ARKY 329 Test 1 Flashcards
To...uhh...learn
Carl Sagan
> Appeal to ignorance—the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true and vice versa (whatever has not been proven true must be false). Carl Sagan 1996
> “If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically—not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told.” Carl Sagan 1990:296.
Ignaz Semmelweiss
> 1840s observed alarming rate of death from “childbed fever”
> used observation, hypothesis and tests of hypothesis to eliminate a series of possible causes for childbed fever
> Discovered that “cadaveric material” was being transmitted from doctors to patients during examination
> Fact: less woman died with midwives who regularly washed their hands and did not do autopsies
> Louis Pasteur germ theory, 1861
Ignatius Donnelly
> 1831-1901
> Author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882)
> Thought all Civilization diffused from one Mother Culture, a vastly superior society
Thomas Kuhn
> Wrote “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”
> Scientists work with paradigms, established and accepted models of the observable universe. This is “normal science” or puzzle-solving
> Paradigms are replaced in revolutions. Edge-walkers are revolutionaries working to challenge existing paradigms and replace them
Eratosthenes
> Worked in the great library of Alexandria in the 3rd century B.C., devised a means of demonstrating through observation that the earth is round
> Read that in the town of Syrene, in far southern Egypt, at Noon on the summer solstice day of June 21st, vertical sticks and columns cast no shadow.
> Observed that on the same day in Alexandria, sticks and columns (Gnomon) do cast shadows. Only possible solution: the surface of the earth is curved.
Ptolemy (85-165 BC)
> Worked in the library of Alexandria
> Elaborated the spherical earth hypothesis
> The sun, moon, planets and stars circled the earth
> Planetary motion like the loop-the-loop of Mars, was a problem
> For Ptolemy’s model to work, planets like Mars had to be spinning on smaller “wheels” attached to the larger sphere going around the earth. An extra complexity
>Systematized the pseudoscience of Astrology as practiced in Western Civilization subsequently.
> codified the Babylonian astrological tradition as synthesized in Hellenistic Egypt
> the “age of Aquarius” is a idea derived from Ptolemy’s astrology
Copernicus
> Tried to solve the problem of planetary motion with a simpler model than Ptolemy’s complicated wheels within wheels
> 1543, published that the earth revolves around the sun to explain planetary motion
> His model was simpler, more elegant, and explained planetary motion as observed from Earth as well as Ptolemy’s model.
Charles DAWSON
> Behind Piltdown man
George Hull
> Discovered a “petrified” giant body (Cardiff Giant) in 1869 AD in upstate New York
> Likely did so for money, possibly to make fun of religious fundamentalists
Eugene Dubois
> Discovered Homo Erectus
Raymond Dart
> Displayed the “Tuang baby” skull of Australopithecus africanus
Paradigm
> A typical example or pattern of something; a model.
Sir Arthur Keith
> Anatomist and champion of Piltdown Man as genuine
Kenneth Oakley
> Exposed Piltdown as a hoax by dating the bones
Induction
> Arguing from specifics to generalities
