User:Yhan18/sandbox

Addition to Lead Section
By asking his grand questions: why did modern science not develop in China, and why China was technologically superior to the West prior to the 16th century, Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China is recognized as one of the first and most influential works that stimulated the discourse on the multicultural roots of modern science

Scholarly Discourse
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, in response to Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, Western historians insisted that modern science was unique to Western civilizations. Scholars like Roger Hart stated that Needham’s work was significant in helping change the criteria for defining modern science. In Hart’s Imagined Civilizations: China, The West, and Their First Encounter, Hart introduces the idea of the “Great Divide” between “the primitive non-West and the modern West” in the history of science. Hart explains the concept of the “Great Divide” as the perception that non-Western civilizations practiced false sciences. Roger Hart’s idea of the “Great Divide” criticizes the Eurocentric claim that the development of modern science was uniquely Western.

Bala’s The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science examines historical and epistemological presumptions in order to break from the Eurocentric view of the development of modern science. Needham’s juxtaposition of the attributes of Eastern and Western science influenced Bala to postulate that the future of science could be close to the Chinese view of nature. Needham and his co-authors are credited for amassing a plethora of evidence regarding the influence and contributions of Chinese technologies and ideas that allowed for the growth of modern science in Europe.

Some historians praise the standard of quality and thoroughness maintained throughout the volumes of Science and Civilization in China, but others questioned the accuracy of its contents. George Métailié expressed concerns over Needham’s methodology when he discovered that certain dates quoted by Needham could not be supported with sufficient evidence. Despite the common criticism of Science and Civilization in China that suggests it may have been biased by Needham’s Marxist beliefs and political leftism, scholars like Gregory Blue believe that there is insufficient evidence to support that Needham’s ideological inclinations are what drove him to formulate the Needham questions. However, historians like H. Floris Cohen did criticize Needham’s imprudent approach to his work, positing that Needham too often made his own biases apparent in his writings and attempted to propagandize his own historical narrative. Similar to how Needham criticizes other historians for exaggerating Greek influences on modern science, Needham’s critics argue that he had the proclivity to exaggerate the influences of Chinese sciences in the same fashion.

Since the publishing of the first volume of Science and Civilization in China in 1954, in the 21st century, a growing sentiment emerged among historians to dilute Europe's influence within the historical narrative of modern science. The reformulated Needham question drew the attention of scholars such as David J. Hess, a social anthropologist who referred to one of Needham’s lists in Science and Civilization in China to suggest that because the Chinese were technologically superior to the West prior to the 16th century, Chinese science was crucial to the foundation of modern science. American sinologist Nathan Sivin counters this argument by suggesting that before the scientific revolution, technology was not a good measure of scientific capacity.

The separation of scientific developments in the East and the West occurs thematically in scholarly debates over how extensively responsible the West was for the development of science. Joseph Needham contrasted the more “organic” understanding of nature that China held with the “mechanical” perspective through which the West viewed existence. While certain members of the scientific community viewed China’s science as more of a “pseudoscience,” to Needham, these advancements were part of a proto-scientific period that was later incorporated by the West after the 16th century. The philosopher Filmer Northrop postulated that Chinese achievements were considered to be a primitive science which only relied on intuition, whereas Western achievements were considered to be a result of the scientific process. Despite the notion that foundations of Chinese science were not in agreement with the scientific process, Bala notes that magnetism, a concept that heavily influenced the theories of Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, was developed through the intuition of ancient Chinese sciences.

Needham contrasts Western modern science and Eastern natural science as “modern” and “primitive” sciences that were differentiated by their “universality”. He points out that because primitive sciences of the middle ages were intertwined with their cultural backgrounds, primitive sciences were not able to become “universal” until they were integrated with mathematics, a feat accomplished by the West. In response to historians like Rupert Hall, who believed that Eastern science was of negligible influence on modern science, Needham argues that since modern science was a product of combining natural science and mathematics, both Eastern organic science and Western mechanical science should be given equal credit for the creation of modern science. In support of Needham’s sentiment, Marta E. Hanson states that Western science was not able to replicate China’s millennia old ceramic and porcelain production techniques up until the publication of Georges Vogt’s scientific analysis of Chinese porcelain in 1900.

