Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises and Sensibilities (Fontana History of Science S.)

by Lewis Pyenson (Author), SusanSheets-Pyenson (Author)

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  Paperback
  2000

  $3.24

  The authors identify that the major advances in science stem from changes in three distict areas of society: the social institutions that promote science; the sensibilities of scientists themselves and the goal of the scientific enterprise. The book begins by examining the institutions that have shaped science: the academics of Ancient greece, universities, the growth of museums of science, technology and natural history, botanical and zoological gardens and the advent of popular specialized research laboratories. It is equally comprehensive when it analyzes changing scientific sensibilities - for example the relationship between religion and science, or the interplay between the growth of democracy and the growth of scientifc knowledge. The final section of the book on the changing nature of scientific enterprise, considers how the goals of science have evolved, from the earliest examples of the written word, to the increasingly cosy relationships between scientists, militarists and industrialists in the modern world.