MOI UNIVERSITY

BAS 402 – HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Science in Ancient World
Course Otline
- China, Mesopotamia, India, Egypt
- Medieval world and Europe
- Arab and Islamic world
- Science in Africa
- Science in Africa
- Science in modern and contemporary world
- Experimental sciences
- Major discoveries between 16th and 19th century/ 20th century
- Perspectives of science in Africa
- Transfer of technology
- The future of science

References

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Encyclopaedia Americana

3. Edward M. Burns, R. Lerner and S. Meacham, Western civilizations vol 2.,

NewYork, W W Norton & Company, 1980

4. J. D. Bernal, Science in History, NY, 1954

Introduction

The History of Science is the study of historical development of science and scientific
knowledge – it is a narrative of theories of physical and biological sciences and their
developments and impact on mankind.
The spread of scientific ideas has been a decisive factor in remoulding the whole pattern
of human thought. People have hope of living better living better lives through the
application of science in agriculture and medicine.

In Science we begin on identifying this phenomenon and delineating it as clearly as

possible so as to find out what it is in itself.

Science is so old, has undergone so many changes in its history, it is linked with other
social activities.

Albert Einstein defined science as something existing and complete as the most
objective thing to mankind.

Science is a body of empirical, theoretical and practical knowledge about the natural
world produced by researchers making use of ……methods which emphasize the
observation, exploration and prediction of real world phenomenon by experiment.

Science is by its nature changeable. It was not until the 17 th century that it began to
achieve an independence status.

Science may be taken as

i) An institution
ii) A method
iii) A cumulative tradition of knowledge
iv) A major factor in the maintenance and development of production.
v) One of the most powerful influences moulding beliefs and attitudes to the
universe and man.

Ancient societies had methods of getting food and protection and means of preserving
and using these methods in form of a continuous tradition. Man evolved from ape-like
creatures through evolution and then developed essential bodily and mental equipped of a
grasping and handling objects.

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The combination of hand and eye capacity with the ability to learn that made the use of
implements possible. The methods which gave human societies their particular advs were
largely dependent on the use of material implements for catching, collecting, transporting
and preparing food and also a rapid means of communication to ensure cooperation in
these tasks i.e. language.

What was the impact of Science?

Implements and tools

Implements are essentially an extension of human limbs – the extension of the fist and
tooth with the stone, the arm with the stick, the hand or mouth with bag or basket.

Science in ancient world

About 8000 years ago Man began a revolution in food production that altered the whole
materials and social mode of existence of man. The difficulties that men had to face at
that time led to an intensive search for new or even old and despised kinds of food, such
as roofs and the seeds of wild grasses. This pursuit led to the invention of the technique
of agriculture, ranking with the utilization of fire and power of one of the three most
momentous inventions in human history. It was a step by step accumulation of
interlocked inventions all subservient to the essential achievement. Society was
transformed from the exploitation of the animate environment to its control.

Crafts making
Agriculture involved a set of new techniques in the growing of crops and the preparing of
food from them such as sowing, hoeing, reaping, threshing, storing, grinding, baking and
brewing.

With them came a whole set of ancillary techniques like weaving, made possible by
supplies of wool and flax and like pottery and hut building arising from possibilities and
needs of permanent occupation.

Neolithic Age
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The period between the first invention of agriculture the founding of a ……………..is
usually known as the new stone age or Neolithic age. There was now the use of ground
and polished stove implements in place of the chipped, instruments of old stove age the
period lasted from 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The original centres of Neolithic
……………………were at the Middle East.

Civilization first occurred when people tried to practice agriculture in the wide alluvial
valleys of such great rivers as were free from unclearable forest. The practice of
agriculture in small upland valleys may simply have been bushed downstream step by
step into being civilizations originated and first taken root in the well-watered river
valleys, where cultivation by natural flow irrigated canals could be practiced. Later, it
was to spread locally by the much heavier engineering works of lifting water for high-
level channels, digging wells and terracing hillsides. Early civilizations were limited to a
number of favoured areas, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt and Indus valley.