Needham’s questions influenced other scholars to document the impact of non-European cultures on the development of modern science. Scholars such as Arun Bala have praised Science and Civilisation in China as the most comprehensive modern survey of the scientific and technological accomplishments of any non-European civilization. Needham’s work helped motivate the publication of more works that documented the influences of multicultural contributions on the development of modern science in its nascent stages, including Science and Civilization in Islam by Seyyed Hossien Nasr.

Rough Draft
I added this section here so that everyone can paste what they're gonna add to the main article here first. That way we can make sure that someone else hasn't already said the same thing from the same source before we actually submit our parts of the project.

Brian
• Hess listed the innovations that Needham pointed to "Magnetic science, equatorial celestial coordinates and the equatorial mounting of observational astronomical instruments, quantitative cartography, the technology of cast iron, essential components of the reciprocating steam engine" "mechanical clock, the boot stirrup and the efficient equine harness, to say nothing of gunpowder and all that followed therefrom"

• George Souza in the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine gave an acclamation to the work done by Needham for being consistently "standard quality" work despite being written as a "franchise"

Hayden
In Arun Bala’s “The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science,” he suggests that Joseph Needham “does not take the classical tradition of science to be the final word in science.” (Bala, 24) Bala speculates that this was a causal factor driving Needham’s differing approach from that of other historians; where they inquired about the shortcomings of early Chinese science, Needham was driven to examine how early Chinese scientific findings might have contributed to the emergence of modern science. Bala continues to explain that Needham played a crucial role in opening scholarly minds to the likelihood of China’s influence on modern science, and reducing the overarching notion that the “development of science within Europe may not have been as insular a process as hitherto assumed.” (Bala, 33)

Ariel
Huff, Toby E. The Rise of Early Modern Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
 * Sociologist Toby E. Huff gives an overview of Needham's singular legacy in his book The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. But Huff suggests that Needham gave many misleading impressions regarding China's supposed scientific advantages over the west.

Finlay, Robert. (2000). China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China. Journal of World History. 11. 265-303. 10.1353/jwh.2000.0035.

 I've added the points above to the "Criticisms From Scholars" subsection 
 * In the article "China, the West, and World History in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China", author Robert Finlay criticizes Needham by suggesting "Needham never shied away from bold generalizations" and "employs many outdated concepts and makes countless unsupported assertions". To support this assertion, Finlay points out that Needham never focuses on individual states and regions, instead he places Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Western achievements within the context of reciprocal relations of Eurasian cultures.

Wright, Tim. The China Quarterly, no. 163 (2000): 861-63. Accessed August 22, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/655814.


 * Peter Golas in the The China Quarterly issue no. 163 gives a review on Needham's Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5. Chemistry and Chemical Technology Part XIII: Mining. Golas outlines the progress of pre-modern Chinese mining technology. Golas reports that there appears to be virtually no technical mining process after the beginning of the Imperial period. He makes it clear that the practice fell far behind that outlined in the classic of late mediaeval mining in Europe. His explanations for the apparent technological stagnation emphasizes geological constraints in China, questions on cheap labour, and shortage of capital. Golas analyses the current state of knowledge of Chinese techniques and practices. Also simultaneously providing insights into life in mines in traditional China.

 Notes for "The Needham Question" 

'''Bala, Arun (2006). "The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science". doi:10.1057/9780230601215. '''


 * Denounces Ronan's approach > Eurocentric (pg 19)
 * Bala says we have to examine historical and epistemological presumptions in order to break from the Eurocentric view of the development of modern science.

"Why Did Modern Science Not Develop In Civilization X?"


 * "Needham took Chinese science to be a proto-science that made important contributions to modern science" (pg 12)
 * Needham implores a taoist organic materialist orientation to nature (pg 12)
 * Bala says the future of science could be close to the Chinese view of nature. (pg 12)

"Eurocentric History of Science"


 * Bala claims that Needham's publications were monumental in deconstructing Eurocentric claims on the development of modern science. (pg 21)
 * Needham influenced widened attempts to document the influence of non-European cultures in the development of modern science.

