CHAPTER III 



The Anatomy of Science 



ONsroER science in the metaphor 

 of social organism, swimming in a cultural milieu on which it acts, 

 and by which it is acted upon. What that organism is today, it has 

 become by evolution. Beginning with a brief historical survey, we 

 become aware of certain features of science, today so taken for 

 granted that we recognize their nature and importance only as we 

 look back upon the antique science in which they were absent or had 

 at most a rudimentary development. 



The Evolution of Science 



Along the continuum that stretches from common sense to science, 

 only a somewhat arbitrary act suffices to define a "beginning." Arbi- 

 trariness is minimized, however, if we take as criterion of the emer- 

 gence of science the appearance of its characteristic fourth-stage 

 organization. Historically this appearance has somediing of the 

 abruptness of a mutation. 



Neolithic man had already mastered agriculture and animal hus- 

 bandry; milling, baking, and brewing; tool-making; pottery- and 

 brick-making; etc. Somewhat later the great delta civilizations mas- 

 tered the complex manufacture of bronze, which required a combina- 

 tion of ores mined in places hundreds if not thousands of miles apart. 

 Still later, men mastered the even more complex procedures involved 

 in successful smelting of iron. To carry on anif of these processes is 

 to have mastered whole sets of predictively powerful coUigative rela- 



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