Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present the genesis of science and its evolution from Antiquity to the contemporary era. Philosophers of science and scientists consider ancient investigations of nature to be pre-scientific. Even without the use of the scientific method inaugurated by Galileo Galilei in the Middle Ages, investigations of nature prior to this period, considered pre-scientific, contributed enormously to the advancement of science. Since its inception in Sumer (in present-day Iraq) around 3599 BC people in Mesopotamia started trying to record some observations of the world using numerical data. However, his observations and measurements were not based on the laws of science.
There was a great contribution considered pre-scientific by the Arabs, Hindus and Greeks in the development of Mathematics, which is a fundamental foundation of modern science. Around the 9th and 8th centuries BC, mathematics was underdeveloped in Babylon. Babylonians and Egyptians already had algebra and geometry, but only enough for their practical needs, not organized science. Significant advances in Ancient Egypt include astronomy, mathematics and medicine. The inhabitants of the Hindu civilization also tried to standardize the measurement of length with high precision. They created a ruler – Moenjodaro ruler – whose units of measurement (3.4 centimeters) were divided into ten equal parts. Mathematics only came to be considered as science, in the modern sense of the word, from the 6th and 5th centuries BC in Greece.
In India, another type of mathematical culture was developed: Algebra and Arithmetic. The Hindus, with Brahmagupta, introduced a completely new symbol in the numbering system hitherto known: zero. This caused a real revolution in the “art of calculating”. The Arabs propagated Hindu culture. These brought to Europe the so-called “Arabic numerals” invented by the Hindus when they occupied the Iberian Peninsula from 711 to 1492. The Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata introduced in mathematics various trigonometric functions such as sine and cosine and algebra algorithms.
As research considered pre-scientific, Brahmagupta worked on a precise heliocentric model of gravitation, including elliptical orbits, considering the circumference of the Earth and the distance of the planets in relation to the Sun. In the 7th century, Brahmagupta recognized the existence of the force of gravity as a force of attraction. Arabic translations of astronomical texts were soon available to the Islamic world by introducing what would become Arabic numerals, a Hindu numerical system mistakenly called Arabic for the Islamic world of the 9th century and which is now widely used in the world.
Muslim physicists have put a lot of emphasis on experiments in pursuit of scientific truth. This led to the development of an early scientific method in the Muslim world beginning with Ibn al-Haytham’s experiments in optics in the 1000s, in his Book of Optics. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between a set of competing scientific theories, usually with an empirical orientation. Ibn al-Haytham is also considered to be the father of optics.
Western science historians generally maintain that the foundations of trigonometry as an independent science were laid by the German mathematician and astronomer Regiomontanus. However, the real credit for the foundation of trigonometry belongs to the Arab mathematician Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Arab Muslim scientists contributed to the development of various branches of science and technology through various works in mathematics, botany, chemistry, medicine and surgery, optics, anatomy, astronomy, astronomical instruments and devices and geography. A treatise on mathematics was written by Al-Khwarizmi and Muslim mathematicians invented the symbol x (meaning in Arabic shay = undefined thing / something), to express an unknown quantity. This symbol reached Europe via Islamic Spain.
Muslim mathematicians Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Tusi and Albiruni made highly original contributions to geometry and trigonometry, which surpassed the theories and methods of the Greek mathematician Euclid. The credit for the foundation of trigonometry belongs to Al-Tusi. Muslim physicists have put a lot of emphasis on experiments in pursuit of scientific truth. This led to the development of an early scientific method in the Muslim world beginning with Ibn al-Haytham’s experiments in optics in the 1000s, in his Book of Optics. Ibn al-Haytham is also considered to be the father of optics. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between a set of competing scientific theories, usually with an empirical orientation.
Roger Bacon is considered the founder of the experimental method in science and was greatly influenced by the opinions of Muslim scientists, mathematicians and physicists, including Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Razi, Ibn Zuhr and Al-Zahrawi, who centuries before Bacon, emphasized that the experimental method was at the heart of scientific research. Muslim scientists have been placed great emphasis on careful observation of the natural phenomenon, on an objective and impartial assessment of all scientific knowledge and, above all, on confirming conclusions through the scientific method. Credit for the invention of the experimental method in science should be attributed to Muslim scientists, such as Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Razi, Ibn Zuhr and Albiruni. H. Schipprges. It was Ibn al-Haytham who introduced for the first time a new methodical character in the natural sciences, a methodology that clearly distinguishes it from the Greek approach and the time of Galileo, linked to modernity.
Greek mathematics is distinguished from Babylonian and Egyptian because the Greeks made it a science without concern for its practical applications. From a structural point of view, Greek mathematics differs from the previous one, in that it took into account problems related to infinite processes, movement and continuity. The various attempts by the Greeks to solve such problems gave rise to the axiomatic-deductive method. This method consists in admitting certain propositions (more or less evident) as true and from them, by means of a logical chain, arrive at more general propositions. The difficulties faced by the Greeks when studying problems related to infinite processes (especially problems with irrational numbers) are perhaps the causes that led them away from Algebra, leading them towards Geometry. Indeed, it is in Geometry that the Greeks stand out, culminating in the Geometry of the great mathematician Euclid.
In Greece, Archimedes, who became very famous because of his revolutionary inventions such as the so-called Archimedes Screw used to lift water, the catapults used as weapons of war and the use of levers to move heavy loads, also developed Geometry by introducing a new method that would be a true germ from which an important branch of mathematics (limit theory) would later sprout. Apollonius of Perga, a contemporary of Archimedes, begins to study the so-called conical curves: the ellipse, the parabola, and the hyperbola, which play a very important role in current mathematics. After Apollonius and Archimedes, Greek mathematics enters its decline.
