6 Introduction
religion, and science and pseudoscience. Our intention with chapters 10
and 11 is to give particular consideration to the ways in which the con-
trasts between science and religion and science and pseudoscience have
played a signifi cant role in forging the identity of modern science.
The last three chapters (12–14) deal in various ways with the unique
and privileged status of modern science and with the growth of its cultural
authority. Chapter 12 charts the emergence of the idea of the scientifi c
method, describing the manner in which it has been used to confer upon
scientifi c knowledge a unique authority. Chapter 13 deals with science
and the public, illustrating how in the nineteenth century the profes-
sionalization of science and the way in which it presented itself to the
public were instrumental in contributing to the creation of science as we
know it. Finally, while to a certain extent this volume upholds the current
orthodoxy that what counts as science differs from one historical period
to another, chapter 14 makes the convincing claim that geography is as
important as chronology. Thus, when we speak of “science,” we must take
cognizance not only of historical context, but also of geographical place.
Taken together, the chapters that deal with the modern period show how
the question of the identity of science is almost as problematic for the
present as for the distant past.^10
Each of the chapters in this collection can stand alone, and there is
nothing to prevent readers with interests in a particular theme or his-
torical period from consulting chapters out of sequence. Given the lim-
ited space of the present format, there are inevitable omissions, but it is
our conviction that none of these is egregious. As should be apparent by
now, we have deliberately chosen to restrict ourselves to Western science
but would hope that a similar approach might be adopted for histories
of greater geographical range. For now, however, we hope to have made
some contribution to an understanding of what it is that various individu-
als and groups, in different times and places, have imagined themselves to
be doing as they have wrestled with nature.
P.H.NOTES
- George Sarton, “The New Humanism,” Isis 6 (1924): 10.
- George Sarton, The Study of the History of Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1957), 5. - George Sarton, A History of Science: Ancient Science through the Golden Age of Greece