Results of early civilization and science

The Rise of the City
The city was a consequence of civilizations. City differs from village in that most of the
inhabitants are not food producers working on the land but administrators, craftsmen,
traders and labourers. Evidence suggests that cities were founded by bringing together
part or all of the populations of several villages.

Construction of the house

As the population grew, more huts were added to the court.

Temples, gods and priests

The city was centred round a temple or big house, in which one god assisted by his
priests superseded or ruled over a small pantheon of local village totem ancestors.

Temple servants and craftsmen

The physical work needed to maintain the organization of the economy was not done by
priests e.g. we see kings of ancient Sumerian cities carrying the first basket of earth from

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the excavation of a canal so a body of temple servants was required for collecting, storing
and guarding the surplus produce.

Law and the state

Laws had to be evolved to prevent these transactions leading to losses to the temple or to
bloodshed i.e. these laws were the earliest written laws.

The techniques of civilization

Discovery of metals
The organization of river-plain agriculture was the decisive economic factor in the rise of
cities and the major technical advance that accompanied was the discovery and use of
metals e.g. copper and bronze.

The word for metal comes from Greek word meaning “to search” which implies their
early scarcity.

Metals, apart from gold and a little copper, are found in the raw state, their extraction and
preparation imply a long experience and even possibly deliberate experimentation.

The first of the metals, because it was the most obvious in the native state, was gold. But
gold nuggets, unlike the hard and brittle stones used for implements were plastic. Copper
nuggets could be beaten out into pieces hard enough for tools.

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Development of Science in the Middle Ages (500-1500 AD)

Science in the Middle Ages includes the study of nature, including mathematics and
natural philosophy of medieval Europe
As Roman imperial authority ended in the west in the 5th century, Western Europe entered
the Middle Ages wit h great intellectual difficulties in the continent’s intellectual
production. Scientific tre atises of classical antiquity written in Greek were unavailable
but Roman and early medieval scientific texts were read and studied contributing to the
understanding of nature as a coherent system functioning under divinely established laws
that could be comprehended in the light of reason. The study of science got a boost
during the renaissance in 12th century and with translation of Greek and Arabic scientific
tests. Scientific study developed within the medieval universities where tests were studied
and elaborated, leading to new insights into the phenomenon of the universe.

Early Middle Ages (AD 476-1000)

In the ancient world Greek had been the primary language of science. Under the Roman
Empire, Latin texts borrowed heavily from Greek work.

As the knowledge of Greek declined during the Middle Ages, Latin scholars were cut off
from its Greek philosophical and scientific roots.

Latin speakers learnt science through the books written by Roman writers such as
Calcidius, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Beothius and Latin Encyclopaedists.

By the 6th century and learning moved to monastic and cathedral schools, with the study
based on the bible especially in Italy, Spain, and parts of Gaul where roman influences
were long-lasting. In the 7th Century learning begun to emerge in Ireland and Celtic lands
where Latin texts were eagerly studied and taught.

The leading scholars of the early centuries were clergymen who had less interest in the
study of nature. The study of nature was pursued more for practical reasons than as an
abstract inquiry e.g. the need to care for the sick led to the study of medicine and of

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ancient texts on drugs, the need for monks to determine the proper time to pray led to the
study of the motion of stars, the need to compute the date of Easter led them to study and
teach rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the sun and the moon.

Around 800 AD Charles the Great or Charlemagne came up with a new renaissance, a
programme of cultural revitalization and educational reform with emphasis on the study
of astronomy to compute the date of Easter.

From about 787 AD on decrees were issued recommending the restoration of old schools
and the founding of new ones throughout the empire. These new schools were under the
responsibility of a monastery, a cathedral or a noble court.

During the high Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD), European scholars developed existing
knowledge by studying ancient Greek and Arabic texts, Italian Gerard of Cremona
travelled to Spain to translate some of these works. The period saw the rise of medieval
universities, which benefited from the translated texts and provided a new structure for
scientific communities but these universities had to receive registration from the Holy
Roman Empire.

