George,
I’m not affiliated with BioLogos. That makes me more or less a free agent here. Thus, my material posted here is not “a BioLogos exploration of the New Atheists” per se. I certainly wouldn’t want the good folks at BioLogos to have to bear the responsibility for my less than perfect account of this subject! Ted Davis requested permission to republish a paper on the New Atheism I had published in 2013. I know Ted from various history of science and science and religion conferences we have attended over the years and mutual interests, such as Isaac Newton. Since I already had hoped to do something more with the material (and hope to again in further expanded form after this airing of it), I was and am grateful to Ted for the opportunity to have these thoughts presented in another forum, but it wasn’t originally prepared with BioLogos in mind. Instead, it came out of my own research on the New Atheists that dates back over a decade, some of which I have been presenting for years in my science and religion courses (which are taught at a secular university)–and will again present in the next few weeks. Nevertheless, I hope this material is useful for anyone who encounters it on this site, of whatever belief or world view. The discussion has been illuminating and I have learned a good deal from it, even though teaching and other commitments have meant that I have mostly only been able to observe it from afar (but now that we are in reading week, I have a bit more flexible time available to me). The other issues you raise may well be legitimate candidates for further discussion on the BioLogos site, but I’ll leave that to the wisdom of those who manage the site. Thanks again for your thoughts! sds
History is not about laying blame. History is about understanding the past.
Western Christianity played an overall positive role in the rise of science, but not a completely positively role. The problem is that some are fixated on the negative aspects.
Marxist-Leninism, which was labeled as scientific socialism did not play a positive in the promotion of science in the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and elsewhere where it dominated. We need to learn from this historical experience also.
We learn when we do not assign blame, but seek to understand why people act they way they did. There is a lot to learn on all sides, because history does not stand still. Science and theology needs to continually change.
Sagan’s time line
As promised, I have prepared a suggested correction to Carl Sagan’s time line of science. This is based on extensive collaboration with members of my academic unit, History of Science and Technology, along with further advice from my fellow historian Ted Davis and one of my former graduate students (also a historian of science). I have three items to post. First, some additional reflections on Sagan’s chart. Second, a new time line that attempts a more complete summary of the history of science from Antiquity to the present. It also is imperfect, but it has the benefit of the checks and balances that result from it having been produced by a committee! When I present the new chart, I will happily consider arguments for inclusion or deletion based on its level of resolution. Third, I will add some comments on the new time line. I will post the first of these now. The other two items will follow soon.
Best wishes,
Steve
NOTE: an image of Sagan’s original chart can be seen in the blog article above.
Some thoughts on Carl Sagan’s one-thousand-year white space
In his justly celebrated 1980 book Cosmos, the print companion to his science documentary of the same title, astronomer and science populariser Carl Sagan included a time line of the history of science in the margin of page 335. Its most striking feature is a white space of over one thousand years that corresponds roughly to the European Middle Ages (generally considered to be around 300 or 400 to 1450 or 1500 AD). This is an example of the Myth of the Medieval Gap, that is, the belief that science either stagnated or was suppressed under the influence of the Christian Church. Few contemporary professional historian of sciences would agree that science came to a standstill during the Middle Ages and not merely those who study science in this period (that is, those who could be said to have a vested interest in claiming that science was flourishing at the time).
Although as with many myths there is some truth in the Medieval Gap (the first two or three centuries of the Middle Ages certainly did not yield as many scientific developments as the two or three centuries before and after), it is mostly untrue. What’s more, when it is not an outcome of simple historical ignorance, it is generally part of a deliberate rhetorical strategy to criticise—implicitly or explicitly Christianity (or Catholicism in particular or in some cases religion more generally) for its supposed hostility towards science.
When examining Sagan’s time line, several allowances should be made. First, it is in fact very difficult to produce time lines of science and technology and any attempt at them will be selective and subjective. Second, although Sagan’s time line is generally about the history of science, his caption below describes it as a “time line of the people, machines and events described in this book”. So while Sagan’s book is about science in history and his own era, he doesn’t specifically call it a time line of science and/or technology. Third, and related to the second point, the names and details on the time line are in a reflexive relationship with the contents of his book. Thus, while one wouldn’t expect to see on a short history ofscience time line the names of the explorer Jean-François de la Perouse, the philologist Jean-François Champollion and the prodigy astronomer Milton L. Humason (who assisted Edwin Hubble), they all play roles in Sagan’s book. One assumes that Sagan would not have put these three names on a stand-alone time line of the history of science that was of a similar level of detail to the one published in Cosmos. Fourth, there are the physical constraints of the available area in the page margin to consider. In order to use a readable font and fit the time line in the margin the number of possible names was very limited. On those grounds alone Sagan had to be very selective. Fifth, even with the best will in the world, these time lines can easily reflect political agendas. There is a sixth limitation, but this only applies to 2017, not 1980 when the first book appears. There have been many developments in science, technology and medicine since 1980 and on those grounds alone the chart is in need of some updating.