Still as research considered of a pre-scientific, we can mention the experience of China that has a long and rich history of scientific and technological contribution. China’s 4 great inventions are compass, gunpowder, paper production and printing. These four discoveries had a huge impact on the development of China’s civilization and a global impact with an even greater reach. Francis Bacon identified paper, magnetic compass, gunpowder and printing as the main inventions that separated the modern world from the traditional world. He did not know that each of these inventions originated in China. There are many notable contributors in the field of Chinese science. One of the best examples would be Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath scientist and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetized needle compass used for navigation, discovered the concept of true north and designed the use of dry dikes to fix the boats.
The Renaissance marked a unique and unparalleled period in the history of science because it is considered as a critical moment or turning point in European history with the birth of modern science, the advent of modernity, the flourishing of modern art and architecture and the beginning of capitalism. It is important to note that the Renaissance that took place in Europe included cultural exchange, transfer of knowledge, confluence of ideas, science and technology that reconnected Europe to the East through Andalusia, Sicily, Venice, Genoa and trade with the Levant. The facts we report about the contribution of Hindus, Arabs and Chinese to scientific advances demonstrate that in Europe there was an appropriation of this knowledge and the lack of recognition of its true authors.
In his book The Theft of History, Jack Goody uses an evocative metaphor – the “theft of history” – to describe a particularly wicked aspect of Eurocentrism of appropriating scientific advances from the East. Theft of history, according to Goody, refers to the acquisition or expropriation of history by the West, especially by Western Europe and imposed on the rest of the world. The theft of history or the “theft” by the West of the conquests of other cultures, according to Goody, is reflected in the widely held view among Western intellectuals and historians that one of the key institutions of modern times, such as science, was invented in Europe. Goody argues that Europe has deliberately neglected or underestimated the history of the rest of the world.
It can be seen, from the above, that the investigations considered to be pre-scientific in nature contributed enormously to the advancement of science and should not be considered pejoratively as pre-scientific, but as scientific because the Hindus, Arabs, Chinese and Greeks built the foundations of the great modern science building. Officially, modern science as we know it begins with Galileo Galilei with his method of mathematizing nature. Science is not only technical, it is not just experience, but also, according to Galileo’s method, it aims to translate experience mathematically. Galileo considered that the phenomena of nature must be translated quantitatively, must be measurable and based on mathematical laws.
Mathematics is the science of logical reasoning that has its development linked to research, the interest in discovering the new and investigating highly complex situations. Currently, Mathematics is the most important science in the modern world because it is present in all scientific areas. The Scientific Revolution, which began in the 15th century, made knowledge more structured and more practical, absorbing empiricism as a mechanism to consolidate the findings. Amid all the effervescence favorable to the Scientific Revolution, Mathematics gained space and developed with great relevance for the development of a more rigorous and critical scientific method. Mathematics began to describe scientific truths.
The great scientific revolutions in the history of mankind contemplate the advances that have occurred in the field of scientific methodology such as the breaking of the Aristotelian paradigm and its replacement by the scientific method, in the evolution of Mathematics from Antiquity to the contemporary era, with the evolution of Geocentric theory to Heliocentric, in the development of Classical Mechanics, with the evolution of Alchemy to Modern Chemistry, from the paradigms established in Classical Mechanics to the new paradigms resulting from the Theory of Relativity, from the deterministic paradigms of Classical Mechanics to the new probabilistic paradigms resulting from Quantum Mechanics, from the scientific determinism created by Classical Sciences to Chaos Theory and partial knowledge about the Universe until the recent discovery of the existence of matter and dark energy.
Still in relation to the great scientific revolutions in the history of mankind, there were changes in the conception of the world with the advances in health sciences that evolved from the scarce knowledge about human health to Modern Medicine, from the religious belief in divine creation to the theory of the evolution of species of Charles Darwin and the lack of knowledge about the human body (DNA) to map all genes through the Human Genome Project. There were also changes in the conception of the world with advances in the social sciences when it evolved from the tradition of Psychology as a science of consciousness studied exclusively by philosophers to the status of science, from the limited knowledge in Economics to the discovery of the laws that govern economic systems and from the limited knowledge of social reality to the transformation of Sociology into science.
Finally, in the part related to the great scientific revolutions, changes in the conception of the world are contemplated, with advances in the sciences of environmental sustainability, with an in-depth knowledge of the forces of nature and their impact and of human society on the climate on the planet that enabled the formulation of the sustainable development model and the advancement of knowledge about the transformation and use of various forms of energy, especially renewable energy sources, the advances in educational science when it evolved from traditional education based on the fragmentation of teaching to the proposal of its replacement by transdisciplinary and integral teaching and advances in information science with the evolution from the invention of the press with Gutenberg to the emergence of computers and the Internet in the 20th century and the development of artificial intelligence in the 21st century.
Modernly, science and technology are developed in universities and companies. Today, any research including that developed outside the established R&D institutions needs to be validated by the scientific community. This has been the practice in all fields of science since Galileo in the Middle Ages. The rule adopted by modern science since Galileo is that every scientific thesis has to be proven experimentally and accepted by the scientific community to be valid. Today, Science is a set of empirical and theoretical knowledge about nature produced by a worldwide community of researchers using systematized and validated methods within that community, which emphasizes the observation, explanation and prediction of real world phenomena through exploration and experimentation. If it were not so, there would be chaos installed in science.
REFERENCES
ALCOFORADO, Fernando. As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo. Curitiba: Editora CRV, 2016.
GOODY, Jack. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
MOMIN, Professor A. R. Como a Ciência Islâmica mudou a Europa. Available on the website <https://historiaislamica.com.br/ciencia-isla/>.
RONAN, Colin A. História Ilustrada da Ciência. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2002.
ROONEY, Anne. História da Matemática. São Paulo: M. Books, 2012.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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