During this period, the works of Aristotle were re-discovered which led to the
development of a new Christian philosophy and the methods of scholasticism. By 1200
there were Latin translations of the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Archimedes.

Scholastics believed in empiricism and supported Roman Catholic doctrines through

study of reason and logic e.g. Thomas Aquinas (doctor of the Church) was most famous.

In the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500 AD) the Oxford Calculators distinguished
Kinematics form dynamics and investigated velocity.

Nicole Oresme, showed that the reasons proposed by the physics of Aristotle against the
movement of the earth were not valid and argued that the earth moves and not the
heavens

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By the middle ages, the search for natural causes had come to typify the work of
Christian natural philosophers.

The 15th century saw the beginning of the cultural movement of the renaissance i.e. there
was the re-discovery of Greek scientific texts after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.

In the Northern Europe science was now reviewed by Copernicus, Francis Bacon and
Descartes.

THE ARABIC AND ISLAMIC SCIENCE

The term Islam refers to the religion of Islam and also Islamic civilization. Islamic
science/Arabic science was the science developed and practiced in the Islamic world
during the Islamic golden Age i.e. 750 to 1258 AD. During this time, Indian Assyrian,
Iranian and Greek knowledge was translated into Arabic. These translations became the
foundation for scientific advances.

Scientists in the Islamic civil were form diverse religious backgrounds, most were
Persians, Arabs, Moors, Assyrians and Egyptians. Most were Muslims but there were
also Christians, Jews and non-religious.

After the death of prophet Mohammed, Islam continued to expand under the leadership of
its Muslim rulers known as Caliphs e.g. during the Umayyad Caliphate, Islamic Empire
began to consolidate its territorial gains. Arabic became the language of administration.
Islamic civilizations continued to be primarily based upon agriculture but commerce
began to play a more important role. The Greek intellectual traditions were recognized
translated and studied. The root of Islamic science were based on mathematics,
astronomy and medicine, physics, cosmology and sociology. Most important scientists of
Islamic civilization were polymath known as hakin or sages. The hakin was a poet or a
writer, skilled in the practice of medicine, astronomy and mathematics e.g. Al-Zahrawi
(931-1013AD) was a surgeon who write on al-Tasrif or medical knowledge which is a 30
volume set discussing medical symptoms, treatments and pharmacology and Abu Bakr
al-Razi of Iran wrote on a variety of topics e.g. medicine where he identified small pox,
measles and recognized fever as part of the body’s defences and al-Battani (850-922
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AD), astronomer who accurately determined the length of the solar year, he contributed
to numeric tables used by astronomers to predict the movement of the sun, mon and
planets across the sky.

But Betrand Russel holds that Islamic science lacked the intellectual energy required for
innovation but it preserved ancient knowledge.

EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCES
Experimental methods are commonly held up as the paradigm for testing hypothesis
science that uses what is known as to try and prove ideas and concepts that are as yet
untested.
Jonas Salk’s bread mould that became penicillin is good examples of experimental
science.
Experimental science is where the testing group is in a laboratory.
Galileo Galilei was and is sometimes referred to as the father of experimental science.

An experimental is a methodological procedure carried out with the goal of verifying,

falsifying or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into
cause-and-effort by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is
manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on
repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results.

In the specific method, an experiment is an empirical method that arbitrates between

competing models or hypotheses.

Experimentation is also used to test existing theories or new hypothesis in order to

support or new hypotheses in order to support them or disprove them.

In psychology and political science a true experiment is a method of social research in

which there are two kinds of variables. The independent variable is manipulated by the
experimenter and the dependent variable is measured.

Observational study is used when it is impractical, unethical to fit a physical or social

system into a laboratory setting to completely control confounding factors. However,
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observational studies lack the manipulation required for Baconian experiments and
involve variables that are difficult to quantity or control, they lack the statistical
properties of randomized experiments, inferences from subjective models are unreliable
in theory and practice, they are prone to selection bias.

