Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science

304 Pages·2015·2.35 MB·English

by  Ronald L. Numbers

NEWTON’S APPLE
AND OTHER MYTHS ABOUT SCIENCE

NEW TON’S APPLE
AND OTHER MYTHS ABOUT SCIENCE
Edited by Ronald L. Numbers
and Kostas Kampourakis
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England
2015
Copyright © 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Newton’s apple and other myths about science / edited by Ronald L. Numbers and
Kostas Kampourakis.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-96798-4 (cloth)
1. Errors, Scientifi c— Popular works. 2. Errors, Scientifi c— History— Popular
works. 3. Science— History— Popular works. I. Numbers, Ronald L., editor.
II. Kampourakis, Kostas, editor.
Q172.5.E77N49 2015
001.96— dc23 2015014096
To
Nicolaas Rupke and his colleagues at Washington
and Lee University for hosting a wonderful
conference leading to this book in May 2014

CONTENTS
Ac know ledg ments xiii
Introduction 1
by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis
I. MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN SCIENCE
Myth 1. That There Was No Scientifi c Activity between
Greek Antiquity and the Scientifi c
Revolution 7
Michael H. Shank
Myth 2. That before Columbus, Geographers and Other
Educated People Thought the Earth Was
Flat 16
Lesley B. Cormack
Myth 3. That the Copernican Revolution Demoted the Status
of the Earth 23
Michael N. Keas
viii CONTENTS
Myth 4. That Alchemy and Astrology Were Superstitious
Pursuits That Did Not Contribute to Science and
Scientifi c Understanding 32
Lawrence M. Principe
Myth 5. That Galileo Publicly Refuted Aristotle’s
Conclusions about Motion by Repeated Experiments
Made from the Campanile of Pisa 40
John L. Heilbron
Myth 6. That the Apple Fell and Newton Invented the
Law of Gravity, Thus Removing God from the
Cosmos 48
Patricia Fara
II. NINETEENTH CENTURY
Myth 7. That Friedrich Wöhler’s Synthesis of Urea in 1828
Destroyed Vitalism and Gave Rise to Organic
Chemistry 59
Peter J. Ramberg
Myth 8. That William Paley Raised Scientifi c Questions
about Biological Origins That Were Eventually
Answered by Charles Darwin 67
Adam R. Shapiro
Myth 9. That Nineteenth- Century Geologists Were Divided
into Opposing Camps of Catastrophists and
Uniformitarians 74
Julie Newell
CONTENTS ix
Myth 10. That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use
and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian
Mechanisms 80
Richard W. Burkhardt Jr.
Myth 11. That Darwin Worked on His Theory in Secret
for Twenty Years, His Fears Causing Him to Delay
Publication 88
Robert J. Richards
Myth 12. That Wallace’s and Darwin’s Explanations of
Evolution Were Virtually the Same 96
Michael Ruse
Myth 13. That Darwinian Natural Selection Has Been “the
Only Game in Town” 103
Nicolaas Rupke
Myth 14. That after Darwin (1871), Sexual Selection Was
Largely Ignored until Robert Trivers (1972)
Resurrected the Theory 112
Erika Lorraine Milam
Myth 15. That Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous
Generation on the Basis of Scientifi c
Objectivity 119
Garland E. Allen
Myth 16. That Gregor Mendel Was a Lonely Pioneer of
Ge ne tics, Being Ahead of His Time 129
Kostas Kampourakis