Yet, even when these concessions are made we see some problems with the chart. One of these problems is the historical error in claiming that the Library of Alexandria was destroyed in the late fifth century AD. As already explained in the sections on the Medieval Gap, it had long since vanished. Another example is the statement “onset of the Dark Ages”, which follows the detail about Hypatia’s death (described on pp. 335-36 and all but blamed on Christianity). There is no correlation between her death and any putative sharp decline in science. Moreover, few historians would be comfortable using the expression ‘the Dark Ages’, even for the first half of the Medieval period. Next, there is the one-thousand year gap itself, which defies even the state of historical knowledge of the late 1970s, when Sagan wrote the book and worked on the documentary. Finally, there is the editorial comment at the end of his four-sentence time line caption: “The millennium gap in the middle of the diagram represents a poignant lost opportunity for the human species.” This confirms that the enterprise Sagan is engaged in is not pure history, but is also part rhetoric.
Further confirmation that Sagan was limited by the physical space of the page margin comes in the many names of figures from the history of science that he mentions elsewhere in the book, but who do not appear in the time line. Thus, while one might expect to see the Alexandrian geometer Euclid and the Alexandrian anatomist Galen in the chart, they aren’t there. But they do appear on page 334, the page facing the time line. Euclid also appears seven additional times in the book. Similarly, two other notable figures from ancient Greek science, Aristotle and Archimedes (without question more important than Aristarchus, Eratosthenes and Hero), both appear several times in the text of Cosmos. The Greek physician Hippocrates is twice mentioned in the text, as is the Greek geographer Strabo. Yet they are not in the time line. The ancient Babylonian astronomers make three appearances in the text, but not in the time line. At the other end of the chart, Descartes, Herschel, Humboldt, Darwin, Pasteur and Hubble all appear in the text, but not in the chart. The omissions of these names can be put down to lack of space—although it is still striking that Aristotle and Darwin do not appear in the time line. And truth be told, there is just enough space to include Aristotle in the ancient section and Darwin in the modern science. Despite all of this, there is one place with plenty of room: the one thousand year white space. No one can claim that names from the Middle Ages were left out due to lack of space.
Was Sagan simply uninformed about the Middle Ages? The answer is no, he was aware of some figures from this period. Sagan mentions the Bayeux Tapestry with its depiction of the 1066 return of Halley’s Comet (p. 76). Giotto di Bondone’s painting Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1304), thought to show Halley’s Comet, is printed on page 77. William the Conqueror is mentioned twice (pp. 76,79). A picture from a 1632 Islamic Persian star chart is display in the margin of page 279. Sagan also mentions Albertus Magnus (p. 137) and prints a picture from an edition of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera mundi showing lunar and solar eclipses (p. 280). Both Albertus Magnus and Sacrobosco would have been excellent candidates for that empty space between Hypatia and Leonardo da Vinci. A picture from a 1450 astronomy book is reproduced on page 281. Dominic and Augustine, both Catholic saints, are mentioned on pages 59 and 178 respectively, but in each case in a negative light. Sagan mentions Greek geographical knowledge being “well-preserved (and extended to China) by the Arabs, but almost totally lost among the Europeans, who imagined a flat earth centred on Jerusalem” (p. 17). So there is an acknowledgement of the science of Islamic civilisation during the period of his chart’s white space, but also an articulation of the flat earth myth—which can be seen as a subset of the Myth of the Medieval Gap. The Medieval Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli is also mentioned on page 17.
There is also an allusion to the Medieval Gap on page 56 of Cosmos. In writing about the Lutheran astronomer Johannes Kepler’s work and in an acknowledgement of the role theism played in Kepler’s work, Sagan says the following:
The sciences of classical antiquity had been silenced more than a thousand years before, but in the late Middle Ages some faint echoes of those voices, preserved by Arab scholars, began to insinuate themselves into the European educational curriculum.
While Sagan here just barely acknowledges the work of the Arabs, and that there was a “European educational curriculum”, as indeed there was, his belief in a Medieval Gap comes through loud and clear.
