Chapter 3 Chapter 1 Introduction

Today, we tend to take for granted that science, and the technology that accompanies it, has advanced through a series of revolutionary leaps, known as giant leaps, that have transformed our view of the natural world.Has revolution, then, become a way of describing scientific progress which has always prevailed and which has always been satisfactory?Were innovative scientific thinkers such as Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, etc., convinced that their own work was revolutionary (in the sense in which we use the word today)?Do contemporaries of Darwin, Freud, and Einstein think that the theories of these scientists have caused a revolution?Maybe, they don't like to think of scientific progress as so dramatic?How have social and political changes, such as the French Revolution and the rise of Marxism, affected the thinking of scientists, philosophers, and historians about scientific revolutions?Given their focus on the great scientific revolutions of the past, it is surprising that so few scholars have addressed the kinds of questions that, as a feature of scientific revolutions, have It is closely related to the historical evolution of the concept of revolution.I am full of curiosity about these questions, and it is this curiosity that has led me to write this book.

The main content of this book is to deal with the chronicle and successive changes of the concept of scientific revolution from the seventeenth to the twentieth century; I have selected some major revolutionary examples from each of these four periods to illustrate .I have chosen the examples of these revolutions either because of their inherent historical importance (as in the case of the Copernican, Newtonian, Darwinian, and Einsteinian revolutions, etc.), or because they are not relevant to elucidating or illustrating The main features of all the scientific revolutions I have said are related.

I do not judge by my own personal judgment alone, or even by agreement with qualified historians, which historical periods constitute periods of scientific revolution; Relying on the judgment of participants in historical events and contemporaneous witnesses also takes into account the continued tradition.For example, the following are historical facts: at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Fontenelle clearly stated that the invention of calculus was a revolution in mathematics; in 1773 Lavoisier announced that his research program would lead to a revolution in 1859, Charles Darwin hailed Ryle's geological revolution and predicted that, if his own ideas were adopted, it would bring about a "considerable revolution in natural history." Contemporary documents show that Lava Tin and Darwin's overhaul, and the theories of relativity and quantum, were soon recognized as revolutions.Moreover, almost all scientists and historians of science today share the same view of the past that a revolution was some major rearrangement of scientific thought.Of course, this agreement of opinion does not make these events revolutions; as we shall see in Chapter 3, those additional tests can be used to help us determine what counts as a revolution and what does not; we can also (in In Chapter 2) we see that the distinct stages in the development of revolutionary ideas are indicative of whether a scientific revolution has actually taken place.Aside from these problems, there can be little debate about a comprehensive historical record: it shows that during the roughly 300 years since modern science began to come of age, the major events in the development of science have been thought and practiced Think of it as a revolution.The main task of this book is to describe and analyze those events, and the accounts of them as revolutions.

The Defining Problem of a Scientific Revolution The question of defining "revolution" haunts nearly every discussion of political and social revolution, and pervades the literature on scientific revolutions.I do not intend to present a strict definition of "revolution" or "scientific revolution" in this book, although I discuss some features that all scientific revolutions share, such as the stages through which they develop, which serve as evidence Tests to verify that they have occurred, and changes in thinking when revolutionary changes occur.Although there may be little disagreement, at least among all those scholars who believe in the existence of scientific revolutions, about the examples that I treat as revolutions in this book, there is no question of how precisely to define There is probably no consensus on the common features of all these revolutions.The discussion of what constitutes a revolution and how it is defined, though relevant to history, is a matter of philosophy.I know I'm not a philosopher myself, and as a historian I've always been careful to refrain from blah blah blah.In "Aristotle to the Zoo: A Philosopher's Dictionary of Biology" by Peter Bryan Medawar and Joan Medawar, there is a discussion of definitions (198, 66) that is very useful Inspiring:

In those normative contexts, definitions are extremely important. For example, in mathematical logic, definitions are the rules for substituting one symbol for another or several other symbols, but in daily life, in fields such as biology In science, it would be an overstatement to emphasize the importance of definitions.It is far from the fact that there can be no discourse if all technical terms are not precisely defined; if so, there would be no biology.The exact sciences such as mathematics, theoretical mechanics, theoretical physics, as well as astronomy and some fields of chemistry have long traditions in which definitions have become crucial.In this respect, the life sciences are different from them.But if not all sciences require precise definitions, there is certainly no reason to insist that the history of science must be seen as an integral part of science and not otherwise.

