Istorija nauke je studija istorijskog razvoja ljudskog razumevanja prirodnog sveta i domena društvenih nauka. Do kasnog 20-tog veka istorija nauke, posebno fizičkih i bioloških nauka, je imala status narativa koji slavi trijumf korektnih teorija nad nekorektnima. Nauka je predstavljana kao glavna dimenzija napretka civilizacije. Zadnjih dekada, postmoderni pogledi su uzeli maha. To su gledišta koja daju istoriji status kompletirajućeg paradigma ili konceptualnog sistema. Posebno je jak uticaj Tomasa Kuna, Struktura naučnih revolucija (1962). Po Kunu[1] svaka nova paradigma prepisuje istoriju nauke da bi prestavila putem selekcije i distorzija bivše gledište kao svog prethodnika.
Nauka se sastoji od empirijskog, teoretskog, i praktičnog znanja o prirodnom svetu, proizvedenog putem istraživanja primenom naučnih metoda, što naglašava zapažanje, objašnjavanje, i predviđanje realnih fenomena putem eksperimenta. Uzimajući u obzir dualni status nauke kao objektivnog znanja i ljudskog konstrakta, dobra istorografija nauke se zasniva na istorijskim metodima intelektualne i društvene istorije.
Utvrđivanje tačnog porekla moderne nauke je moguće upotrebom mnogih važnih tekstova koji su sačuvani još od doba klasičnog sveta. Međutim, reč naučnik je relativno nova — skovao ju je Vilijam Vevel u 19-tom veku. Pre toga su se ljudi koji istražuju prirodu nazivali prirodni filozofi.
Dok su empirijska istraživanja prirodnog sveta bila opisivana od doba klasične antike (na primer, Tales, Aristotel, i drugi), i dok su naučni metodi bili u upotrebi od srednjeg veka (npr., od strane Ibn al-Haitama, Ebu Rahim el-Birunija i Rodžera Bejkona), početak moderne nauke se generalno vezuje za rani moderni period, od takozvane Naučne revolucije do koje je došlo tokom 16-tog i 17-tog veka u Evropi.
Naučni metodi se smatraju fundamentalnom komponentom moderne nauke i neki, a posebno posebno naučni filozofi i praktičari smatraju ranija ispitivanja prirode pre naučnim.[2] Tradicionalno, istoričari nauke su definisali nauku dovoljno široko da obuhvati ta ispitivanja.[3]
- ↑ Kuhn, Th., 1962, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", University of Chicago Press, pp. 137: “Partly by selection and partly by distortion, the scientists of earlier ages are implicitly presented as having worked upon the same set of fixed problems and in accordance with the same set of fixed canons that the most recent revolution in scientific theory and method made seem scientific.”
- ↑ Hendrix, Scott E. (2011). „Natural Philosophy or Science in Premodern Epistemic Regimes? The Case of the Astrology of Albert the Great and Galileo Galilei””. Teorie vědy / Theory of Science 33 (1): 111-132. Pristupljeno 2012-02-20.
- ↑ "For our purpose, science may be defined as ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them." William Cecil Dampier - Whetham, "Science", in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc, 1911); "Science comprises, first, the orderly and systematic comprehension, description and/or explanation of natural phenomena and, secondly, the [mathematical and logical] tools necessary for the undertaking." Marshall Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity (New York: Collier Books, 1955); "Science is a systematic explanation of perceived or imaginary phenomena, or else is based on such an explanation. Mathematics finds a place in science only as one of the symbolical languages in which scientific explanations may be expressed." David Pingree, "Hellenophilia versus the History of Science," Isis 83, 559 (1982); Pat Munday, entry "History of Science," New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005).
- Joseph Agassi (2007) Science and Its History: A Reassessment of the Historiography of Science (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 253) Springer. ISBN 1-4020-5631-1, 2008.
- Boorstin, Daniel (1983). The Discoverers : A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394402294. OCLC 9645583.
- Bowler, Peter J. The Norton History of the Environmental Sciences (1993)
- Brock, W. H. The Norton History of Chemistry (1993)
- Bronowski, J. The Common Sense of Science (Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London, 1951. ISBN 84-297-1380-8.) (Includes a description of the history of science in England.)
- Bruno, Leonard C. (1989). The Landmarks of Science. ISBN 0-8160-2137-6.
- Byers, Nina and Gary Williams, ed. (2006) Out of the Shadows: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-5218-2197-1 Uneseni ISBN nije važeći.
- Heilbron, John L., ed. (2003). The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511229-6
- Herzenberg, Caroline L. 1986. Women Scientists from Antiquity to the Present Locust Hill Press ISBN 0-933951-01-9
- Kuhn, Thomas S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-45807-5. (3rd ed.)
- Deepak Kumar (2006). Science and the Raj: A Study of British India, 2nd edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-568003-0
- Imre Lakatos History of Science and its Rational Reconstructions published in The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1978
- Levere, Trevor Harvey. Transforming Matter: A History of Chemistry from Alchemy to the Buckyball (2001)
- Lindberg, David C. ed. Cambridge History of Science: The Middle Ages (2010)
- Margolis, Howard (2002). It Started with Copernicus. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-138507-X.
- Mayr, DErnst. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (1985)
- Joseph Needham Science and Civilisation in China. Multiple volumes (1954–2004).
- Needham Joseph, Wang Ling (王玲) (1954). Science and Civilisation in China, Introductory Orientations. 1. Cambridge University Press.
- Needham Joseph, Robinson Kenneth G., Huang Jen-Yü (2004). Science and Civilisation in China, part II General Conclusions and Reflections. 7. Cambridge University Press.
- North, John. The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology (1995)
- Nye, Mary Jo, ed. The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 5: The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences (2002)
- Park, Katharine, and Lorraine Daston, eds. The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 3: Early Modern Science (2006)
- Porter, Roy, ed. The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 4: The Eighteenth Century (2003)
- George Rousseau and Roy Porter, eds., The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). ISBN 0-521-22599-X
- Sambursky, Shmuel (1974). Physical Thought from the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists: an anthology selected, introduced and edited by Shmuel Sambursky. New York: Pica Press. str. 584. ISBN 0-87663-712-8.
- Indian Ancient Sciences : Archaeology Based, ISBN 978-3-8383-9027-7, Lap Lambert-Germany.