MAJOR SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES 16TH AND 17TH CENTURY

The word scientist was coined in 1840. The 17th century is revered among scientists as an
age of great discovery. This is the period of Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Pascal, Descartes and
Newton, 17th century saw the rise of scientists.

These men caused a profound change in the culture, attitudes and lives.
Harvey discovered that human heart is a pump that circulates the blood.
Paracelsus discovered that human body is a vessel of chemical reactions, affected by
plants and minerals, Pare that blood vessels should be tied during amputation to prevent
patients from bleeding to death.
The use of arithmetic on paper led to the invention of decimals and calculus.

Scientists were regarded as those who really know abort reality. But technology often
preceded science – things were often invented that worked before a scientists could
explain why they worked. Applied science/engineering was a vital part of human
progress.

Palladio had invented the truss in the 16th century, which proved to be of enormous
consequence to the architecture, buildings, bridges and canals of the 17th century.

In the 17th century there was invention of the telescope and microscope and superior
clocks and the liquid compass.

The use of mathematics and geometry by science followed the use of them by artists and
architects.

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The two important developments were:

1) There was rise of Alchemy – Changing ordinary metal to gold.

2) Development of Truss – metal frame that supports a structure.

In addition to the above, Science was influenced by merchants/trade who had

demonstrated the importance of attention to small details, and use of mathematics to
explain business through the new double-entry bookkeeping system.

International trade, the result of capitalism led to exchange of scientific ideas in wide
areas of Christian kingdom. In 17th century scientists had learnt from Francis Bacon that
scientific truths were discovered bit by bit.

It was the invention of the printing press that freed men and led them to discover and
expand scientific knowledge. Before that copies of books had been too expensive and
valuable that few libraries in existence had to chain their books down to keep them from
being stolen.

One of the leading thinkers of this period was Rene Descartes (1596-1650) said “I think
therefore I am” and so he revolutionalized philosophy and he is thus called the father of
modern philosophy, he revolutionalized mathematics by discovering analytical geometry,
he discovered the system of coordinates, still in use today for graphs, charts and computer
graphs. He wrote that matter occupies space, that only human beings have minds and that
the physical world was made up of invisible particles in motion he believed that all
knowledge could be unified through mathematics, he reasoned that God is perfect and
infinite.

Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was Flemish who published the table of interests in 1582, he
invented the metric system which introduced the word decimal into our language in 1608.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) lived when astronomy and astrology were conjoined, he
write on laws of planetary motion or celestial physics which created astronomy, he
believed that the world was created by a creator who used geometry to establish order and

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harmony, he proved that the planets orbit the son in ellipses and that the speed of the
planets depends on their distance from the sun.

The terms middle ages and medieval were first used in the 17 th century. The idea was that
modern men were proud of their discoveries and progress and wished to set themselves
apart from the previous countries of ignorance.

RENAISSANCE AND THE SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION (1440-1540) (IMPACT)

- Renaissance marked a gradual improvement of economic condition and social

change. It improved science, art and politics due to the efforts of artists and scholars
who opposed medieval life and they brought conscious movement to change society’s
attitudes. It marked a deliberate break with the past for both Catholics and Protestants
alike.
In Italy scientific revolution maintained the supremacy of the Christian church while in
Germany it led to the independence of religion and peasants war of 1525-26.
- Science marked the transition from feudalism to capitalism (production for the
market).
- States began to emerge or develop creating alliances between states resulting into the
precarious balance of power in which no country was supreme.
- The kings provided the patronage for the new scientists and humanists who depend
creating alliances between states resulting into the precarious balance of power in
which no country was supreme.
- The kings provided the patronage for the new scientists and humanists who depend on
the church.
- The position of the intellectuals in the society improved.
- The old medieval university remained, king Francis I of France found the college
Royal to provide the teaching of the humanities.
- Social relations changed from the fixed hereditary status to one based on buying and
selling of commodities and labour capitalism.

