Antonio Vallisneri on the Second Centenary of His Death

Antonio Vallisneri on the Second Centenary of His Death PDF Author: Joseph Franchini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Antonio Vallisneri on the Second Centenary of His Death

Antonio Vallisneri on the Second Centenary of His Death PDF Author: Joseph Franchini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Book Description


On the Edge of Eternity

On the Edge of Eternity PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190678895
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
It is commonly assumed that the creation story of Genesis and its chronology were the only narratives openly available in medieval and early modern Europe and that the discovery of geological time in the eighteenth century came as a momentous breakthrough that shook the faith in the historical accuracy of the Bible. Historians of science, mainstream geologists, and Young Earth creationists alike all share the assumption that the notion of an ancient Earth was highly heterodox in the pre-modern era. The old age of the world is regarded as the offspring of a secularized science. In this book, Ivano Dal Prete radically revises the commonplace history of deep time in Western culture. He argues that the chronology of the Bible always coexisted with alternative approaches that placed the origin of the Earth into a far, undetermined (or even eternal) past. From the late Middle Ages, these notions spread freely not only in universities and among the learned, but even in popular works of meteorology, geology, literature, and art that made them easily accessible to a vernacular and scientifically illiterate public. Religious authorities did not regard these notions as particularly problematic, let alone heretical. Neither the authors nor their numerous readers thought that holding such views was incompatible with their Christian faith. While the appeal of theories centered on the biblical Flood and on a young Earth gained popularity over the course of the seventeenth century, their more secular alternatives remained vital and debated. Enlightenment thinkers, however, created a myth of a Christian tradition that uniformly rejected the antiquity of the world, as opposed to a new secular science ready to welcome it. Largely unchallenged for almost three centuries, that account solidified over time into a still dominant truism. Based on a wealth of mostly unexplored sources, On the Edge of Eternity offers an original and nuanced account of the history of deep time that illuminates the relationship between the history of science and Christianity in the medieval and early modern periods, with lasting implications for Western society.

Connecting Territories

Connecting Territories PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004412476
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The book analyses from a comparative perspective the exploration of territories, the histories of their inhabitants, and local natural environments during the long eighteenth century. The eleven chapters look at European science at home and abroad as well as at global scientific practices and the involvement of a great variety of local actors in the processes of mapping and recording. Dealing with landlocked territories with no colonies (like Switzerland) and places embedded in colonial networks, the book reveals multifarious entanglements connecting these territories. Contributors are: Sarah Baumgartner, Simona Boscani Leoni, Stefanie Gänger, Meike Knittel, Francesco Luzzini, Jon Mathieu, Barbara Orland, Irina Podgorny, Chetan Singh, and Martin Stuber.

After the Flood

After the Flood PDF Author: Lydia Barnett
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421429519
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
After the Flood illuminates the hidden role and complicated legacy of religion in the emergence of a global environmental consciousness.

The Secrets of Generation

The Secrets of Generation PDF Author: Raymond Stephanson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442666935
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
From theories of conception and concepts of species to museum displays of male genitalia and the politics of breastmilk, The Secrets of Generation is an interdisciplinary examination of the many aspects of reproduction in the eighteenth century. Exploring the theme of generation from the perspective of histories of medicine, literature, biology, technology, and culture, this collection offers a range of cutting-edge approaches. Its twenty-four contributors, scholars from across Europe and North America, bring an international perspective to discuss reproduction in British, French, American, German, and Italian contexts. The definitive collection on eighteenth-century generation and its many milieus, The Secrets of Generation will be an essential resource for studying this topic for years to come.

The Contest for Knowledge

The Contest for Knowledge PDF Author: Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226010562
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
At a time when women were generally excluded from scholarly discourse in the intellectual centers of Europe, four extraordinary female letterate proved their parity as they lectured in prominent scientific and literary academies and published in respected journals. During the Italian Enlightenment, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, Diamante Medaglia Faini, and Aretafila Savini de' Rossi were afforded unprecedented deference in academic debates and epitomized the increasing ability of women to influence public discourse. The Contest for Knowledge reveals how these four women used the methods and themes of their male counterparts to add their voices to the vigorous and prolific debate over the education of women during the eighteenth century. In the texts gathered here, the women discuss the issues they themselves thought most urgent for the equality of women in Italian society specifically and in European culture more broadly. Their thoughts on this important subject reveal how crucial the eighteenth century was in the long history of debates about women in the academy.

