OJ

Chapter 21 - Reading 1

  • European 18th century: Christian faith was the answer to most basic questions
    • Some began to embrace rational inquiry and pursue the new science
  • Western science increased the political and military powers of Europeans
  • Joseph Banks (president of the Royal Society) linked scientific inquiry to real-world applications and economic purposes
  • Intellectual debate divided thinkers
    • Ancients: authority of Aristotle and other classical authors as the foundation of knowledge in fields such as medicine, math, and astronomy.
    • Modern: rejected classical authority & Christian theology, human reason as the key to knowledge, contradicted traditional Christian conceptions
  • Deductive reasoning: arguing from general principles to specific truth
  • Rene Descartes
    • Axioms of true philosophy had to be firmly grounded in the human capacity to reason
    • Logic could result in a unified system of truth
    • Systematic doubt as key to knowledge
    • Ability to reason as proof of existence
  • Modern science based on experimentation and observations of the natural world
  • Sir English Bacon:
    • Main proponents of an inductive approach to science
    • Controlled observations to larger truth
  • Tycho Brahe:
    • Using only the naked eye to observe
    • Challenged Aristotelian concept of an eternally unchanging celestial sphere
    • Demonstrated that a bright supernova had emerged beyond the Earth's atmosphere
  • Johannes Kepler:
    • Applied Brahe's data to analyze the orbit of the planet Mars
    • Showed that planetary motion was elliptical rather than circular
    • Challenged Aristotle and Christian teaching that all celestial motion was circular (perfect movement for perfect heavenly domain) and reinforced Galileo
  • Identical laws prevail throughout the universe and those laws can be described using math
  • New ideas caused discomfort in the early 17th century. A century later, science was on the rise and more Europeans began to reason and use their senses to observe nature.
  • Isaac Newton
    • Used deductive thinking to establish general principles
    • Used Bacon's inductive approach to experimental science
    • The universal law of gravitation: All matter exerts gravitational attraction in inverse proportion to mass and distance
    • Inventors of differential calculus
  • Tension between science and faith began to ease starting the early 18th century.
  • Scientists began to systematically collect and organize a catalogue of the world's flora
  • Carl Linnaeus
    • Pioneering figure in modern botany
    • Gathered plants specimens, restored botanical gardens, send his students around the world to gather specimens for study
    • Published his classification of living things
    • The Linnaean system orders species into hierarchical categories: genus/order/class/kingdom
    • Developed the binomial system of Latin names of organism
    • World's plants already had names but fit not consistent network of classification
    • Created a single knowledge system
  • Joseph Banks
    • Adept at deriving practical economic lessons from Carl Linnaeus's works
    • Leading figure in the drive for improvement: using scientific methods to increase the productivity of existing land and bring new land under cultivation
    • Bring insights gained from natural science to agriculture
    • Improve soil by sowing clover and turnips in fields
    • Selective breeding of livestock to boost the production of wool, meat, and milk
    • Wealthy gentle famer, invested in water engineering tech
    • Experimented with crop rotation and crossbreeding farm animals
  • Agriculture revolution led to more arable land for planting and greater efficiency in production
    • Increased food supplies supported urbanization during the industrial revolution
  • Agriculture led to greater inequality
    • Village society was oriented toward stability and security; common access to pasture and woodlands
    • New law allowed the English gentry to accumulate larger landholdings; allowing them to enclose common lands as private property
    • Food security matter less than productivity and profitable crops sales
    • Rural families could no longer sustain themselves; they drift to cities and coal mines for employment
    • "One person's improvement, therefore, could be another's ticket to unemployment."
    • Interests of the gentry was well represented in the Parliament and in the courts, those of the poor were not.
  • Joseph Banks advocated for improvement on the imperial stage
    • Globalizing the practical application of science through his advocacy of economic botany
    • Developed a experimental facility at Kew Gardens
    • Scientists brought new plant specimens from around the world to be examined, catalogued, and cultivated
    • Biological diffusion
      • British Navy needed secure supplies of timber, English botanists identified South Asian mahogany as a supplement to British and North American oak
    • Use of science to justify the dominance of the British elite at home and abroad
    • Believed that they would ultimately benefit from scientifically rational agriculture.
  • British colonization in Ireland
    • Claimed that the Irish were not using land efficiently, legally seized to make it more civil.
  • Australia
    • Regarded as empty land because its aboriginal inhabitants had not improved it
  • Justified their empire by claiming it created the best possible life for locals

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