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- The availability of surpluses produce made it possible for trade to expand. Thus
surplus was due to the effect of the technical improvements introduced in the middle
ages in Agriculture and cloth making. Trade also expanded due to improved shipping
and navigation.
- The profits from overseas trade made possible the first accumulation of fluid capital
invested in income generating enterprises, this led to a development of shipbuilding
and navigation, a product of modern science.
- With paid soldiers instead of feudal levies, wars were maintained for longer, cost
more leading to the increased demand for bronze, iron, silver and gold.
- As mining and metal working boomed so was the manufacture of gunpowder and
distillation of more spirits.
- There was less concern with the future life and more concern with the present life
which led to the rapid growth of secular arts, painting, poetry and music.
- The technicians and artists were no longer despised as they had been in the medieval
period.
- One of the leading thinkers of the Renaissance period was the great universal
engineer, scientists and artists, Leonardo da Vinci.
- Renaissance led to advances in mining, metallurgy and chemistry. The need for metal
led to the rapid opening up of mines in Germany and America.
- Chemistry involved the smelting of metals hence new ores and new metals were
created like zinc, cobalt and false copper.
- Astronomy and geographic science were applied to open up a whole world to
European capitalist enterprises through great voyages like those of Christopher
Columbus who discovered the New World.
The effects of science were enormous, e.g. the success of the early voyages created an
enormous demand for shipbuilding and navigation, new class of intelligent,
mathematically trained craftsmen for compass, map and instrument making. This was
the beginning of scientific public and furnished both a training ground and a
livelihood for intelligent youths of all classes. Navigation schools were founded in
Portugal, Spain, England, Holland and France.
- Agriculture was however still the major occupation alongside cloth making.
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- In Holland and England, there was the beginning of scientific education with
emphasis on navigation. Accurate navigational charts were made.
- Astronomy developed to great heights due to efforts of Copernicus, who changed the
whole ancient system of thought. He gave a detailed exposition of the rotation of the
earth on its axis and its motion around a fixed sun.
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a follower of Copernicus theory, he created the
telescope, which he used to study the universe. He succeeded where others failed in
formulating a mathematical description of the motion of the bodies.
- The prophets of Renaissance period were Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, the two
stood up during the turning point between medieval and modern science.
- The coming of the microscope in the 17th century opened up a new world of the very
small while the anatomy of the larger animals was refined by Harvey’s theory of the
circulation of the blood.
- Napoleon, the leader of France patronised science, took personal charge of its
administration, took part in the discussions in the academic and took scientists to tour
Egypt.
- Between 1690-1760 there were rapid improvements in agriculture, the improvements
were adapted from those of the Dutch in the 17th century, then spread to Britain.
- There were improvements in the fields of electricity in which Franklin invented the
lighting conductor and brought electricity down to earth.
There was the rise of industrial capitalism made possible by the social and economic
changes of the early 18th century, capital was acquired from the great merchant profits
of the preceding century. Labour has liberated from the land through the enclosure
system in Britain.
- There was agricultural revolution, which was a mixture of empirical breeding and
crop rotation and mechanization with the beginnings of drill ploughs, horse harrows
etc.
- Between 1760 and 1830 in France, there were the philosophers such Voltaire, and
Rousseau who challenged the existing knowledge, while in Germany there was Kant
Immanuel (1724-1804) who attempted to weld in one system the achievements of
science and inner conscience.
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- There was the rise of the engineers, the product of the new profession of mechanical
engineers made possible by the availability of cheap iron, smelted together with coal
e.g. engineer George Stephenson. The railway transport was improve when an engine
was put on the wheels to make it a locomotive.
The railway age covered Britain with its network in the 1840s. In England science
found the great field of application. The scientific community was led by Charles
Babbage of the Royal Society of Science.
- From 1850s the opposition to new sciences in English and French there was the
setting up of new colleges and universities in London and in the manufacturing
towns. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a symbol of the unity of science, invention
and manufacture and some of the proceeds went to founding a scientific teaching
centre, the Royal College of Science. The German universities had indeed begun their
reform in the period of the enlightenment period in the 18th century.
- However, science remained the monopoly of a selected few in the middle class i.e. the
liberal intelligentsia. They were interested in the great industrial movements of the
time they believed in the inevitable of progress.
- In the 19th century chemistry was the science of the time essentially because it was
supportive to textile industry the most dominant industry. New cheap synthetic
materials e.g. perfumes, dyes etc replaced the natural products.
- Another great 19th century contribution was in the field of physics based on the
conservation of energy and evolution in the field of biology. “Evolution” taught that
animals and plants were once different from what they are now. Charles Darwin
published the origin of species in 1859 where he propounded the theory of evolution
that became the centre of scientific and political battle, he discussed the natural
selection which was repudiated (rejected) by theologians.
- There was the rise of socialism led by philosopher Karl Marx. The artist, poets and
writers protested against the horrors of industrial revolution and against the vulgar
flaunting of wealth. The literary and artistic movement also rejected science as it had
identified itself with machine production hence there was split between humanists and
scientific hence lack of cooperation between two branches of intellectuals in the
criticism of the ……….and social systems of the society
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EFFECTS OF SCIENCE ON CAPITALISM IN THE 19TH/20TH CENTURY
- Created new social environment.
- Capitalism became an independent ideology and it also flourished.
- Science grew to occupy an important position, it provided the steam engine.
- New industries based on science began to arise.
- Science penetrated to older craft industries and agriculture.
- It transformed the development capitalism from individualistic free competition of
small scale industry to large monopolistic understandings.
- A large range of industrial activities developed e.g. mechanics, power, transport
chemicals and ammunitions.
- Science moved from the league of collecting information about nature through
telescopes, microscopes, thermometers, barometers with mathematical analysis to
new league machines e.g. steam engines, turbines, dynamics electric motors chemical
plants all intended to change nature.
- Science benefited by being financed by capitalist mode of finance. Capitalism school
of the vestiges of old feudal system of production, with time contributing developed
enormously all over the world against the rise of the new working class.
Science began as a liberator allied to the forces of progress but later became ambiguous
and uncertain in its progress. Science faced opposition from the old regime. In France, the
Catholic Church and the conservative party in Britain (the landed and the propertied) but
science later became associated with political reform, rising industry and the liberal
theology.
Q. Assess the link between science and capitalism.

