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Roles of women in science enlightenment
Role of woman in science and technology
Role of woman in science and technology
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Margaret Cavendish firmly promotes her judgements of the ideology of early scientific practice formed from philosopher Francis Bacon during the seventeenth century through her text: Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy. Cavendish overrules Bacon’s scientific method and revises it with her improved scientific methods composed from her natural wit. Margaret Cavendish critiques Bacon’s scientific method by examining the origin of scientific knowledge during the seventeenth century and focuses on the misuse of scientific technology and manipulation of nature that lead to fallacies and consequences in society. Cavendish opposes scientific knowledge during the seventeenth century due to its artificial information learned …show more content…
through academies rather than natural wit learned through the ancients. Throughout the text, Cavendish repeatedly sources her acquired natural wit to the ancient philosophers and historians that directly trump Bacon’s scientific knowledge because many of their writings are “parcels taken from the ancient” (3). This artificial knowledge is evident in scientific texts that “will produce such a confusion of Truth and Falshood” (3) in society. Cavendish argues against artificial knowledge by breaking down Bacon’s method and presenting the falsehoods within each step. Cavendish symbolizes the scientific buildings as artificial when she begins with harshly criticizing modern scientists for the destruction of ancient buildings. By categorizing the buildings an artificial tool for fame, Cavendish proves how society is also impacted through artificial knowledge. Cavendish also theorizes that artificial knowledge leads to an artificial society that believes scientific technology is the key to manipulation of nature. By connecting scientific technology to the manipulation of nature, Cavendish directly appoints her entire argument to Francis Bacon and The Royal Society. In Bacon’s scientific method, the use of scientific technology is viewed as an essential element in order to accurately discover and process new knowledge.
Discovering new knowledge is essential to the scientific method because new knowledge is the key to manipulation of nature in order to benefit the good of mankind. Cavendish’s criticism beings with the misuse of scientific technology. She repeatedly asks her readers— “what advantages it to our knowledg?” (4). It is evident that scientists spend both time and labour into the use of scientific technology; Cavendish believes that a scientists time and labour is being wasted because of scientific technology. Through Cavendish’s point of view, scientific technology uselessly creates “fallacies, rather than discoveries of Truth” (4). Cavendish reveals a controversial ambiguity in Bacon’s work: manipulation of nature is aimed to benefit all common people, but, “the inspection of a Bee, through a Microscope, will bring [a gardener] no more Honey” (4). Scientific technology cannot be accurately utilized because “sense deludes more then it gives a true information” (4), which is why Cavendish revises the use of technology as counterproductive and suggests “regular reason is the best guide to all Arts” (4). The symbol of human senses supports Cavendish’s argument that aspects of natural overrule artificial. Cavendish links scientific knowledge and its fallacies through the lens of a royal female, thus changing the basic scientific information society is accustomed
to.
During the twentieth century, Harry Harlow performed one of the most controversial experiments that led to a scientific breakthrough concerning the parent-child relationship. It paved the way for understanding terms such as secure, insecure, ambivalent, and disorganized relationships (Bernstein, 2014, 364). During the course of this study, Harlow separated baby monkeys from their birth mothers and isolated them in frightening environments. According to the video “H.H. Overview”, this proved the monkey’s preference for a comforting mother versus a nutritional one. However, this raises the question: can his experiments be deemed ethical, or did his scientific inquiry overstep boundaries?
The essay starts off by stating, “One could say that the dominant scientific world-view going into the 16th century was not all that “scientific” in the modern sense of the
One of the key questions raised by Rupert Sheldrake in the Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, is are we more than the ghost in the machine? It is perfectly acceptable to Sheldrake that humans are more than their brain, and because of this, and in actual reality “the mind is indeed extended beyond the brain, as most people throughout most of human history have believed.” (Sheldrake, Seven Experiments 104)
In the short story ”The Noble Experiment”, from I Never Had it Made, by Jackie Robinson as told to Alfred Duckett, Branch Rickey had a magnificent plan to integrate blacks into Major League Baseball, rather than the Negro leagues where many blacks played baseball. Branch Rickey’s quest for the perfect black candidate took him beyond national borders, his search was brilliantly disguised to the public as if he was created a black-baseball league. Rickey said that the ideal candidate,”...had to be able to stand up in the face of merciless persecution and not retaliate”(Duckett 290). When Jackie Robinson met Branch Rickey for the first time, Rickey told Robinson that the opposition would taunt him,
The scientific and technological advancements of the early 20th century entered people’s daily lives with the intention of bringing the whole of humanity into a brighter, more modern era. However, the darker side of such immense achievement was the increasing encroachment on the previously untouched natural world. Many great minds grew weary of such advances and conveyed their apprehension through the popular literature of the time. The pivotal novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy explores the impact that industrialists with access to technology had on the pastoral countryside and lower classes. Conan Doyle expands on this message in his novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, by examining how the well-educated elite began using science to their advantage, threatening nature in the process. While each novel warns against abusing available technologies, the authors differ in how they believe nature will eventually respond and have incited a debate that has lasted well into the 21st century.