All of this reinforces the conclusion that the white space in Sagan’s chart is a piece of visual anti-Christian apologetics, not history. Having said that, I don’t want to judge Sagan too harshly. It is possible that he had never read a decent account of the history of science that brought out the scientific and technological accomplishments of the Middle Ages. Without the substantial evidence such an account would provide, it is all too easy to fall back on pop culture history to fill the gap in knowledge (which ironically left a gap in the time line). That said, a thorough vetting by one or two professional historians of Medieval science would have eliminated the error. Perhaps this was not done or perhaps it was and the advice was not acted upon. What remained was the white space and the editorial comment. Who knows how many were misled by it?
My good brothers … I thought it might help if I provided the original image that is being batted about so enthusiastically. I trust you will understand me when I say that this is certainly not a timeline we would expect from someone who is trying to trash-talk the Catholic Church. It has hardly any detail at all… neither positive or negative. If I were to construct a timeline … it would look very different from this Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!!!
How can this paltry diagram excite so much wrath? [Please click on the image if you want to see all the detail.]
As I just noted, the image already appears in my article above. But thanks for posting it again so that it is closer to the discussion. In my comments posted a couple hours ago I give what I think are sufficient grounds to conclude that the image reflects some kind of bias–perhaps not specifically anti-Catholic, but certainly a commitment to the Medieval Gap. I don’t think historians of science are angry, just frustrated when history of science is misrepresented (or, in this case, when history of Medieval science is so under-represented or ignored).
I think two edits would make your text more correct:
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You seem to waffle back and forth between rhetoric that speaks to Sagan’s “belief” in the Medieval Gap … and at other times that he knew better. I think your former characterization is more likely. I don’t believe Sagan needed to lie to anyone about what he wrote. He wrote what he believed. No doubt, he believed too easily. But he did believe.
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Calling the “white space in Sagan’s chart” an anti-Christian apologetic is just way over the top. You can call it an anti-Catholic apologetics if you like. But aside from his inclination towards agnosticism, or even atheist-tinged agnosticism, I do not think it is fair to say Sagan opposed Christianity in principle. Bruno was a Christian. Galileo was a Christian.
Do you really have to push the rhetoric to these extremes?
George Brooks
Milton, GA
Yes, I saw your comment about the timeline being in the article. But readers are really a lazy bunch … so it made no sense to continually refer to the image in your writing …without having the image easily at hand. I was happy to lend a hand, and hope you did not find it presumptuous.
As for your phrase “perhaps not specifically anti-Catholic…” - - I don’t know, Steve, I think it is more likely that it reflects anti-Catholic biases than what you have already described as Anti-Christian biases!
I much prefer the former for being more plausible than the latter description!
I believe I have been charitable to professor Sagan, whose work on the popularisation of science I largely respect and use in the classroom. I believe my interpretation is measured rather than extreme. It’s best to resist speculating too much on his motives and instead look at the evidence of his book. I am comfortable with what I have said but am always open to valid concerns.
So, @Steve_Snobelen, was Sagan anti-Catholic? Or anti-Christian? You’ve already gone back and forth on the position right here in this single thread.
It would be good to know what your benchmark is for Sagan’s views.