PHYSICAL SCIENCES IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The future of the physical science – i.e. physics, chemistry and cosmology, is assumed by
common quantitative approach to human problems (industry, Agriculture, weapons).
- 19th Century physics was a major achievement of human effort based on the
mechanics of Galileo and Isaac Newton.

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- There was the discovery of X-rays, radioactivity in 1895-96, the structure of crystals
in 1912, of neutron in 1932, of nuclear fission in 1938 and the discovery of Quantum
theory in 1900, Einstein’s special relativity theory of 1905, the German king William
founded the German heavy industry in scientific research.
- In the USA, there was the linking of the progress of science directly to industry and
armaments.
Faraday and Maxwell came up with the electromagnetic theory of light.
- There was the invention of the atomic and nuclear bomb once the atoms were
analyzed. J. J. Thomson showed the electrons in high electric fields could be
manipulated to produce weapons.

WAR AND SCIENCE -

The use of science to make bombs and other weapons has hindered co-operations
between countries. War has had an important influence on science in early centuries and
has itself been modified by science.

Actual hostilities have been enhanced between nations. The powerful industrialized
countries have turned their effort in perfecting developing and manufacturing new
weapons, many years used in preparing for war = war led to destruction of cities in
Europe that had taken centuries to develop. This destruction was effected largely through
scientific means. Tens of millions of dollars had been used in perfecting airplanes, bombs
and radar navigation. The walkie talkie, bulldozers and the Jeep were characteristic of the
WWII together with self-propelled gun and the atomic bomb.
Q. Relate Science to War

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Origins
Social sciences began with rituals and myths. Man controlled nature through magic. The
purpose of the ritual, songs and myths was to secure food and other goods and to
maintain social patterns. But as society became more complex, and classes arose, such
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myths became irrelevant. As rulers and princes came to exist there was need to explain
these superior gentlemen the history of his ancestors or the action indicated by pure
reason (history, philosophy and classics) were taught to the upper class to learn the art of
ruling.

