[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> Also enjoyed the emphasis on individuals who scored breakthroughs in
> microbiology like Pasteur.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Thought I'd share a relevant passages from "A People's History of Science", a
> book that in many ways appears to draw heavily from a MOQ-perspective.

Would be interested in why you think the following draws "heavily on the MOQ
perspective." Looks to me like a Howard Zinn approach to history. Thanks.

Platt


> "Historians in general have succeeded in displacing the encomiastic tradition-
> the Great Man Theory of History- as the predominant viewpoint of the educated
> public, but historians of science- in spite of a great deal of effort and good
> scholarship- have been less successful. "Science", Derek de Solla Price
> lamented, "seems tied to its heroes more closely than other branch of
> learning." Although few people today would agree with Carlyle's famous dictum
> that "the history of of the world is but the biography of great men", many
> continue to believe that the Scientific Revolution was the creation of a very
> few extremely talented geniuses: "from Copernicus to Newton." 
> 
> Part of the problem is that although the public understanding of history in
> general has been strongly influenced by professional historians, the way most
> people conceive of the history of science has been shaped not by historians of
> science but by scientists themselves, who often hold and propagate distorted
> conceptions of their predecessors' practices. Scientists have a guild interest
> in portraying their forerunners as heroes, because it adds to the heroic
> stature of their profession and enhances their view of their own place in the
> scheme of things.
> 
> More important, most scientists are not professional historians; their primary
> concerns are not historical. Their interest in their science's path of
> development is secondary to their interest in the science itself. They
> therefore often unwittingly adopt a tunnel-vision view of their discipline's
> past, focusing only on the narrow lineage of successes and ignoring all the
> false starts and dead ends as uninteresting because they did not "lead
> anywhere". Tunnel-vision history of science may be of some use as a teaching
> tool in elementary science courses, but it does not constitute valid history.
> Its projection of present-day concerns onto the past gives a falsified and
> misleading picture of the way science has developed in real life."
> 
> "Isaac Newton's ability to 'see further' should not be attributed, as he
> claimed, to his sitting 'on the shoulders of giants', but rather to his
> standing on the backs of untold thousands of illiterate artisans (among
> others)."




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