Is Science Western in Origin

Free Download Is Science Western in Origin? by C K Raju
English | 2015 | ISBN: 983304607X | 79 pages | PDF | 3.06 Mb
On stock Western history, science originated among the Greeks, and then developed in post-renaissance Europe. This story was fabricated in three phases./First, during the Crusades, scientific knowledge from across the world, in captured Arabic books, was given a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was all transmitted from the Greeks. The key cases of Euclid (geometry) and Claudius Ptolemy (astronomy) both concocted figures are used to illustrate this process./Second, during the Inquisition, world scientific knowledge was again assigned a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was not transmitted from others, but was independently rediscovered by Europeans. The cases of Copernicus and Newton (calculus) illustrate this process of revolution by rediscovery. / Third, the appropriated knowledge was reinterpreted and aligned to post-Crusade theology. Colonial and racist historians exploited this, arguing that the (theologically) correct version of scientific knowledge (geometry, calculus, etc.) existed only in Europe./ These processes of appropriation continue to this day.