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The Invention of Science
- A New History of the Scientific Revolution
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 22 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
A groundbreaking examination of the greatest event in history, the Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.
We live in a world transformed by scientific discovery. Yet today science and its practitioners have come under political attack. In this fascinating history spanning continents and centuries, historian David Wootton offers a lively defense of science, revealing why the Scientific Revolution was truly the greatest event in our history.
The Invention of Science goes back 500 years in time to chronicle this crucial transformation, exploring the factors that led to its birth and the people who made it happen. Wootton argues that the Scientific Revolution was actually five separate yet concurrent events that developed independently but came to intersect and create a new worldview. Here are the brilliant iconoclasts - Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe, Newton, and many more curious minds from across Europe - whose studies of the natural world challenged centuries of religious orthodoxy and ingrained superstition.
From gunpowder technology, the discovery of the new world, movable type printing, perspective painting, and the telescope to the practice of conducting experiments, the laws of nature, and the concept of the fact, Wootton shows how these discoveries codified into a social construct and a system of knowledge ideas of truth, knowledge, progress. Ultimately he makes clear the link between scientific discovery and the rise of industrialization - and the birth of the modern world we know.
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Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came together in post-World War I Vienna to present the latest theories in mathematics, science, and philosophy and to build a strong foundation for scientific investigation. Composed of such luminaries as Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap, and stimulated by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle left an indelible mark on science.
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Historical narrative, with physics and despair.
- By Philip J. Kurle on 10-08-18
By: Karl Sigmund
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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The Genesis of Science
- How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
- By: James Hannam
- Narrated by: Rich Germaine
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If you were taught that the Middle Ages were a time of intellectual stagnation, superstition, and ignorance, you were taught a myth that has been utterly refuted by modern scholarship. As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam shows in his brilliant new book, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, without the scholarship of the "barbaric" Middle Ages, modern science simply would not exist. The Middle Ages were a time of one intellectual triumph after another.
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Insightful!
- By John on 07-07-15
By: James Hannam
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The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy
- By: Edward J. Larson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Edward J. Larson
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Original Recording
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Charles Darwin's theory of organic evolution-the idea that life on earth is the product of purely natural causes, not the hand of God-set off shock waves that continue to reverberate through Western society, and especially the United States. What makes evolution such a profoundly provocative concept, so convincing to most scientists, yet so socially and politically divisive? These 12 eye-opening lectures are an examination of the varied elements that so often make this science the object of strong sentiments and heated debate.
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Little mistakes here and there
- By Daniel on 06-21-16
By: Edward J. Larson, and others
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The Well Educated Mind
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 19 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Have you lost the art of reading for pleasure? Are there books you know you should read but haven't because they seem too daunting? In The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise. In her previous book, The Well-Trained Mind, the author provided a road map of classical education for parents wishing to home-school their children, and that book is now the premier resource for home-schoolers.
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It is a homework-book
- By Emil Bonnevie on 07-18-18
By: Susan Wise Bauer
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The Perfectionists
- How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
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Somewhat less than perfect
- By enya keshet on 06-19-18
By: Simon Winchester
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Longitude
- By: Dava Sobel
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Neil Armstrong
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1714, England's Parliament offered a huge reward to anyone whose method of measuring longitude could be proven successful. The scientific establishment--from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton--had mapped the heavens in its certainty of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had been able to do on land. And the race was on....
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To hear Neil Armstongs Voice
- By Boots on 01-19-13
By: Dava Sobel
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Genome
- The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Original Recording
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Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers - questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. Matt Ridley here probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome.
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Still useful today.
- By Gary on 05-21-12
By: Matt Ridley
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A Brief History of Intelligence
- Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
- By: Max Bennett
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Equal parts Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow.
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complex story rendered understandable.
- By Joseph on 04-09-24
By: Max Bennett
What listeners say about The Invention of Science
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kristi Nelson
- 09-09-21
Must read for many reasons
this is a must read for history and science nerds both, and worth recommending to others.
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- Brian Corbin
- 07-27-21
Good but too much
Excellent book. Great way of looking at science. My only issue was its length. I felt as if the author kept repeating themselves. This would probably be a better book in the abridged version. If that doesn’t exist, however, it is still well worth the listen.
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- T. S. Thompson
- 06-28-18
A detailed and persuasive set of arguments
Loved it. It assessed problems with both the history and philosophy of science, as promulgated by other modern scholars. Look for this richly detailed and covertly argued work to become a classic in the field.
The narration was flawless.
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2 people found this helpful
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- La Bookeria
- 08-10-16
New Postmodern Historiography of History o Science
Highly recommended textbook on Historiography of Scientific Thinking & Dialogue with Posmodern Turn in History.
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2 people found this helpful
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- doggedstrength
- 06-13-19
Pretty Much the Whole Ball of Wax
For a non-scientist, and that's most of us, getting a grip on science seems alternatively vital and too difficult to attempt. We want to know what science is, yet science itself seems reserved for experts. Apparently in order to understand it you have to master it.
But Wootton magisterially demonstrates that science as we know it required grappling, mistakes, gargantuan misconceptions and strenuous argument to be lodged where it sits today, ostensibly implacable if not entirely unapproachable. In fact, science doesn't "know" today what it will "know" tomorrow. It's a set of procedures, undertakings, theories tested, retested and refined into edgy, always pulsing, custom. It's not truth. It's one pathway through the human mystery. Its inquiries never culminate. Its watchword is always "Behold!"
That's why it's hard. And that's how it entices us. It doesn't bow to mystery, nor does it ever claim to entirely vanquish it.
Wootton is a deeply learned, subtle, witty and profoundly considerate writer -- none of his chapters are too long, for one thing. More importantly, he's both graceful and honest. His citations are scrupulous, his claims always supported right before your eyes. He gives you the tools you need to expand on or refute what he says.
It's a life-changing book. Science at its heart is thinking in earnest, imagination followed by application. Scientists are warriors. They want certainty and are not entirely comfortable when they invariably have to settle for less. This book will show you that fighting for what seems to you to be accurate will nearly always prove to be worth it. For even if you are wrong, you are suddenly on a higher path toward an understanding you didn't beforehand even know was possible.
One of the great, essential books of my lifetime.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Robert D Volz
- 10-17-22
Informative but tedious
This book reminded me of the old adage “I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t take the time to write a short one.” While informative about the works of those who brought about the dawn of science in the western world, it’s length and detail made it tedious listening as an audio book. A condensed version would have been far more enjoyable. I thought this book would be focused on the scientific discoveries and their significance to society. But instead it seemed to focus on the vocabulary of science and the origin of specific words. It was not what I expected and became tedious to finish.
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- Renee Sullivan
- 12-22-18
So so
I expected the book to tell how scientific inventions came about. This was more an ancient history of what science was and was not for most of human history. The word fact wasn’t something people talked about for most of human history. So this was interesting but didn’t hold my attention as I had hoped.
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- R. Williams
- 02-08-24
well done
Author had amazing range and an interesting, different take. Loved the ending, talking about Montagne.
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- bryan
- 12-09-16
A boring argument about semantics
It's all about the definition of "modern scientific revolution." A very boring and pointless story mixed with science trivia
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- James Pabst
- 04-28-17
Mind Numbing
Grindingly pedantic, clangingly anglocentric, a PhD thesis written to be read by history grad students. Wooten is proud to display a wide and shallow understanding of actual scientific principles. Then compensates by counting words in ancient manuscripts like Antonin Scalia on a meth bender.
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2 people found this helpful