Today's scientists, policymakers, and citizens are all confronted by numerous dilemmas at the nexus of technology and the environment. Every day seems to bring new worries about the dangers posed by carcinogens, ""superbugs,"" energy crises, invasive species, genetically modified organisms, groundwater contamination, failing infrastructure, and ......
Recent polls show that a quarter of Americans claim to have no religious affiliation, identifying instead as atheists, agnostics, or ""nothing in particular."" A century ago, a small group of American intellectuals who dubbed themselves humanists tread this same path, turning to science as a major source of spiritual sustenance. In The ......
Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments'including Copernicanism, the mechanical philosophy, and the microscope'challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the ......
Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century
Over the past twenty years, scholars have increasingly questioned not just historical presumptions about the putative rise of modern science during the long nineteenth century but also the geographical contexts for and variability of science during the era. In Geographies of Knowledge, an internationally distinguished array of historians ......
Throughout the Age of Exploration, European maritime communities bent on colonial and commercial expansion embraced the complex mechanics of celestial navigation. They developed schools, textbooks, and instruments to teach the new mathematical techniques to sailors. As these experts debated the value of theory and practice, memory and ......
Edited by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert, Perspectives on Science and Culture explores the intersection between scientific understanding and cultural representation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributors to the volume analyze representations of science and scientific discourse from the perspectives of rhetorical ......
How Physicians, Engineers, and Airpower Enthusiasts Redefined Flight
As aircraft flew higher, faster, and farther in the early days of flight, pilots were exposed as vulnerable, inefficient, and dangerous. They asphyxiated or got the bends at high altitudes; they fainted during high-G maneuvers; they spiraled to the ground after encountering clouds or fog. Their capacity to commit fatal errors seemed ......
Since its publication in 2002, Science and Religion has proven to be a widely admired survey of the complex relationship of Western religious traditions to science from the beginning of the Christian era to the late twentieth century. In the second edition, eleven new essays expand the scope and enhance the ......
Since 2000, the National Science Foundation has depended upon its pioneering FastLane e-government system to manage grant applications, peer reviews, and reporting. In this behind-the-scenes account Thomas J. Misa and Jeffrey R. Yost examine how powerful forces of science and computing came together to create this influential ......