"Multicultural Histories of Science"

'''Hart, Roger (2013). Imagined civilizations : China, the west, and their first encounter. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 33–49. ISBN 9781421406060 .'''
 * Needham was a pioneer
 * Bala says that Science and Civilization in China was the most comprehensive modern survey of the scientific and technological accomplishments of any civilization outside of Europe until Nasr's Science and Civilization in Islam. (pg 33)
 * Needham, Nasr, Bose et al., and Bernal made impactful studies on Chinese, Arabic, Indian, and Egyptian cultures that influenced European science. (pg 33-34)
 * Taken together, they give the possibility that the phenomenon of modern science has much wider multicultural roots.
 * Hess supports Needham (pg 36).


 * Hart states that the non-west has traditionally been identified by a lack of science, capitalism, and modernity (pg 33)
 * Hart introduces the idea of the "Great Divide" of the primitive non-west and the modern west.
 * Historians of western science often perceive Needham's works as a project of opposition tot heir own work. Not as one part of a larger project of the study of the history of science. (pg 41)
 * In the late 1950's and early 1960's, in response to Needham's Science and Civilization in China, Western historians still insist that science was exclusively Western.
 * Needham helped change the criteria of defining science. (pg 41)
 * Needham's works formed in opposition to mainstream history of science that says the development of modern science was unique to Western civilizations.
 * Needham notes that "discoveries of sciences of other cultures resulted not in the rejection of claims of European uniqueness but rather in the depreciation of the sciences of other cultures." (pg 43)
 * Needham adopted the view of a radical break in Western thought between the ancient and the modern
 * This view became the central theme of work in the history of science for the first half of the 20th century. When this shift actually occurred is the topic of debate. (pg 45)

'''Souza, George Bryan; Kerr, Rose; Wood, Nigel (2015). "Review of Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 12, Ceramic Technology, KerrRose, WoodNigel". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (42): 132–134. ISSN 1562-918X.'''

'''Amelung, Iwo (2007). "Review of Science and Technology in East Asia. Proceedings of the XXth International Congress of History of Science [Liège, 20-26 July 1997]". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (26): 136–142. ISSN 1562-918X.'''
 * The fundamental strengths of Needham's Science and Civilization in China is the selection of important research topics with the analyses of the worlds leading experts. (pg 132)
 * Needham details the history of China's ceramic technology, social, cultural, and commercial explanations for it's maintenance of historical comparative advantages with other centers of production. (pg 132)
 * Rose Kerr and Nigel Wood give comprehensive, readable, understandable, and consultable work that thoroughly documents the history of the Chinese ceramic technological prowess. As well as reasons why and how they occurred. "The author and series is to be congratulated". (pg 134)

'''Lao, Kan (1975). "Review of Science and Civilisation in China". The American Historical Review. 80 (2): 459–461. doi:10.2307/1850633. ISSN 0002-8762.'''
 * These papers cover topics that can be divided into two groups:
 * Focus on Needham's "Great Question".
 * Assorted themes related to the history of science in E. Asia.
 * Amelung details the importance of Marxism for Needham
 * Asks questions such as "Why did China not develop a commercial class?"
 * Research on Needham's work will give additional information on this question. Example: How Needham's views may have changed in relation to important developments such as the rise of facism in the 1930's or the communist take over in China in 1949.
 * Amelung says that as a whole, the book offers a mixture of articles that shed light on issues regarding the development of scientific discipline and its important problems. While simultaneously providing insights into the state of current research. (pg 142)


 * Lao praises Needham. Says Science and Civilisation in China "will bring the author eminent reputation in the field of the history of sciences." (pg 459)
 * Lao goes over details regarding Needham's works in Chinese civil engineering and nautical technology.
 * States that Needham depicts Chinese techniques with great detail presented to the Western world.
 * For example: Lao praises Needham for his exact identifications of Chinese civil engineering with English technical terms.
 * Overall, Lao says that Science and Civilization in China gives westerners and Chinese students with modern training help in better understanding Chinese architecture (pg 459)
 * Points that impressed Lao:
 * The design of the Chinese house. Reconstruction of the ruin of Hsiao-tun before the 10th century BCE as a basic patter of the Chinese house. Impressed by Needham's tracing traditions of the Chinese house system as there has been very little scientific studies in this field (pg 459)
 * Development of a Chinese city or town, other than a village, growing from unofficial administration was established for political purposes. Needham does this by tracing and analyzing the history of the Ch'in Empire and feudalism associated. (pg 460)

Johnny
Bala

·      Rather than what most European scholars believed to be a pseudoscience, Needham defined Chinese science as a protoscience that gave way to modern science.

