User:Dunstanne/sandbox

Approaches to history of science
The nature of the history of science (and by implication, the definition of science itself) is a topic of debate.The history of science is often seen as a linear story of progress but historians have shown that the story is more complex, and that there are many ways to tell it. Historians also emphasise that science is a human activity, and that the facts we recognise as scientific truths were made by a wide range of contributors from different backgrounds and cultures. Science is increasingly seen as part of a global history of exchange, conflict and collaboration. Science and religion are no longer seen to be simply at war.

Historians agree that past science is most effectively viewed from the perspective of people at the time, rather than in light of subsequent discoveries they could have known nothing about. In the same way, the reasons that people had for pursuing science in the past were often very different from those of the present day. These points were made influential amongst historians by The Whig Interpretation of History (1931). Historians have emphasised that trust is necessary for claims about nature to be agreed upon. In this light, the establishment of the Royal Society and its code of experiment - trustworthy because witnessed by its members - has become an important chapter in the historiography of science.

Many people in modern history (typically women and persons of colour) were excluded from elite scientific communities and characterised by science as inferior. Historians in the 1980s and 1990s described the structural barriers to participation and began to recover the contributions of overlooked individuals. For example, whereas earlier histories typically focused solely on the science of elite European botanists, more recent histories emphasise how their work depended upon the expertise of local guides and Indigenous plant knowledge. These histories parallel a wider reconsideration of the range of activities that have constituted past science. Historians have begun to investigate the mundane practices of science such as fieldwork and specimen collection, correspondence , drawing , record-keeping , and the use of laboratory and field equipment. Collectively, these accounts counter the tendency to depict the history of science as a series of heroic discoveries made by lone geniuses.

One of the key debates within the history of science concerns the relationship between humans and the material world of technology. in recent years this has led to

The question of human agency lies at the heart of many debates within the history of science. Is the history of science about what people accomplish or is it about the constraints and effects of the material world. During the twentieth century, there were debates about whether humans constructed technologies to suit their ends or whether technology itself drove history. By the twenty-first history, the question of whether animals could also be actors within human history had also come to the fore.

not whig

practice, materiality (not ideas/realtionship between sci and tech)

social construction

linguistic

gender, feminist, racial

communication, circulation, exchange

postcolonial

post-human