Well-documented sources show that the word "revolution" was originally popularized as a technical term of exact science, and it has long had (and still has) a similarity with "sudden" in this field. Dramatic change" has very different meanings. The word Revolution means repetition (such as the cyclical movement of the seasons), or ebb and flow (such as the movement of the tides).Thus in science, revolution means all perpetual change, endless repetition, and end point that can be the starting point of a complete new beginning.This is what we would think of phrases like "the planets in their orbits".In any event, expressions such as "revolution in science" or "revolution in science" do not connote such continuity or permanence; The establishment of a new order, the watershed between the old and familiar and the new and unusual, etc.The task of the historian is to discover when and how a purely scientific term meaning continuation and repetition was transformed into a term denoting drastic changes in political and socio-economic affairs, and to discover that this alienation in what way the concepts of science are in turn used in science itself.This set of shifts is by no means just a change in term usage.It shows that a profound change has taken place in our analysis of people and social activity, in our image of scientists and scientific activity.

From the eighteenth century to our own time, many scientists have written about their own creations as revolutions, but Copernicus and Newton did not.Part of the reason Newton and his predecessors did not admit that their work was revolutionary is that their work was done before the word "revolution" was commonly used in science.There is a deeper reason, though; during the first hundred or so years of modern science, many of the great creative scientists preferred to see themselves as revivals or rediscoverers of ancient knowledge (as opposed to their contemporaries even saw it that way), they even saw themselves as innovators who improved and expanded knowledge, but not as revolutionaries in what we usually call them today.

In the early eighteenth century, Newton's Principia was seen as constituting a revolution in physics, shortly after Fontenelle recognized that a revolution had taken place in mathematics, and not long after that, Robert Simmer announced that he had started an electrical revolution.At the time of these events, revolution in the political sense had an undertone of gentleness and generosity.Later, the French Revolution went to extremes and entered the age of terror, so that "revolution" became not so much a word expressing rapid development as a creepy word.Joseph Priestley, who emigrated to the United States in 1794 after being politically persecuted for his involvement in the French Revolution, illustrates how attitudes toward revolution changed at the end of the eighteenth century.In a letter to R. Livingston, the statesman and inventor who co-developed the steamboat with Robert Fulton, Priestley told his addressee "the most valuable discovery in the manufacture of paper" " Congratulations (Schofield 1966, 300). "If you can succeed in bleaching the paper," Priestley wrote, "you will cause a revolution in the whole paper industry." This letter was written in 1799, and Priestley did not forget the people's enthusiasm for the revolution at that time. General disgust, so he immediately added a note apologizing that Livingston's innovation must not "be called a revolution at this moment. While it is laudable, to say so would only discredit it. But anyway, it's not unacceptable to me."

The publication of the Communist Manifesto in the nineteenth century, the revolution of 1848, and the founding of the First International with its plans for world revolution revived the idea that radical change was linked to violence.Because of the negative effects of the Revolution on the minds of most people who lived in the 1850s, British and Irish scientists such as Darwin and Hamilton called their respective emphasis on science the old mild sense It is not surprising that the revolution in the past (as if new political exigencies had little effect on the changing image of science).On the Continent, scientists reacted very differently.

In the 20th century, the drama-laden events of the Russian Revolution and the specter of possible impending world communism led some, some of them scientists and some of them not, to be drawn to so-called radical physics such as Einstein's theory of relativity. The learned "Bolshevism" was stunned.Mao Zedong's teachings and the Chinese Revolution and later the "Cultural Revolution" came not long after our time.They in turn transformed the concept and image of revolutionary activity. A Comparison of Political Revolutions and Scientific Revolutions Political theory and political events, accompanied by dramatic changes in social structures, have had a profound influence on the concept of scientific revolutions since the early 1900s.It may therefore be instructive to know the following questions: Which political revolutions (and related theories) are characteristic of features that are embodied in the conception of a scientific revolution that most of us accept today? And which ones have been shown to be inapplicable? A comparison of these two types of revolutions will show that the two are more alike than we first thought. (Supplementary Material 1.1 below provides the reader with data on how people have historically Looking at the comparison of political revolutions and scientific revolutions.)