·      Needham found that China’s organic metaphysics that reflect Chinese views of nature are more in tune with the modern framework of quantum physics than the mechanical philosophy that was prevalent in 17th century Early Europe.

·      By asking the The Needham Question within his SCC, Needham was the first to challenge the traditional mindset Eurocentric mindset of the history of modern science. This traditional mindset was shared by many prominent European historians like Alfred Rupert Hall, who stated “Europe took nothing from the East without which modern science could not have been created”.

·      The increase of interest in the dialogical influences on the development of modern science was pioneered by SCC and its exploration of the Needham question. Despite facing opposition, Needham and his co-authors managed to present vast quantities of evidence of the influences and contributions of Chinese technologies and ideas on the west that allowed for the growth of modern science.

·      Since the publishing of the first volume of SCC in 1954, historians have expanded their horizons on the multicultural impacts on the development of modern science. Many scholars such as Martin Bernal and Seyyed Hossein Nasr have followed in Needham’s footsteps and published their own works that revealed dialogical contributions to modern science and challenged the traditional European mindset. From the 21st century onward, there has been a growing sentiment to dilute the magnitude of Europe’s role in the historical timeline of modern science.

·      Hess talks about how China was more technologically advanced than the west up until the 16h century and Chinese knowledge was transferred to the west in the medieval and later periods. Referring to one of Needham’s lists, Hess argued that much of the foundational work of modern science was only possible because the technology was taken from china; “the technology of cast iron, essential components of the reciprocating steam-engine, the mechanical clock, the boot-stirrup, the efficient equine harness, gunpowder”.

·      Another Chinese contribution to modern science is the knowledge of astronomy that Jesuits were able to learn from the Chinese.

·      According to Needham, Kepler’s theory on the rays of the sun that influence planetary motions were derived from the Chinese notions of lines the sun connecting different planets like magnetic lines of influence. The idea of magnetism were very important because it was used to develop the compass and the idea of gravity. Because the idea of magnetism was Chinese, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton all used Chinese ideas for their science.

Hart

·      Chinese science had been criticized by Northrop for believing in pseudoscience because Chinese science; Northrop says that the west is scientific and the east is intuitive. “a culture which admits only concepts by intuition is automatically prevented from developing science of the Western type”

·      Needham wanted to disprove the mindset that Chinese science wasn’t real so he launched his SCC

·      For several years after the publishing of the first volume of the SCC, many historians saw Needham’s work as a challenge to their own

·      “Impressive as are the technological achievements of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt, of ancient China and India, as scholars have presented them to us they lack the essential elements of science, the generalized conceptions of scientific explanation and of mathematical proof”

·      Needham believed that China was equally important as Europe in the contribution of science and sought out to prove it. He didn’t protest the fact that modern science was uniquely western and that there’s boundary between the scientific and unscientific, but he was concerned about “how the boundary was drawn”

·      Needham separates western science and eastern science into “modern” and “primitive” science and claimed the primary difference between the two way “universality”. That is, until the eastern natural sciences “had been universalized by its fusion with mathematics, natural science could not be the common property of all mankind. The sciences of the medieval world were tied closely to the ethnic environments in which they had arisen, and it was very difficult, if not impossible, for the people of those different cultures to find any common basis of discourse… the river of Chinese science flowed, like all other such rivers, into this sea of modern science.”

o   He’s saying that modern science was only able to become “modern” because it injected math into the primitive sciences; even though China didn’t develop modern science, Chinese science and other primitive multicultural sciences still contributed to modern science

·      Needham calls for modern science to be viewed as universal science rather than Western science. “Let us take pride enough in the undeniable historical fact that modern science was born in Europe and only in Europe, but let us not claim thereby a perpetual patent thereon. For what was born in the time of Galileo was a universal palladium, the salutary enlightenment of all men without distinction of race, colour, faith or homeland, wherein all can qualify and all participate. Modern universal science, yes; Western science, no!”

