Europe of the 1600s; that is why it is possible, as we will shortly see, to consider
the overlap or non-overlap between philosophical networks and those of as-
tronomers, mathematicians, or medical scientists in Greece, China, and India.^5
What did the scientific revolution do to change science as a form of social
organization? The question need not hinge on asserting the greater validity of
modern scientific knowledge. Some portions of Chinese or Greek mathematics,
biology, or planetary astronomy may be considered sufficiently valid even from
a modern European point of view, so here validity is not a distinguishing
characteristic. Leaving aside these issues about the contents of science, there
are two major social differences.
First, European science moved much more rapidly. It focused on a fast-
moving research front, making and discussing new discoveries for a few years
and then moving on to something else. European intellectuals became highly
conscious of this movement of rapid discovery. We find it in the explicit
scientific ideologies of Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Boyle: the notion that a
method of making discoveries had been found, and that future problems would
be rapidly solved. This was not only an ideology; the accumulation of scientific
research literature did indeed accelerate continuously from this point onward.^6
We might thus designate science before and after the scientific revolution as
“traditional science” and “rapid-discovery science,” respectively.
Second, European science acquired a higher degree of consensus. This is
not to say that there were no controversies, but rather scientific controversies
became socially resolved over a period of years, and the community of scientists
came to treat old issues as settled while concentrating on new ones. Again,
European intellectuals were highly conscious of this characteristic; after 1600
they tended to elevate science and mathematics as exemplars of the highest
level of consensus possible. In general, non-European science had much less of
this consensus, and little or none of the reputation as exemplar of secure
knowledge.
This is not to say that there was never social consensus over particular
aspects of non-European science. The elementary portions of Greek geometry
after Euclid, for example, were widely accepted among mathematicians. But
the more sophisticated work of Archimedes, Eratosthenes, and Apollonius was
only sporadically represented in later textbooks; in the Roman period, Ni-
comachus was generally followed but Diophantus was often ignored, and late
texts such as Boethius’ omitted the proofs that constituted the main Greek
achievement in abstract mathematics. Greek mathematical practitioners as a
whole achieved only a “lazy consensus” largely by neglecting more complex
developments. This was even more pronounced in Chinese mathematics; in
many instances sophisticated results and methods were subsequently lost.^7
There were also widespread and long-standing areas of dissensus in tradi-
Cross-Breeding Networks and Rapid-Discovery Science • 533