What all political revolutions have in common is that they contain elements of "newness," as Hannah Arendt (1965) insisted. "The modern conception of revolution," she writes, is inextricably linked to "the idea that the historical process will suddenly reappear." Revolution thus signifies "an entirely new situation, a situation little known or unheard of, about to presented." Yet we shall see that in the scientific revolution there are certain intermediate moments in the transition between the old and the new.The same connection exists, though perhaps less closely, in political revolutions.However, it seems to contradict common sense that this characteristic does not detract from the strength and impact of scientific or political revolutions. Clearly, in determining whether a certain series of events "really" constitutes a revolution, judgments must be made about the depth and breadth of novelty.Perhaps, as Petty (1938, ii) points out, there was a continuum of phases from "great revolutions" such as the French and Russian Revolutions to "court coups such as the murder of Duncan I by McPace".To others, however, coupsdetat or palace coups may be seen as "acts of rebellion" that do not involve any fundamental political (i.e. political institutional) or social change.Thus, to some extent, designating a particular event as a revolution depends not only on objective criteria for judging the kind of change (whether there is a change in political institutions), but also on an individual's judgment of the degree of change.This latter factor hampers any attempt at a universally applicable definition of revolution. Anyone who studies scientific revolutions will soon discover that these events, like social, political, and economic revolutions, have a hierarchy, and can be divided into major revolutions and minor revolutions according to their importance.Some large-scale changes affect the whole of a certain theory, and not only that, some even affect the modes of explanation and thinking of other disciplines, as shown by the Darwin revolution or the revolution of relativity and quantum mechanics.There are also smaller revolutions, which may have had a very profound effect on only a part of a certain discipline, but have not affected the thought of that discipline as a whole or that of other disciplines; chiefly brought about by Wilhelm Wundt The revolution in the foundations of the new experimental psychology is an example.George Gaylord Simpson (1978, 273), in his review of the opposition faced in the early days of the theory of continental drift, attempted to classify the revolution exactly, in which he put this change in "Physical Geology" Call it a "larger, lesser revolution." Readers will find this term puzzling, since Simpson does not account for the nuances that might make the difference between a "larger" revolution and a "lesser" revolution. Nor is it indicated those differences which might exist between the lesser revolutions and the greater lesser ones.This tendency to divide revolutions into grades began as early as the eighteenth century, when the historian of astronomy J. -S．Bayly discusses some large-scale revolutions, such as those caused by Copernicus and Newton, which he recognizes; he also discusses smaller revolutions accompanying the adoption of new observational instruments, which may Lead to a new way of thinking or a new knowledge base. New instruments also have the potential to be revolutionary on a large scale, as was the case with the invention of the telescope.In his notes and in his book The Messenger of the Stars (1610), Galileo recorded mountain ranges on the moon, thus confirming that - in his words - "the moon is like another earth, the ancient Pythagorean Spiegel's point of view." As a firm believer in the Copernican theory, Galileo unknowingly drew conclusions about the condition of the moon's surface from his observations of bright spots and dark spots in the shadow area of ​​the moon. Imagine that the surface of the moon is similar to that of the earth.When he gazed at the moon through his newly invented telescope, he "saw" something similar to that on Earth (cf. Cohen 1980, 211-215).Galileo's discovery that Jupiter has four moons was a major achievement in astronomy.How could the earth move around the sun at such an incredible speed (about 20 miles per second) without losing its moon?In Galileo's day, this conundrum became a powerful argument against the possibility of the Earth orbiting.Galileo may never have solved that problem, but he found that Jupiter did not lose four of its moons in its motion, and this dispelled the objection that it was impossible for the Earth to move without losing its moons.Then Galileo discovered that there are sunspots on the sun and the sun is also rotating.He observed that Venus also has different phases like the moon, and he deduced from the correspondence between the phases of Venus and its apparent size that Venus orbited the sun, not the earth.He also found that much of the "nebula" was just a collection of very faint stars.These stars are imperceptible to the human eye, and there are countless others in the sky which had never been seen by anyone before the invention of the telescope. Astronomy has never been