Content of Learning Activity

This course is based on two observations: first, there is today a general questioning of science (from alternative facts to the denial of reality), which goes hand in hand with a crisis of the scientific research model itself (the crisis of reproducibility); second, scientists are generally unaware of the historical circumstances that prevailed in the invention and the often difficult acceptance of scientific concepts as we use them daily. This should not surprise us, because the engine that drives scientific knowledge is controversy, which can be resolved for a time until new discoveries challenge the established model.

The course follows 2 threads:
1°) ideas circulate with the peoples who convey them, thus fertilizing new areas of human thought over the centuries and millennia in lineages that sometimes reach the present time
2°) the texts that underlie them are also, for some of them, perfectly accessible literary works, and of great beauty.

The course covers the long term, going back to the written civilization of ancient Mesopotamia, and ending with the latest developments in transhumanism in Europe and the United States. It attempts to put into perspective the great developments in (pre-)scientific thought in relation to the political and religious, and even social and economic, context of each era.

It is impossible to address a complete vision of this theme in a 15-hour course, and unfortunately choices had to be made. We will not deal with science in the Chinese, Indian or Arab cultural spheres. We will limit ourselves to what we call today physics and chemistry, excluding the other scientific fields, in particular mathematics and biology.

The course is intended to be rather interactive: explanation of the context alternating with readings, by the students, of selected pieces, followed by a discussion on the understanding and the lessons to be drawn from it.

Table of contents:

Chapter 1: The frame, Antiquity
Chapter 2 : The world is a sphere
Chapter 3 : The occult philosophy of the Renaissance
Chapter 4 : The emergence of the first modern science
Chapter 5: Science, Networks and Empires
Chapter 6: Heat, Electricity and Industry
Chapter 7: The Second Revolution of Modern Science
Chapter 8: The Ideology Behind Emerging Technologies (Enhancing human performances)
 

Required Learning Resources/Tools

Not applicable

Recommended Learning Resources/Tools

All the lecture media are available on Moodle

Other Recommended Reading

The list of recommended references is available on Moodle

Mode of delivery

• Face-to-face

Type of Teaching Activity/Activities

• Cours magistraux
• Conférences

Evaluations

The assessment methods of the Learning Activity (AA) are specified in the course description of the corresponding Educational Component (UE)