The gap is gone: revised time line of the history of science, technology and medicine
Here is a revised timeline that uses Sagan’s 1980 chart as a starting point:
Time line of the history of science, technology and medicine
Ancient Egypt (from ca. 2700 BCE): base-ten mathematics
2000 BCE
Ancient Babylon (from ca. 1800 BCE): mathematics, astronomy
Ancient Semites (from ca. 1700 BCE): alphabet
Thales of Miletus (ca. 620–ca. 546 BCE): mathematics, scientific method
500 BCE
Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570–ca. 495 BCE): mathematics, astronomy
Democritus (ca. 460–ca. 370 BCE): atomism
Hippocrates of Kos (ca. 450–ca. 380 BCE): medicine
Plato (427–347 BCE): number mysticism, astronomy, reason
Aristotle (384–322 BCE): natural history, taxonomy, cosmology, empiricism
Euclid of Alexandria (fl. ca. 320–280 BCE): geometry
250 BCE
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (ca. 276 –ca. 194 BCE): astronomy, geodesy
Archimedes of Syracuse (ca. 287–212 BCE): mathematics, mechanics, hydrostatics
Antikythera machine (ca. 200–ca. 100 BCE): predictive astronomy
100 CE
Hero of Alexandria (ca. 10–ca. 70 CE): physics
Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 100–170): astronomy, geography
Galen of Pergamon (ca. 130–ca. 200): medicine, anatomy, empiricism
500
Indian mathematicians (by 500): digital numerals, place-value system
John Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570): optics, impetus theory, matter theory
Brahmagupta (ca. 598–ca. 665): astronomy, mathematics (zero)
Venerable Bede (672/3–735): astronomical chronology, calendrics
Al-Khwârizmi (ca. 780–ca. 850): modern number notation, algebra, astronomy
Chinese alchemists (ca. 850): gunpowder
1000
Chinese navigators (ca. 900–1000): maritime compass
Ibn al-Haytham (ca. 965–ca. 1040): optics
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (ca. 980–1037): medicine
European universities (1088–present)
Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168–1253): geometry, optics, astronomy, scientific method
Sacrobosco (ca. 1195–1256): astronomy
1250
Roger Bacon (1214–1292): optics, promoter of mathematics and experimentation
William of Ockham (ca. 1285–1348): scientific method, realism
Jean Buridan (1300–1358): impetus theory
Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320/25–1382): mathematics, astronomy, cosmology
Giovanni Dondi dell’Orologio (ca. 1330–1388): mechanical clock
Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1398–1468): printing press
Voyages of Discovery (beginning with Portugese navigators in 1418): new knowledge
1500
Nicolas Copernicus (1473–1543): heliocentric astronomy
Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564): anatomy
Conrad Gesner (1516–1565): zoology, botany
Tycho Brahe (1546–1601): astronomy, star tables
1600
Francis Bacon (1561–1626): scientific method, scientific institutions
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642): telescopic astronomy, physics
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630): mathematical astronomy
William Harvey (1576–1637): anatomy, physiology (circulation)
Royal Society (1662) and Académie royale des sciences (1666) founded
Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695): physics, horology
1700
Isaac Newton (1642–1727): mathematics, optics, physics
Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749): physics, mathematics
Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778): biology, taxonomy
Leonard Euler (1707–1783): mathematics, celestial mechanics
James Hutton (1726–1797): geology
Henry Cavendish (1731–1810): chemistry
Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794): chemistry
James Watt (1736–1819): high-pressure steam engine
William Herschel (1738–1822) and Caroline Herschel (1750–1848): astronomy
1800
Pierre-Simon de la Place (1749–1827): mathematics, celestial mechanics, cosmology
John Dalton (1766–1844): atomic theory
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1850): environmental sciences
Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855): mathematics
Michael Faraday (1791–1867): physics, electromagnetism
Charles Babbage (1791–1871): first programmable computer
William Whewell (1794–1866): scientific method, champion of inductivism
Charles Darwin (1809–1882): natural history, evolution
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) and Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888): thermodynamics
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884): laws of heredity
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895): chemistry and microbiology
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879): electromagnetism, physics
Dmitri Mendelayev (1834–1907): periodic table
1900
Marie Curie* (1867–1934): physics, radiochemistry
Lise Meitner (1878–1968), Otto Hahn* (1879–1968) and Otto Frisch (1904–1979): nuclear fission
Albert Einstein* (1879–1955): relativity
Alexander Fleming* (1881–1955): penicillin
Quantum Mechanics: Niels Bohr* (1885–1962), Werner Heisenberg* (1901–1976) and others
Aleksandr Friedmann (1888–1925) and Georges Lemaître (1894–1966): Big Bang cosmology
Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921), Harlow Shapely (1885-1972) and Edwin Hubble (1889–1953): galaxies
Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975): evolutionary genetics
Natural and synthetic polymers (1920s–1960s): several Nobel Prizes and wide applicability
European and North American scientists (1930s–1940s): nuclear physics, atomic bomb
American and British engineers (World War II): the digital computer
1950
Maria Goeppert Mayer* (1906–1972): atomic physics
Barbara McClintock* (1902–1992): botany, genetics
Environmental sciences: Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) and Rachel Carson (1907–1964)
Dorothy Hodgkin* (1910–1994): chemistry, X-ray crystallography
The Double Helix (DNA): Francis Crick* (1916–2004), James Watson* (1928– ) and others
Soviet rocket engineers (1957): Sputnik satellite
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar* (1910–1995): stellar evolution, black holes
The Green Revolution (1960s): Norman Borlaug* (1914–2009) and others
NASA engineers (1968–1972): Apollo lunar missions
American computer engineers (1969): the Internet
Intel 4004 (1971): microprocessor