static.However, these revolutionary changes in astronomy, including the intuitive illustration of the errors of Ptolemaic system, were not "caused" by telescopes but by the spirit of Galileo.Galileo absorbed the theory of Copernicus and observed through the telescope. Based on this, he came to some unorthodox conclusions, and the spirit of Galileo was the product of such conclusions.Telescopes have brought about a dramatic change in the variety, size, and scope of astronomical databases; yet these data do not constitute a scientific revolution within and by themselves. For computers, the situation is different. Computers, like probability and statistics, have had a fundamental impact on scientific thinking and the formation of theories. One example is the new computer models provided for world meteorology.That is to say, the changes that Galileo made to the data through the telescope required the abandonment of traditional theories and the acceptance of new ones, but they did not fundamentally affect the way the theory was related to the experimental data.In contrast, the introduction of probability led to a new theory—a new science, in fact—in which the traditional basis of causality-one-to-one correspondence was replaced by a statistical one .The same is true of the use of computers, as logically related propositions and formal mathematical statements have been replaced by comprehensive computer models. In addition to being new, another feature shared by revolutions in science and sociopolitical revolutions is the phenomenon of conversion (for a discussion of conversion see Chapter 30 of this book).One example suffices to illustrate the revolutionary zeal of the scientific converts. In 1596, in the preface to the first edition of The Mysteries of the Universe (1981, 63), Kepler described the stages of his conversion to Copernican astronomy, on which he wrote at the beginning of the book Two chapters are elaborated again.God, he believed, had shown him why and how the Copernican system was created, why there were only six planets and "not 20 or 100" planets, and why the planets were in their respective orbits on, why they have the speed they appear to be, and so on.Later, he explained it in terms of what we know today as Kepler's third (or harmonic) law.But in 1596, he was setting out to prove that God, who created the world and governed the order of the universe, had already considered "five regular geometries known since the time of Pythagoras and Plato." He later wrote that he had "such a respect for Copernicus's heliocentric system: since I have confirmed it in my heart, and since I have noticed its undoubted and ecstatic perfection, I should defend it with all my might in the presence of my readers." The comparison of political and scientific revolutions is not limited to intrinsic factors such as enthusiasm.For example, every political revolution is characterized by a series of military activities associated with the takeover of institutions of power.Chalmers Johnson (1964, 6) pointedly pointed out that "those "drastic changes that are not caused by violence to change the system" are examples of other forms of social change." Although people may not usually think that science Revolutions involve violence, but many of the great revolutions in science have shown a pattern of activity similar to the actual overthrow of a government.In a scientific revolution, there will often be a series of such activities through which one can gain control over the scientific community, the educational sector, etc., and control the Academy of Sciences, scientific laboratories, and those responsible for policy formulation and financial allocation. The seat of power in the scientific council.This can be seen in the very dramatic Lysenko Revolution in the Soviet Union, during which the power of orthodox (Western) genetics was defeated.Lysenko and his followers took control of the genetics department of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the system of agricultural experimental stations.They rewrote textbooks to accommodate their new unorthodox views, and they rearranged the entire educational and experimental system of genetics.These revolutionaries drove from their posts all geneticists and even members of the Academy of Sciences who refused to adhere to this new revolutionary line.The Soviet Union's very influential geneticist N. I．Vavilov, the brother of the president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, also disappeared; in fact, when he died in 1943, no official obituary was issued detailing his final years in the concentration camps and the details of his eventual death there. Circumstances and specific dates. