Science: Revolutions and Evolutions

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2010:

For the purposes of considering requests for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.

The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website : http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

The rise of modern science in early modern Europe (roughly between 1500 and 1750) has had a crucial role for the development of modern society. It was intertwined with other fundamental changes in European culture, politics, and economy, such as the emergence of new forms of government, the protestant reformation, the invention of the printing press or the building of colonial empires. This subject examines the causes, the dynamics and the consequences of the processes that produced the social activity we call science. Focusing on a few paradigmatic cases, we will study the changes in scientific thought and practice - such as the introduction of the experimental method, the turn to mechanical philosophy and Copernican Astronomy - and their relation to social, political and religious developments. We will also discuss the way these processes have been analysed in the past and which explanations have been put forward, why science emerged in early modern Europe and not in other places or other eras. Students who complete this subject will gain an understanding into the processes that made science an integral part of modern society and the way historians can describe the development of science.

Students who successfully complete this subject will

• have a profound knowledge of important methods to analyse the historical development of science.
• understand the complex dynamics of epistemological and cultural factors contributing to changes in science.
• comprehend the historical dimension of their own knowledge.
• be able to examine critically intellectual positions and their development.

A Subject reader will be available from the University bookshop at the beginning of semester.

Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambition, 1500-1700. Princeton 2001.

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

Students who successfully complete this subject will

• develop skills in written and oral communication.
• conduct independent research.
• make appropriate use of primary sources and secondary literature in mounting an argument.
• form defensible judgments on the basis of a critical evaluation of conflicting arguments.
• put their own position in a historical perspective.