  Tuesday night we had the second in a series of public lectures given by Professor Mark Whittall. The lecture series will follow the development of science from a preliterate worldview through three major scientific revolutions to the state of science in the West today. Professor Whittall started out by giving various definitions of science and then choosing a broad definition that would encompass science in ancient, medieval, enlightenment, and modern societies. Thus we are looking at science as "the answers we give to the questions we ask about the world around us (nature). " Someone quickly noted that this definition does not exclusively indicate many of the beliefs or practices we now associate with science.
It can in truth describe many non-scientific things such as mysticism and mythology because there is no criteria given for what sorts of answers are valid. This is necessary however if we are going to look at the development of the modern scientific worldview without distorting ancient peoples' approaches to nature by attempting to conform them to our conception of science. The first scientific model we looked at is the Animist or Magical worldview. This is presumably the understanding of the world held by prehistoric peoples.
However, given that prehistoric people by definition left no written language we must make conjectures about their beliefs from remnants in the earliest known writings and by looking at contemporary preliterate societies. These cultures were oral cultures and they used stories to explain the world around them. These stories did so by projecting what people knew onto what they didn't know. Just as today we model things we don't know, an electron, with things we do know, a billiard ball or a wave. However, instead of abstracting reality to common laws or principles they tended to personalize and individualize the forces and situations. Most included creation stories that explained how the world came to exist in the context of a birth. They anthropomorphised the sky, sun, moon, earth, forest, river, and ocean to be like something they knew about- people. These stories were fluid as can be seen in the early Egyptian records by the many variety of creation myths that were often contradictory. This was not seen as a problem because it is hard to critically compare stories that only exist orally.
The stories that flourished both gave explainations of the world and tended to reinforce the values of the community; it is dangerous to disturb the social structure by which people survive in a preliterate society. In Animistic societies there is no distinction between what is natural, what is human, and what is supernatural. The priests in Egypt practiced mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and mystical rites all as one profession. Similarly healers in Egypt and Babylon practiced magic, rituals, and exorcism to treat disease which was understood to be caused by evil spirits while at the same time utilizing surgery and plants for pharmacological recipes. The Greeks would be instrumental in what we will call the First Scientific Revolution in which the Animistic worldview was replaced with a new paradigm. However, the new paradigm would incorporate many of the scientific developments of the earlier civilizations. These include the Egyptian and Babylonian arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, astrology, and calendars. In summation of the Animistic/ Magical worldview notable characteristics are: -no clear distinction between natural and supernatural -personalize and individualize causes, causes identifies with "beings" (gods, spirits, humans) -natural phenomena caused by "capricious" gods, with no discernible order -the use of rituals and incantations to gain favor with gods and spirits Later I will blog about the paradigm shift to the Aristotelian scientific model.
One interesting note is that the Biblical worldview is set specifically against this animistic/magical worldview. While it may also challenge our current worldview, we must keep in mind the context that the Bible was originally set against and what it was originally meant to answer. This gives us more insight into the Bible's message and why certain things were included that seem rather odd or irrelevant to us today. (What was that about not boiling a calf in its mother's milk? The thought had truly never occured to me.
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