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Nazis not only removed Jews from office, but sanctioned a revolutionary movement to cleanse German science of the stain of "un-Aryan" or excessive theoretical thinking.Two of the leaders of this movement were Nobel laureates in physics Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark.Under Hitler, Stark tried to reorganize and expand the physics community in Germany, but he was opposed by some brave and decent people headed by Max von Laue, among them Max Rank, Arnold Sommerfeld, and Werner Heisenberg, etc., Stark called them "the white Jew of science," "the governor of the spirit of Einstein" (cf. Hermann 1975, 615).Leonard is Stark's teacher, friend and colleague. Leonard is also an extremely fanatical patriot. He firmly believes that a "disarmed nation" is a "disgraced nation" (Her. Herman 1973, 182).At the annual meeting of German scientists and doctors in 1920, Leonard engaged in a public debate with Einstein, which was made exceptional by Lenard's "violent vicious attacks" and his "blatant anti-Semitism" striking.As early as 1924, Leonard, concluding one of his academic lectures on physics, touted Adolf Hitler as "a true philosopher with a clear head." He became Hitler's chief authority on physics and published A four-volume work on experimental physics entitled German Physics (1936-1937), which he defined as "Aryan physics" or "Aryan physics." He said : "Science . The field of genetics in the Soviet Union gained complete control over German physics.Only a few of their peers joined Stark and Renard, and their "efforts left little fruit except support for the Third Reich" (Hermann 1973, 182; Beilschen 1972 ). Of course, scientific change due to political forces was not limited to the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the 20th century.We shall find perhaps an early example of the Cartesian forces' control of the French scientific community, from ideas to institutions, at various stages (Sarton 1982).The revolutionary Cartesians, in order to extend their influence, in every class imaginable, with the Jesuits and their schools, with the Church and its University of Paris, and with Aristotelianism had fought.They were admitted to the influential salons, and eventually, gained a following among the intellectuals.Before long, the Cartesians took control of the schools (secondary schools and private Jesuit colleges of higher learning) as well as the universities.The Cartesians had a powerful voice in the Paris Academy of Sciences, the "Permanent Secretary" of the Academy, Fontenelle, who was not only a staunch Cartesian, but also wrote a treatise on Descartes. Important work on the system of cosmic vortices ("whirlwinds").Jacques Rooux was a famous follower of Descartes, whose comprehensive textbook replaced traditional writings and became the standard source of scientific knowledge in the second half of the 17th century; the textbook was printed again and again , and has been translated into several different languages. In 1687, when Isaac Newton proposed a new and revolutionary scientific theory, it became clear that the real enemies to be defeated were not Aristotelians and scholastics but Cartesians and Its physical cosmology is based on the vortex theory.In the conclusion of the second part of his "Principles", Newton pointed out that Descartes' hypothesis "is completely contradictory to astronomical phenomena", and what it caused was a "confusion rather than an understanding of the motion of celestial bodies." However, this Not enough to refute the Cartesians and others; an active lobbying had to be fought on many fronts simultaneously.The first was to explicitly seek government support, a campaign launched when Newton presented his Principia (first edition) to the Academy of Philosophy and its supporter, King James II.Knowing that the King was interested in naval affairs, Edmund Halley wrote a special note for the King introducing the part of the Principia that discusses tidal motion (see Cohen and Scofield 1978, &5).Because the Church was so powerful in every field of thought, the Newtonians wanted to control the new Boyle Lectures (which were instituted at the behest of the chemist and natural philosopher Robert Boyle), when , which consisted of eight Christological sermons organized by the Church of London (see Gluck and Jacobs 1969).These lectures immediately became an important medium for explaining Newton's science. The Newtonians, following the line chosen by Roo, promoted popular lectures on the new science and extensive demonstrations in order to make the subject more palatable and understandable.William Whiston and J. T．De Zagurlier is an advocate of Newton's theory.Newton used his personal influence to replace the scholastic and Cartesian teachers in some important universities with Newtonian teachers.Before long a powerful Newtonian network emerged, including Colin McLaughlin at Edinburgh, Roger Coates at Cambridge, David Gregory at Oxford, and a few others.To gain control of the textbooks, Newton's disciple Sedius Clarke added a critical note to his translation of Rooh's work on natural philosophy.It was this Clark who defended Newton in his famous polemic with Leibniz.In the end, Roo's treatise became an important work in propagating Newton's natural philosophy under the guise of modified Cartesianism.Other disciples of Newton wrote novel textbooks.Finally, while Newtonford London was Superintendent of the Mint, he was elected President of the Royal Society, a position which he used to ensure that the institution participated in the struggle for the status of Newton's philosophy, and with Leib Niedz defended Newton's lead in the debate over who invented calculus first. Most of these examples are selected from