Viking (1975–76) and Voyager (1977– ): Mars landers and planetary probes
In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) (1979): reproductive technologies
First exoplanets discovered (1992)
The International Space Station (1998– )
Dolly the sheep (1996): cloning
2000
The Human Genome Project (1990–2003)
Pluripotent stem cells: John Gurdon* (1933– ), Shinya Yamanaka* (1962– ) and others
The Large Hadron Collider (2010– ): particle physics
Notes: This list represents a compromise between an even time scale and the need to factor in the exponential increase in people working in the sciences in the modern era. Thus, although increasing numbers of names and developments are given towards the end of the time line, the list becomes more and more selective. Nobel laureates are marked with an asterisk. Hubble almost certainly would have received the Nobel Prize had it been awarded to astronomers in his lifetime. Many argue that Meitner was unjustly excluded from the Nobel Prize when her collaborator Hahn received it in 1944.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the assistance of my colleagues in the University of King’s College History of Science and Technology Programme for their extensive help in suggesting names and milestones and offering critical analysis over the past three days. I am also grateful for similar help from my one-time MA student Adam Richter (now of the University of Toronto’s Institute for the History of Philosophy, Science and Technology), along with Ted Davis who provided additional useful feedback. Finally, I appreciate the suggestions already made in this discussion in terms of names offered and the idea of producing a revised time line. I take responsibility for the details of this version of the time line, but I am more than happy to consider suggestions and advice for further amendments.
Commentary on this time line will follow.
I thought it might be helpful to have a schematic comparison.
I edited some of the text for length, and I just couldn’t fit all the more recent lines into the chart … but you get the idea.
If you want to be able to read the details, just click on the image to maximize!
I think some worthy additions to 1600s would be Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Pierre de Fermat.
In the 1950s, you should add Jack Kilby (Nobel Prize 2000): Integrated Circuit
Great list! Thanks!
Perhaps this was mentioned above, but did you mention your rationale for other names left out? I notice that Jay already mentions Francis Bacon. A few others just off the top of my head were Robert Boyle, Lord Kelvin, Max Planck, Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Alan Turing. I realize that latter end of the list is already crowded and that you’ll never get all worthy candidates in. Still … was there a rationale for including the present ones over some of these mentioned?
Thanks for this, by the way. I plan to use your improved list for classroom purposes!
Not to mention mathematicians like Leibniz, Reimmann, just about the entire Bernoulli family, and others
Commentary on the revised chart
When Casper Hesp suggested that it might be desirable to produce a corrected version of Sagan’s timeline, I began to think about the best way to do this. The most obvious element to correct is the millennium gap. Given the amount of room available in that white space, it would have been a relatively simple matter to slot in the names of two Muslim philosophers, three Medieval Christian scholars and the Indian contribution of zero and leave it at that.
Yet the gap is not the only problem with the chart. In discussions with my departmental colleagues we focussed in particular two key flaws in addition to the gap: 1) the chart takes a mostly biographical approach and as such sits in the tradition of the ‘Great Man’ understanding of the history of science and 2) the pacing of the increments of time is non-exponential, when the rate at which scientific discoveries and developments occur has increased markedly over time. More than that, the absolute number of practitioners of science is vastly greater than it was even as recently as one hundred years ago. This is both because the world population is now much, much larger than it was in the ancient world, Medieval Europe and even the more recent nineteenth century, and because there has been a profusion of disciplines in the science.
In discussing the exponential increase in scientific activity in recent times with Ted Davis, he pointed out that A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, in their 352-page A brief history of science (New York: New American Library, 1964), begin by saying:
If this book were planned according to the volume of scientific discovery in different periods,
everything before 1800 would have to be summarized on the first page. To proceed thus would be to ignore the importance of the gradual development through time of scientific methods and concepts, the tracing of which has been our chief concern (p. v).
Although the historiography of this classic text is showing its age, having just checked my own copy, I can confirm that there is no Medieval Gap.
Historians of science would also want to challenge other implicit assumptions in Sagan’s timeline. One of these is the European focus. While it is true that when science did emerge it did so in the context of the mostly Christian culture of early modern Europe, the role of other cultures in contributing to modern science’s rise is significant. Of these, the Chinese, the Indians and Islamic civilisation are the most important.
Another concern that relates to objection 1) is that the focus on the individual leads to a neglect of a) the role of collegiality in scientific discovery and b) and a downplaying of the role of new technologies. Thus the new chart gives more space towards the end both to collective scientific endeavours and technologies that play a role in science. Historians of science sometimes use the expression “Big Science” for large industrial scale scientific and technological projects that begin around the middle of the twentieth century. The new chart lists four such “Big Science” projects: the Manhattan Project, the creation of the digital computer, the Apollo lunar missions and the Human Genome Project.