Physico-theology

Physico-theology PDF Author: Ann Blair
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142143847X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This first book-length study of physico-theology questions the widespread notion of a steadily advancing early modern separation of religion and science. Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the early Enlightenment that focused on the new science to make arguments about divine creation and providence. By reconciling the new science with Christianity across many denominations, physico-theology played a crucial role in diffusing new scientific ideas, assumptions, and interest in the study of nature to a broad public. In this book, sixteen leading scholars contribute a rich array of essays on the terms and scope of the movement, its scientific and religious arguments, and its aesthetic sensibilities. Contributors: Ann Blair, Simona Boscani Leoni, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolas Brucker, Katherine Calloway, Kathleen Crowther, Brendan Dooley, Peter Harrison, Barbara Hunfeld, Eric Jorink, Scott Mandelbrote, Brian W. Ogilvie, Martine Pécharman, Jonathan Sheehan, Anne-Charlott Trepp, Rienk Vermij, Kaspar von Greyerz

The Quest for the Invisible

The Quest for the Invisible PDF Author: Marc J. Ratcliff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317018397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The eighteenth century has often been viewed as a period of relative decline in the field of microscopy, as interest in microscopes seemed to wane after an intense period of discovery in the seventeenth century. As such, developments in the field during the Enlightenment have been largely overlooked. This book therefore fills a considerable gap in the study of this life science, providing a thorough analysis of what the main concerns of the field were and how microscopists learned to communicate with each other in relevant ways in order to compare results and build a new discipline. Employing a substantial body of contemporary literature from across Europe, Marc J. Ratcliff is able to present us with a definitive account of the state of research into microscopy of the period. He brings to light the little known work of Louis Joblot, re-evaluates the achievements of Abraham Trembley and gives new weight to Otto-Friedrich Müller's important contributions. The book also connects changes in instrument design to an innovative account of microscopical research during the eighteenth century and the rich social networks of communication that grew during this period. Investigating the history of microscopical research from 1680 up to 1800 also shows how scholars progressively established a modern rule on which to shape their new discipline: balancing microscopical magnification with shared vision. This rule developed in response to the diminishing size of the microscopical object during the course of the eighteenth century, from dry minute organisms such as insects, to aquatic minute bodies such as polyps, and finally to aquatic invisible organisms, thus completing the scholar's quest to study the invisible. This book will be essential reading for historians of microscopy, epistemologists, and for historians of the life sciences in the modern period.

The History of Fossils Over Centuries

The History of Fossils Over Centuries PDF Author: Maurizio Forli
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031046870
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
This book discusses the history of invertebrate fossil understanding and classification by exploring fossil studies between the 15th and 18th centuries. Before the modern age, the understanding of fossil findings went through several phases. The treatment by philologists, philosophers and historians of natural sciences involved religious, sometimes folkloristic, aspects before scientific ones. This work showcases and assesses these original findings by carrying out a bibliographical, and above all iconographical research, aimed at finding the first printed images of the objects that we now know as fossils. From here, the authors provide an understanding of the true nature of fossils by analyzing them through modern academic viewpoints, and describing each fossil group from a paleontological and taxonomic point of view, retracing their treatment in the course of the centuries. As a point of reference for each fossil group treated, the authors have considered indispensable the use of ancient prints as evidence of the first iconographic sources dedicated to fossils, starting from those in the late fifteenth century, dedicated to the most common groups of invertebrates without neglecting a necessary exception, the ichthyodontolites, fundamental in the discussion in Italy on the interpretation of the organic origin of fossils, and from the end of the sixteenth century to about half of the eighteenth century. The abundant iconographic apparatus used, often unpublished or specially reworked, is essential and functional to the understanding of the various aspects addressed, a visual complement to the text and vice versa, designed and used taking its cue from the need imposed on early scholars to document their discoveries visually. Among the chosen images there is no shortage of original attributions to fossil finds that have been poorly understood or misidentified until now. The English translation of this book from its Italian original manuscript was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service provider DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision of the content was done by the authors.

From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity

From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity PDF Author: Elena Casetta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030109917
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so?The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.