Science and Thought

1. Science and Thought Amy Cruz Nou Lee Chadsity Vang Christopher Kennedy Dalton Uhlir Period. 4

2. Growing Influence of Scientific Thought • Breakthroughs in industrial technology helped to stimulate intellectual development. • Scientific knowledge expanded rapidly; it adjusted world-view and led to the creation of new products and industries. • Establishment of new scientific fields such as thermodynamics and organic chemistry. • There was a shift from romanticism to realism in literature. • There was an expansion and development of social science. • Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution • Auguste Comte’s Positivist Method

3. The Triumph of Science • Advances in science led to practical benefits and growing influence on popular thought. • Industrial technology led to basic scientific inquiry • Allowed for growth in scientific studies from 1830 onward. • People sought explanations for how the physical world operated. • Numerous theoretical discoveries led to new material improvements for the general population. • Louis Pasteur made many developments in biology and medical sciences • Pasteurization

4. Thermodynamics • Physicists developed the fundamental laws of Thermodynamics which were later applied to different areas including engineering and chemistry • Built on Isaac Newton’s law of mechanics; studied the relationship between heat and mechanical energy. • 19th c. thermodynamics demonstrated to scientists that the physical world operated under firm unchangeable laws. • Ex. The Law of Conservation of Energy

5. Developments in Other Areas of Science • Chemistry • Organic Chemistry: The study of compounds containing carbon • Chemists established the processes which measure the atomic weight of elements • Dmitri Mendeleev(1834-1907) created the Periodic Table and Periodic law to explain the rules of chemistry. • Electricity • Electromagnetism • Discoveries by Michael Faraday (1791-1861) helped develop the first dynamo, or generator, which led to other inventions: Telegraph, Electric motor, Electric light, Electric streetcar. • The use of such research developments in the electrical and organic chemical industries resulted in increased economic growth within society.

6. Consequences of Science and Thought • Everyday experiences and innumerable populations expressed the importance of science in the popular mind. • Philosophic implications of science helped to formulate and strengthen: • Natural processes determined by rigid law • Enlightenment optimists’ faith in human progress. • Methods of science acquired unrivaled prestige • Careful experiment and abstract theory determined to be the only reliable route to truth • From the 1830’s on thinkers tried to apply the objective methods of science to the study of society • These thinkers had access to the massive stores of government collected data • They dogmatically filed through this data creating theories and testing them • Prime examples of these thinker are Karl Marx and Auguste Comte

7. Auguste Comte and the Positivist Method • Comte wrote the System of Positive Philosophy which was overlooked in the romantic era, but after the political failures of 1848 completed the swing to realism, his philosophy received more recognition. • Comte developed the Positivist Method in which he believed that all thinking went through three stages • The Theological- the thought that astronomy developed from the will of god • The Metaphysical- the cosmic powers a will of nature • The Scientific- unchanging laws governing the universe • Comte’s method established a new form of Sociology which would later help to discover the eternal laws of humanity.

8. Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution • Several Thinkers helped prepare the way for Charles Darwin • The geologist, Charles Lyell (1797-1875), discredited the idea that the earth’s surface was created by short-lived cataclysms in favor of the idea of uniformitarianism. • Uniformitarianism: The same geological processes at work today have slowly formed the earth’s surface over an incredibly long period of time. • The idea of biological development, first proposed by the Greek Anaximander in the 6th century, was reintroduced to the world by Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). • Lamarck believed that all forms of life had arisen and developed through continuous adjustment to the environment [Adaptation]. • Charles Darwin, after a five-year trip to Latin America and the South Pacific, formulated the theories of natural selection and the unending “struggle for life” utilizing the works of Lyell and Lamarck

9. Emile Zola and Realism • Emile Zola(1840-1902) was one of the most influential realists whose work helped to establish the main themes of realism, a form of art which rose in Western society and dominated culture, particularly literature, from the 1840’s to the 1890’s. • Realists writers believed that literature should reflect life exactly as it was: • Realism replaced the personal and emotional perspective of romanticism for a more strict, scientific objectivity to portray society. • Realists observed and reflected life exactly as it was without changing or interfering in it; realism focused on observation of everyday life • Realists focused primarily on the middle class highlighting such things as sex, prostitution, alcoholism, as well as violence and strikes. • Realism received much criticism from middle class members who argued that it was ugly sensationalism.

10. French Realists • The realist movement originated in France and the three greatest practitioners of realism were French. • Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850): Author of The Human Comedy, a collection of 100 books which examined and portrayed post revolutionary French society through a vast array of over 2,000 characters, Balzac presented urban society as a brutal and amoral setting characterized by a Darwinian struggle for wealth and power. • Gustave Flaubert ( 1821-1880): Renowned for his work entitled Madame Bovary, a story of the struggles of middle-class housewife, Flaubert exemplified the middle class as petty, smug, and hypocritical. • Emile Zola was notable for his animalistic view of the working class. Zola was also known to support socialism as did many realists.

11. Other Influential Realists • English Realists: • Mary Anne Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot (1819-1880): A well known writer during the Victorian era and famous for her psychological insight, Mary Anne Evans wrote many pieces of literature in which she reflected social outsiders as well as the persecution of small-towns. • Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): A well known realist who focused primarily on tragic characters who had to struggle against personal passion and social circumstance. • Leo Tolstoy and Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser • Russian realist Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), famous for War and Peace, was known for his moralistic and ascetic views. • American realist Dreiser (1871-1845) mostly wrote about situations in nature. Dreiser was influential in spreading realism throughout America which became the center for realism after it faded in Europe.