When we see the “Great Man” theory of the history of science, this also raises the matter of the place of women in the structure of science. Any timeline produced by a historian of science in 2017 will have women in it, especially from the beginning of the twentieth century onward, but even in some cases before that. The new chart has two women from before the twentieth century: Madame du Châtelet and Caroline Herschel, sister of William.
Another issue is that of resolution. Sagan’s chart is low resolution with respect to detail. In part to reflect the exponential dynamic already mentioned, and to create some proportionality between the relative importance of the Medieval figures to be inserted into the timeline, I needed to increase the resolution so that I could include more modern figures and developments. This increase in resolution is nowhere near enough to do full justice to the exponential increase in the number of scientists and the pace of discovery, but it is a movement in that direction that also allows the creation of a manageable chart. I decided that I would limit the detail to what could fit on two pages of letter-size paper in 11pt. The chart I posted yesterday has the maximum amount of detail for those space constraints. A three-page chart would include more detail — perhaps not much more in the Middle Ages, but certainly much more in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Finally, as one of my colleagues pointed out, these timelines almost inevitably have a political element. Sagan’s certainly does, as evinced by the inclusion of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, Hypatia’s death and, as he put it, “the onset of‘Dark Ages’”. The emptiness of the white space itself is a political or ideological statement. It is precisely because I wanted to avoid as much as possible any political or personal biasses (however unconscious they may be) that I went to my colleagues and collaborated with them to produce this new chart. Each of the names and developments I suggested for inclusion was vetted. Many survived this process, but some did not.
My colleagues also made a number of excellent suggestions for names to include, often coming from their own areas of expertise in the history of science. Here is one case where something produced by a committee is superior. A further protective against a skewing of the names due to political choices was a crucial criterion: the names and developments listed must have had a lasting effect in the history of science and technology. As another protective against bias, I have already said that I am happy to take further advice on the contents of the timeline.
At the same time, I wanted the corrected chart to use Sagan’s timeline as a starting point. No doubt a chart produced de novo without reference to the 1980 Cosmos chart would have additional differences. But I started with Sagan. Of the twenty-three entities on Sagan’s chart, fifteen survive (Columbus survives, but not in name). Some observers, particularly those who wish to retain the Myth of the Medieval Gap, may see the complete deletion of the tripartite entry on the Library of Alexandria, Hypatia’s death and “onset of ‘Dark Ages’” as bold and provocative—and perhaps sexist.
So let me deal with that first. As already explained in the section of my series posted above, the Library of Alexandria was simply not destroyed around the time of Hypatia’s death. As this is a historical error, it had to go. Hypatia of Alexandria was a real person and by all accounts a remarkable mathematician as well as a neo-Platonic philosopher. Her death was tragic. But she had virtually no impact on the subsequent history of science. Thus, her name was removed. This was not, I assure you, due to any sexism.
First, Leonardo da Vinci’s name was dropped for precisely the same reason. Second, the revised chart now contains the names of nine women explicitly and represents many other women implicitly, such as Grace Hopper, who was important on the American side of the Atlantic in the development of the modern digital computer during and after World War II. Hypatia’s name is on Sagan’s chart because she plays an important role in his narrative—a narrative that has in places an apparent anti-Christian bias. Finally, as few professional historians use the term ‘Dark Ages’ anymore, that term had to go too (even though there is some truth to the expression when applied to the period of the Barbarian Invasions).
As already mentioned, I removed Columbus’ name. I replaced it with a historical category: “the Voyages of Discovery”. This fulfils the spirit of Sagan’s timeline, which recognises the importance of European exploration to the history of science. But these voyages began before Columbus (in the Middle Ages, in fact) and continued long after him, with some of the most important for science being a series of voyages to the South Seas by British and French navigators in the eighteenth century.
Because La Perouse, Champollion and Humason found their way onto Sagan’s timeline for reasons related to his narrative and not solely for their importance to the history of science, I could not justify keeping them on the chart. Humason, who worked with Edwin Hubble, might make his way onto a chart of much higher resolution. Lastly, I decided to keep the Viking and Voyager missions on the chart in part as a tribute to Sagan, who was personally involved in both of them.