Francis Bacon ~ used the scientific method to conduct experiments, he is known as a father of modern science for this.
Wolf, A. A History of Science, Technology and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Vol. 2. New York: Harper, 1959.
Wolf, A. A History of Science, Technology and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Vol. 2. New York: Harper, 1959.
In Chapter 21 of Worldviews, Dewitt introduces the phenomena of scientific laws and their contribution to the scientific revolution in the 1600s. I found the debate between scientific laws and laws of nature very intriguing, as I hadn’t considered them separate. Dewitt explains that laws of nature define the fundamental way the universe works and scientific laws approximate the consequences of the laws of nature. In short, laws of nature are the phenomena and scientific laws describe observations of the phenomena. This notion made me consider Francis Bacon’s idea that while it may be true we can never really “know” anything, that sort of thinking isn’t exactly advantageous. To remedy this, we accept the way the universe works (laws of nature)
Wolf, Abraham. History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century. New York: MacMillan Press, 1968. Web. 5 June 2012.
5. Burns, William E. Science in the Enlightenment: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Print.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, radical and controversial ideas were created in what would become a time period of great advances. The Scientific Revolution began with a spark of inspiration that spread a wild fire of ideas through Europe and America. The new radical ideas affected everything that had been established and proven through religious views. "The scientific revolution was more radical and innovative than any of the political revolutions of the seventeenth century."1 All of the advances that were made during this revolutionary time can be attributed to the founders of the Scientific Revolution.
Francis Bacon, a great philosopher from the sixteenth century, was one of the main contributors to the development of the scientific explanation (Shuttleworth). Bacon sought better ways to explain the world surrounding him and believed deduction alone wasn’t enough, and inductive argument was more adequate. Inductive Arguments aim to support a claim or a conclusion with premises with a level of probability (Copi). Unlike deductive arguments, inductive arguments cannot be characterized with validity as the premises support the conclusion with probability and not with necessity. Thus, inductive arguments can be described as “weak” or “strong” (Copi). Since an inductive argument is probabilistic, it is still the case for the conclusion to be false even if the premises are true. Because inductive arguments provide with new ideas and knowledge beyond what is already known, unlike deductive arguments which do not provide anything new, inductive argument is seen as necessary in the scientific method, in order to arrive at new explanations (Cline). Moreover, Bacon introduced the use of induction in the Scientific Method since induction would be adequate for observations of specific issues to a broader issues. Induction was also seen as adequate for scientific experimentation as it would allow to generalize the findings in such experiments. In a
The Scientific Revolution, perhaps one of the most significant examples of human beingsí relationship with the natural world, changed the way seventeenth and eighteenth century society operated. The power of human knowledge has enabled intellectual, economical, and social advances seen in the modern world. The Scientific Revolution which included the development of scientific attitudes and skepticism of old views on nature and humanity was a slow process that spanned over a two century period. During the Scientific Revolution, scientific knowledge enabled humans to control nature in order to improve society. With leaders such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and Rene Descartes, the Scientific Revolution proves to be a crucial piece to the puzzle of understanding the effects of humansí interactions with the natural world.
... as a reputable philosopher of science.”(biography.com pg.2) Acording to Bacon in Novum Organum the scientific method should start with the “Tables of investiongation.”(biography.com pg.2) Then is should continue onto the “Table of presence.”(biography.com pg.2) Which is a list of cases under which the thing is being examined. Then “The Table of Absence in Proximity.”(biography.com pg.2) Is used to find negative incedence. Then, the “Table of Comparison allows the observer to compare and contrast the severity or degree of the event.”(biography.com pg. 2) Bacon also created a huge scientific world view. This was one of Bacon’s most important contributions to history.