The quotes above paint varied pictures of what science is: a collected body of facts and knowledge for explaining the natural world; a systematic and orderly way of thinking and problem solving; a counterpoint to other ways of knowing, such asreligion or historical thinking; or a cultural frame ofreference that guides much of modern Western philosophy and thought. What, then, is science? The Oxford English Dictionary (1998) defines science as “those branches of study that relate to the phenomena of the material universe and their laws.” Dictionary definitions, however, do not give us a conceptual understanding of the culturally and historically rich enterprise that is science. Science is much more than definitions: science is an integral part of our daily lives. In modern society, it surrounds us in everything we do. This has not always been the case for human beings, nor is it equally the case for all people around the world. Science, as we generally think about it, has existed for only several thousand years—a tiny fraction of the history of humankind. Modern Western science is an even more recent newcomer, originating in the late Renaissance and Early Modern period (roughly 1550–1700). Beginning with the work of the Italian scientist Galileo (1564–1642;see Image 1.2), and continuing with the discoveries of the Englishmen Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626; see Image 1.1) and Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727; see Image 1.3 on page 8), a new way of looking at the world emerged. It was an approach based upon systematic observations and measurementsthat could then codified into a series ofrules and principles. These principles gradually came to be divided into distinct disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology, and Earth and space science. Each discipline has grown and evolved in its own way, developing its own rules, codes, and methods and even sub-dividing into discrete subdisciplines (e.g., molecular biology and organismal biology), yet always remaining part of a larger identifiable whole that is science. Prior to the rise of modern Western science (i.e., before about 1550), much that we now think of as science was considered to be magic. The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke (1985) has commented that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (p. iv). In Mark Twain’s novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, a man born in the late nineteenth century is transported back to the Middle Ages. Even with a limited scientific knowledge, he appears to his medieval hosts to be a magician or wizard.
As a new elementary or middle school teacher, you probably do not have an extensive background in the natural sciences. If you are typical of most college students, you’ve studied generalscience and biology, and probably some chemistry and physics, in high school. You have fulfilled your college general science requirement of two or three unrelated science courses as part of your college’s generalstudies program. Science is probably not something you spend a lot oftime thinking about, and its applicationsin your daily life are something you largely take for granted. Why should science, and more to the point of this book, learning to teach science well, be of interest to you? The answer lies, at least in part, in the degree to which science shapes the world in which we live. Think for a moment about the extent to which your life differs from life just 100 years ago. To begin with, 100 years ago your life expectancy would have been much shorter, probably only about 50 years (possibly far less, depending on the type of work you did). There is a high likelihood that you would have had multiple brothers or sisters, and that one or more of them would have died of natural causes before they reached adulthood. Diseases and illnesses that we take for granted as being manageable or curable today were fatal just 100 years ago. Polio, for example, killed and debilitated millions until the mid1950s when Jonas Salk (1914–1995) developed the first effective vaccine. Tuberculosis could be controlled only with the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s (and even today, in parts of the developing world where basic antibiotics can be difficult to come by, tuberculosis still kills two to three million people annually). One hundred years ago, appendicitis or pneumonia would most likely have proven fatal. For many readers of this book, the fact that you are alive today is most likely a direct result of scientific discoveries made in the past 100 years.
Today’s highly efficient systems of transportation provide another example of how science has changed our world. Have you traveled on a vacation in the last year or two? Are you attending college or university away from home? Do you routinely travel hundreds of miles or more to visit family or friends? Modern transportation—such as airplanes and automobiles, both relatively recent marvels of science and technology—makes this possible (see Images 1.4, 1.5). Look at how communication has been revolutionized in just the past decade. Ten years ago, cellular telephones were a novelty item, large and clunky devices of limited range and utility carried by “techno-geeks” and the occasional electrician and telephone repair-person. Today, cell phones are a ubiquitous accessory, carried by nearly every adolescent and adult in the developed world (see Image 1.6). iPods have revolutionized the way we discover and listen to music, and e-mail and social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we keep in touch with friends and family. You are probably well aware of the technology that you use—especially the latest gadgets that you do not yet possess but hope to own soon. You are probably much less aware of the science that underlies this technology. We often underestimate how science and technology, even in their most simple forms, have profoundly shaped our society and culture. We frequently take these results for granted, rather like the fish in the aquarium that does not think about the water in which it swims. Take, for example, the use of hay to feed farm animals. If you are like most people, you probably think that farmers have always used hay. But, in fact, the idea of cutting tall grass and drying and storing it so that domesticated animals could feed on it during the winter was not developed until the Middle Ages. As the physicist Freeman Dyson (1988) explains, Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantitiesto keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know isthat the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages.
So, you might say to yourself, why is the discovery of hay so important? Is it possible that its discovery could have had political and social ramifications? That it may have reshaped modern European history and the rise of countries such as Germany, France, and England? According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities, dependent on horses and oxen for motive power, could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York
The discovery of hay as a source of feed for domesticated animals such as horses and cows represents a discovery that profoundly reshaped history. Another seemingly simple discovery that changed European history was the saddle stirrup. First introduced into Europe from Asia during the twelfth century, the stirrup made it possible for knights to ride armored horses without falling off (see Image 1.7). As a result, a new type of warfare was introduced into European culture, in which highly skilled military troops were trained with sophisticated weapons (lances, armor, etc.). The warriors who fought using this new technology required extensive training and a great deal of money to stay active in the field. Social systems involving a noble class, special privileges, and taxation evolved, which redefined the social and political direction of European culture. Without the stirrup, there would not have been knighthood as we know it, and the evolution of the social systems of countries such as England, France, and Germany would probably have taken profoundly different directions (White, 1962). Of course, the wonders of science and its “advances” also cause complications, ethical dilemmas, and sometimes tragedy. Until you owned a car, you likely did not have to worry about paying for gas or insurance. Cell phones will soon be required to contain a global positioning system (GPS) locator, which will allow others to follow your every move. If you are worrying about finding a lost child who is carrying a cell phone, this might be a good thing. But what if you are, for example, a celebrity who is being tracked by a stalker, or simply a citizen whom the government wantsto keep an eye on? “Big Brother,” in George Orwell’s nightmare dystopia 1984, immediately comes to mind.
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