I will now offer a few comments on the decisions behind the addition of new names and details to the timeline. First, I added the Egyptians and the Babylonians before the Greeks. The Greeks did not invent their mathematics and astronomy out of thin air, but were to varying degrees dependant on the Egyptians and Mesopotamians before them. A strong case can also be made that the invention of the 22 letter alphabet played a key role in the communication of scientific ideas. Its invention is variously attributed to the Phoenicians, illiterate (yes!) miners in the Sinai peninsula and the ancient Hebrews. The Greeks picked it up, and so did the Romans.
One of the most glaring omissions in Sagan’s chart is that of Aristotle, whose impact on the history of science lasts through the Middle Ages all the way up to the nineteenth century. Even in a low resolution chart comparable to Sagan’s, one would expect to see Aristotle’s name. A case in point: the extremely low resolution timeline of the history of science printed on the back cover of my copy of Hall and Hall’s A brief history of science just gives three names: Aristotle, Newton, Einstein.
Even at the resolution of Sagan’s chart, most historians of science would expect to see Darwin’s name. This, even though Darwin’s work is late enough in the history of science that the Great Man dynamic is becoming less relevant. Thus, there were two earlier evolutionary models for speciation: that of Lamarck and that of the structuralists (like Richard Owen). What is more, as many as five men proposed natural selection before the publication of the Origin of species in 1859: William Charles Wells, Patrick Matthew, Edward Blyth, James Cowles Pritchard and William Lawrence. And of course there is also Alfred Russel Wallace, whose near identical proposal for natural selection led to a joint announcement of evolution by natural selection in 1858. Nevertheless, historians of science would want to put Darwin’s name down as the one who brought the most eloquent and careful model of natural selection to the public and the world of science.
With respect to the new section on the Middle Ages, I did consider some additional names. One could argue for the inclusion of Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, who designed the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople in the sixth century and who were both able architects and mathematicians. However, I think they would only be serious contenders in a chart of higher resolution. One of my colleagues suggested Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who worked in many fields, including natural history, and whose Physica could be seen as an early example of pharmacology. Then there is Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200-1280), who worked in many fields of science, along with theology. Theodoricof Freiberg (ca. 1250-ca. 1310), who gave the first (or one of the first) true accounts of the phenomenon of the rainbow, would be another candidate. Other Muslim names could be considered for the section on the Middle Ages, including Al-Kindi, Al-Razi and Ibn Rushd (Averroës).
The Medieval section includes developments in Indian and China that played a role in the rise of modern science in Europe. It is true that the Muslim innovators, the Indian mathematicians and the Chinese technicians were not Christian. But part of the point in filling in the Medieval Gap is to demonstrate that by the second half of the Middle Ages the European Christians had exceeded the scientific accomplishments of the ancient Greeks in part because they had technologies and a form of numeracy (Indian numbers with the place value system and zero) that the Greeks did not. Combining this with their own notable innovations allowed the late Medieval Europeans to surpass Antiquity.
Two other matters created some debate amongst my colleagues. One is whether or not to include Rosalind Franklin’s name along with that of Watson and Crick in the mention of the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. I maintained that a woman should be included for precisely the same reasons as a man: significance to later science. On those grounds, it seemed to me that she did not qualify. I have read some of the literature on the many accomplishments Franklin achieved before her promising career was cut short by cancer. There is still a debate over the degree to which she understood the significance of Photo 51 (which she did not take, but rather her doctoral student Raymond Gosling), which gave Watson and Crick a crucial clue that led to their discovery of the double helix. If the timeline resolution were to be increased by another page to three pages, I would include her.
At the same time, I included Barbara McClintock and Dorothy Hodgkin, both of whom won Nobel Prizes, without hesitation. In my discussions with my colleagues we agreed that while including her in the list could appear political, so could omitting her name. So, I opted for a compromise: she is indirectly mentioned on the same line as Watson and Crick in the expression “and others”. And I mention her here in the commentary. I should add that Watson in particular comes off as sexist in his treatment of Franklin and a good case can be made that he obtained Franklin’s data in an unethical manner. But being a jerk should not bar him from the list. This may not seem fair, but it is science.
The other debating point was Stephen Hawking, the (now retired) seventeenth Lucasian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. One of my colleagues said “Where’s Hawking?” I maintained that Hawking could appear if the chart was slightly higher resolution. But I’m not fully convinced that Hawking should appear at the current resolution. He has done important work on black holes and has been an effective populariser of science, to be sure, but I think we’ll need another couple of decades before we can assess his true significance in the history of science. One of the people I consulted agreed with me that Hawking should not be on the list. What about Alan Guth? What about Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar? Well, in point of fact, I did include Chandrasekhar.
