Is Science Western in Origin?
C K Raju, "Is Science Western in Origin?"
English | 2012 | ISBN: 983304607X | 68 pages | EPUB | 2.7 MB
English | 2012 | ISBN: 983304607X | 68 pages | EPUB | 2.7 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.