Science

Modern science and its technology are the children of the seventeenth century. However, the bold investigative experimentation and scientific systems of thought that evolved in this era had antecedents in Greek and Roman ideas: Xenophanes used fossils as evidence for geologic change; the Greek mathematician Aristarchus suggested that the Earth revolved around the sun long before Copernicus; and vivisection in Alexandria raised ethical issues as relevant today as 2000 years ago. Shedding fresh light on topics such as Euclid's geometry, Aristotelian physics and the proto-Darwinism of pre-Socratic thinkers like Empedocles, Philippa Lang addresses the fascinating differences and similarities between ancient and modern conceptions of `science'. She discusses the origins of the cosmos; natural laws in mathematics and physics; conceptions of biology and disease; the influence of technology in society; and the important nexus between science, morality and ethics. Lang convincingly shows that Greek and Roman parallels illuminate and clarify the meaning of science itself.