Herein lies another problem with these charts. It is very hard to assess the most recent scientists, including those still in the land of the living. Often it takes many decades before a scientist’s work can be put in context and its lasting significance determined. So while it may seem unjust that Hawking didn’t make the list, but the recent Nobel laureates Gurdon and Yamanaka did, this is the decision I made for this version of the chart. I am, as with other details of the list, happy to hear out arguments for inclusion and exclusion.
Jay,
Many thanks for these suggestions. I have and still am seriously considering Descartes. He’s on the cusp. His work in geometry and his contribution to physics (three laws of nature, etc.) make him one of the most important contributors to science in the seventeenth. Pascal and Fermat could be included, but in my view only in a higher resolution list. Good point on the integrated circuit. My mention of the microchip will hopefully cover all similar developments.
Thanks again,
sds
Mervin,
Bacon, Bohr and Heisenberg are in the list already. I consulted with Ted Davis about Boyle, as Ted is one of the top experts in the world on Boyle’s life and scientific work, and he said that he agreed that Boyle shouldn’t make the list. However, he would if the resolution was slightly higher. Kelvin and Planck are good suggestions. Thermodynamics is already mentioned. Turing is in the list indirectly by way of my mention of the invention of the digital computer in WWII.
I thought of Leibniz. I hope his non-inclusion isn’t due to my bias as a Newton scholar. I thought of the Bernoullis too. I had not thought of Reimmann. All good suggestions!
Thanks,
sds
The point of the complaint about Sagan’s 1,000 year gap is that he left out all these men of natural philosophy, aka ‘men of science’. But let’s look at what he writes about the gap:
He mentions the Antikythera machine developed by the Greeks. Heron, also a Greek, fiddled with steam engines. For the sake of the gap, it would seem that Sagan was interested in the engineering opportunities… not pure science per se.
And let’s look at the men that have been volunteered to fill Sagan’s 1000 year gap. I count 20 individuals (including a few non-individuals) … for 10 centuries… or 1 every 50 years (more or less).
Six lines (from 660 to 1000) are not Christians, let alone Catholics. Throwing out names of the Chinese and the Muslim free thinkers would hardly dent Sagan’s point.
If we want to spend on Sagan even a fraction of the effort expended on Darwin, we might be able to at least understand what contributed to his black-hearted bias against the Catholic church.
If you read basic material on Scholasticism, for example, you see that it was a mindset that sits squarely on top of the last half of the 1000 year period!
“Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics (“scholastics,” or “schoolmen”) of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending dogma in an increasingly pluralistic context…”
In other words, Scholasticism was all about defending “dogmatic thinking” as the world was becoming increasingly alive to a more ‘democratic’ view of the Cosmos… the rise of the individual … vs. the oppression of the Scholastic schools.
Towards the end of the Sagan’s 1000 year period, Aquinas would arrive to shake things up!
“Aquinas placed more emphasis on reason and argumentation, and was one of the first to use the new translation of Aristotle’s metaphysical and epistemological writing. This was a significant departure from the Neoplatonic and Augustinian thinking that had dominated much of early scholasticism. Aquinas showed how it was possible to incorporate much of the philosophy of Aristotle without falling into the “errors” of [Aristotle’s] Commentator, [the Muslim] Averroes…”
But even with Aquinas, Scholasticism would continue along all the way to 1700!:
If all this “venting” at Sagan is because some blame Atheist attacks on Christianity as part of Sagan’s legacy . . . the dialectic of reality can bring us full circle … for it may well be Scholasticism’s legacy was to become an article of scorn for Sagan!
While the “replacement list” literally includes Universities, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sagan thought Scholasticism-centered Universities were as much part of the problem as the cure for the problem!
Bede was very much a Christian–and a Catholic. As I said, there is some truth in the Medieval Gap. We can add more detail to the Medieval section, but only if the chart is higher resolution. To add more Medieval Christians and Medieval Christian developments (including Monastic schools, the early Medieval curriculum–which included mathematics–and technology) while maintaining the resolution of the rest of the timeline would be to create a distortion much like those maps of the United States that show an oversized state of Texas (with Medieval Europe being Texas in this case–what a thought!). I am trying to be fair-minded about this. Again, at higher resolution, we can fill in much of the Medieval period, even the European context. The book-length treatments by Hannam and others provide these higher resolution accounts of Medieval science. I hope that makes sense.