The social sciences are divided into two broad groups which include: the descriptive and
the analytical science. Descriptive social sciences are archaeology, anthropology and
sociology, they described sciences. Economics, law, political science and education are
analytical sciences which attempt to discover the underlying relations determining
aspects of the behaviour of societies of today. This also includes psychology, philosophy
and ethics. But they are sciences not just because they examine issues but some are non-
scientific e.g. religion, literature and the arts, concerned with communicating of ideas,
images and feelings.

In Marxist terms, natural sciences are concerned with the production forces in society,
while the social sciences deal with productive relations and ideological superstructure.

Social sciences have lagged behind the natural sciences. They are mainly discursive and
classificatory, they still lack designed and controlled “experiments” the social sciences
are fine talk.

Why social sciences are backward.

- Impossible to do experiments.
- Without experiments there is no complete science.
- Only trivial social experiments can be carried our e.g. the irrigation schemes.
- Experiments would require the fall and free co-operation of the people involved.
Such experiments are devised and carried out by politicians and administrators,
carried out for the people, not by the people “Russia”.
- New socialist countries have attempted experiments with experiments on industry
and agriculture to change the habits of life e.g. Ujamaa in Tanzania.
- Social science study involves value judgements alien to natural sciences e.g.
concepts such as “Justice and beauty” are outside the scope of scientific method.
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 - It is the function of the soc-sciences to analyze and explain social values to show
how they need to change in future.
- The human society is more than the sum of the individuals that make it up hence
its study must be more complicated.
- Man is most complex of animals hence his study is more complex.
- The changing nature of society, change is rapid hence social sciences cannot
analyze a society that turns into a new and different one before the end of the
study.
- The study of social sciences have been controlled by the interests of the ruling
classes who believe that the order of society which secured them their privileges
has been divinely ordained for all time. Too much analysis into the structure or
workings of society might bring out arbitrary, and unjustifiable features which
might unsettle the obedient citizens
e.g. verse below:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered them estate (1950)

Hence Plato in his Republic did not openly discuss the reasons why common people
suffer, instead he only gave myths. Those days the church considered man’s duties to his
neighbours and to the authority hence social science became a branch of theology. Even
today, social sciences are not regarded as suitable subject to be taught in the schools. The
rulers thought that answers to societal problems were easily available without searching
for them, the reasons were self-evident or were divinely revealed or Acts of God hence
no need for more social research.

However, social sciences are encouraged by the need to study change in society and to
challenge the notion of blind acceptance of things as they are.

The great religious leaders such as Confucius, Gautama, Mohammed and Jesus Christ
were all active in the period of great economic and social transition, they expressed
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violent criticisms of the society existing in their times and in the process they built new
schemes of the rights and duties of mankind, expressed in religious terms and so they
become the founders of social science.

- New social interpretations and ideologies were powerful weapons in effecting the
change to a new order, they sought to destroy the existing social system e.g. the great
movements such as Renaissance, reformation put bases of the society into question.
- Social sciences offered to question the excess of capitalism and the suffering of the
working classes through ideology of socialism leading to a new cycle of social
criticism and interpretation.
- Both natural and social sciences are related i.e. scientific knowledge begins with the
exact sciences and ends with the social sciences. To understand society, we need to
combined, physics, chemistry, biology with psychology and sociology to understand
the accepted system of order in the society.

CHALLENGES OF SCIENCE IN AFRICA

Poverty is one of the challenges that continue to face Africa – . At Independence thre
were 3 goals for most African governments, to eradicate poverty, ignorance and disease.
But since 1960s Africa has continued to suffer from the following:
- Lack of research and funding by governments in Africa
- Superstition in Africa
- High illiteracy levels
- Political instabilities and corruption
- Education system favours liberal arts
- Cheap imports from China, Japan and USA which continue killing our own infant
industries.
- Protectionism practiced the rich countries.
- Neo-colonial practiced by former colonial powers in trade and politics which stifle
the rise of the poorer nations, while favouring the developed ones

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