Matthew Stanley is associate professor at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
During the Victorian period, the practice of science shifted from a religious context to a naturalistic one. It is generally assumed that this shift occurred because naturalistic science was distinct from and superior to theistic science. Yet as Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon reveals, most of the methodological values underlying scientific practice were virtually identical for the theists and the naturalists: each agreed on the importance of the uniformity of natural laws, the use of hypothesis and theory, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. But if scientific naturalism did not rise to dominance because of its methodological superiority, then how did it triumph?
Matthew Stanley explores the overlap and shift between theistic and naturalistic science through a parallel study of two major scientific figures: James Clerk Maxwell, a devout Christian physicist, and Thomas Henry Huxley, the iconoclast biologist who coined the word agnostic. Both were deeply engaged in the methodological, institutional, and political issues that were crucial to the theistic-naturalistic transformation. What Stanley’s analysis of these figures reveals is that the scientific naturalists executed a number of strategies over a generation to gain control of the institutions of scientific education and to reimagine the history of their discipline. Rather than a sudden revolution, the similarity between theistic and naturalistic science allowed for a relatively smooth transition in practice from the old guard to the new.
發表於2024-12-23
Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
圖書標籤: 科學史 赫胥黎 科普(含數理化天文&建築) 科學 科學 思想/思想史 基督教 science&religion
從science and Christianity到science vis-à-vis/dissociated from Christianity,維多利亞時代的科學在赫胥黎的力推之下經歷瞭一場Charles Taylor所說的「減法」。這本書是關於這個「減法」由何而來及如何初步實現,卻無意進一步考察「減法」可能意味著什麼,尤其對科學而言。赫胥黎辭世不過半個世紀,就見科學從自然主義到工具主義的後續軌跡。另,赫胥黎被嚴復整成那樣可以說是福/惡報瞭。
評分從science and Christianity到science vis-à-vis/dissociated from Christianity,維多利亞時代的科學在赫胥黎的力推之下經歷瞭一場Charles Taylor所說的「減法」。這本書是關於這個「減法」由何而來及如何初步實現,卻無意進一步考察「減法」可能意味著什麼,尤其對科學而言。赫胥黎辭世不過半個世紀,就見科學從自然主義到工具主義的後續軌跡。另,赫胥黎被嚴復整成那樣可以說是福/惡報瞭。
評分好一本Huxely陰謀論大作!寫到後來果然隻剩瞭Huxley,Maxwell寫著寫著就沒瞭……
評分好一本Huxely陰謀論大作!寫到後來果然隻剩瞭Huxley,Maxwell寫著寫著就沒瞭……
評分從science and Christianity到science vis-à-vis/dissociated from Christianity,維多利亞時代的科學在赫胥黎的力推之下經歷瞭一場Charles Taylor所說的「減法」。這本書是關於這個「減法」由何而來及如何初步實現,卻無意進一步考察「減法」可能意味著什麼,尤其對科學而言。赫胥黎辭世不過半個世紀,就見科學從自然主義到工具主義的後續軌跡。另,赫胥黎被嚴復整成那樣可以說是福/惡報瞭。
Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載