·      Sivin argues in response to the reformulated Needham question that science and technology are separate, and that just because china had better technology before the 16Th century doesn’t mean their science was any good. He also refuted Needham’s explanations for why china didn’t develop modern science, and attributed much of it to china’s conservative, xenophobic traditionalism; the Chinese didn’t want foreign knowledge.

Hanson


 * One of the contributing factors to China’s technological superiority before the 16th century is China’s dominance in ceramics


 * With a rich variety of sources, ranging from Chinese historical texts, archaeological excavations, science of ceramics, and dialogical/multi-language secondary sources, Kerr and Wood added to the literature of Chinese ceramics and how Chinese ceramic technology made its way to Europe.
 * The science of ceramics is an example of knowledge that Europe was not able to reproduce until modern science was already
 * The Chinese used yin-yang, a medical concept rooted in philosophy and natural science, to rationalize the use of seaweed and liver to treat ailments like thyroid enlargement and night-blindness.
 * A volume of SCC that provides information on Chinese medical innovations for historians that want to apply Chinese history of medicinal science on the same questions that are asked of European history
 * From the earliest articulations of vessels and qi to modern revisions of acumoxa and herbal therapies, classical Chinese medicine has been in a continual process of transformation. Innovation in Chinese Medicine weaves this central theme through over two mil lennium of evidence. Although not intended as a survey, readers would be hard pressed to find a better introduction to the subject or a more compelling model of method in the field.(420)
 * Praising the quality of this SCC volume; maybe we can use this in the intro as an example of how the SCC contributed to the dialogical discussion of the history of modern science
 * Timothy Brook opened his review of "The Sinology of Joseph Needham" with the unforgettable line: "Rarely does even a great scholar go beyond altering his field to changing the way in which people think about the world."20 Bray stated in her eloge: "Needham was a pioneer in the critique of Western intellectual preeminence that is nowadays a commonplace of the culture wars."' (p. 424).
 * Acclaim from Brook about Needham being a pioneer in changing how people thought of the world
 * Needham’s influence on historians like Jack Goody and Mark Elvin to state that the European institutions thought to be responsible for Europe’s superiority in modern science could be found all across the world and that the binary mindset of Eastern exceptionalism and Western uniqueness.
 * In accordance to Needham’s SCC, Elvin states that by 1600 the Chinese already had all the components that the west used to create modern science and that the European scientific revolution was more of an assimilation and progression of these components rather than a purely European product.

Amelung

·       According to Needham, the 4 main factors that prevented China was developing modern science were geography, climate, economy, and society. For economy and society, Needham says that there was no commercial class in china in terms of society and economy. (137)

·       Cohen says that despite everything Needham did to compare china and Europe, he failed to answer his question. Also, Cohen says that Needham too often threw caution to the wind in his SCC and became overly zealous in pushing his own historical ideology. (138)

·       Metailie criticizes that Needham’s methodology is not always sound. For instance Needham stated that modern botany overtook traditional Chinese botany in 1780 and that Chinese and western botany converged in 1880, but neither of those dates can be supported. (139)

Souza


 * Souza praises the quality of work that the SCC was able to maintain by hiring leading experts to write the volumes.
 * Souza gives praise on the maintenance of quality in SCC despite it being a “franchise”

In-Class Sources
The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science. 2006

** All of the Arun Bala readings

Hart, Roger. Imagined Civilizations : China, the West, and Their First Encounter

** The Science as a Measure of Civilizations reading

Campus Library Sources
Review of 'Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology: Part 11: Ferrous Metallurgy'

Science and Technology in East Asia: The Legacy of Joseph Needham. 2001

Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 7 Part II: General Conclusions and Reflections. 2004 Hanson, Marta

Science and civilisation in China. Vols. 4, part 3: Civil engineering and nautics. 1971

H. T. Huang. Science and Civilization in China. Volume 6 Biology and Biological Technology. Part V: Fermentations and Food Science. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001


 * This could potentially be used to contribute to our "Scholarly Mentions and Reviews" section.