionalists and the postmodern idiots ran around assuming that modern science is a purely Western thing. The purpose of this book is to use the historical record to debunk that assumption, and show non-Western influences on the Scientific Revolution of Europe.
If you think about it, the whole idea of science as a purely Western cultural construct is obvious bullshit, as evidenced by the number of Chinese and Indian scientists in US universities, as well as the global competitiveness of Japanese corporations making electronics and medical equipment based on the fruits of 20th century physics.
Interestingly, the "Science Wars" mostly ended on January 20 of 2001, when Bush The Lesser succeeded Clinton I and appointed to the executive agencies people who don't like environmental science. At that point everyone in academia agreed that science is awesome. At least for political purposes. The reign of Barack Augustus has seen some academic and cultural pushback against science, but mostly from the kool-aid drinkers within STEM, not from the PoMo literary critics and sociologists arguing that science is just, like, your opinion, man. The critics within STEM agree that science is great, they just think it's culture is terrible, and like all dangerous lies it's partly true. Of course, they argue that the problem has something to do with the expert voice, and that takes us back to the problems of the First Great Awakening, but that's a discussion for another time.
Anyway, I'll be curious to see what Bala comes up with.
If you think about it, the whole idea of science as a purely Western cultural construct is obvious bullshit, as evidenced by the number of Chinese and Indian scientists in US universities, as well as the global competitiveness of Japanese corporations making electronics and medical equipment based on the fruits of 20th century physics.
Interestingly, the "Science Wars" mostly ended on January 20 of 2001, when Bush The Lesser succeeded Clinton I and appointed to the executive agencies people who don't like environmental science. At that point everyone in academia agreed that science is awesome. At least for political purposes. The reign of Barack Augustus has seen some academic and cultural pushback against science, but mostly from the kool-aid drinkers within STEM, not from the PoMo literary critics and sociologists arguing that science is just, like, your opinion, man. The critics within STEM agree that science is great, they just think it's culture is terrible, and like all dangerous lies it's partly true. Of course, they argue that the problem has something to do with the expert voice, and that takes us back to the problems of the First Great Awakening, but that's a discussion for another time.
Anyway, I'll be curious to see what Bala comes up with.
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