successful or partially successful revolutions.Of course, in addition to this, there is another category of situations, that is, the failure of the revolution.In the political sphere, prominent examples of failure are the revolution of 1848 and the aborted revolution of 1905 in Russia.Scientists and historians of science generally don't talk about failed revolutions.That is, they tend to use the name "revolution" only for movements that have actually been successful (see Chapter 2).No one has yet written a history of scientific failure.This, too, is an aspect of the revolutionary problem in which scientific activity is distinctly different from political and social activity. A final point in which a political or social revolution differs from a scientific revolution is purpose.In a sense, both types of revolutions have a specific narrow purpose.For example, the purpose of Newton's revolution is to establish a new rational mechanical system, on this basis, people can trace and predict the phenomena observed on the earth and in the air.The realization of this purpose is based on concepts such as mass, space, time, force and inertia, but it also includes the concept of universal gravitation.This seems to be somewhat similar to the purpose of creating a certain society, for example, in the purpose of creating a society, it may include the requirements of equal economic opportunity, political freedom, the establishment of a parliamentary system or representative government, and so on.The real difference is that in most political and social revolutions the ends are said to be attainable at once.For example, there is no doubt that the purpose of the Russian Revolution was to establish a communist state and a classless society.The realization of this purpose has never been seen as the prelude to an endless series of political and social revolutions; once the ideal state has been established, there will be no further need for revolution.The development of science, however, especially after the revolutionary period of the 19th and 18th centuries, leads us to expect that science will undergo a series of successive revolutions without end.Here, there is no such a final and specific goal: once it is achieved, there will be no more revolutions.For example, followers of Newton are well aware that there are fields, such as chemistry.In the fields of optics, heat, and physiology, a scientific revolution is badly needed.Even in the field of geodynamics and celestial mechanics, the motion of the moon during the simultaneous motion of the sun and the earth is still an unresolved problem.In science, a successful revolution also lays down a revolutionary program for further revolutions, while a political and social revolution (ideally at least) has a program for the eventual revolution it hopes to achieve. Revolutionary Science and Society A scientific revolution plays a very different role in society than a political or social revolution.Radicals, social or political, by plotting or propagating the overthrow of an established social order or political system, by proposing a theory that can be put into practice and that may lead to a social or political revolution, and then participate in a revolutionary movement Molecules pose a threat to the existing social order or political system.So it seems that social or political radicals are an immediate potential danger to our way of life, to our system of government, to our value system, and even to our family system, our family system. , our property and our occupations.As for the "haves" and "have-nots", obviously this discussion does have more relevance to the rich, however even the poor may want to succeed in the current system (even on a small scale) And become rich, thus avoiding revolutionary movements.Radicals in science, on the other hand, pose an immediate threat to the prevailing structure or state of knowledge in science, but not on a society-wide scale.Of course, science does have an impact on the lives of ordinary men and women, but often only to a certain extent, and the impact is not direct but indirect, the result of practical applications.Take, for example, the basic science of polymer chemistry, a science that by itself has little impact on society, but applied to the production of man-made fibers, this science has implications for our way of life, our economic system, and possibly The rescheduling of employment situations has had a huge impact.The same is true for radar, supersonic flight, nuclear power, defeating disease, and exploring space, to name a few.The actual byproduct of the scientific revolution is technological innovation, with which old occupations disappear and new ones may appear. There were, however, some revolutionary ideas that were generally opposed because they seemed, in some ways, to threaten beliefs central to social order.Darwin's (1859) aroused a great deal of hostility among lay readers, and even among some scientists, which, we shall see, was essentially unscientific.并非整个世界真的关心这些技术性的问题，例如：物种的变化、由来和稳定性，自然选择、生存斗争、或适者生存等等，至少人们并不关心这些表述适用于野生的动植物还是家庭培育的动植物。不过，对宗教界而言，达尔文进化论的内在含义的确令人烦恼，因为它对《创世纪》头几页中有关创造物的说明提出了怀疑。人与猿有着共同的祖先，人在自然界中并不具备自有历史记载以来所有的哲学和宗教给予他的那种独一无二的地位，这些戏剧性的论断使许多人有了一种名副其实的苦闷感。科学革命的这一方面——亦即它们对严密的科学领域之外的男人和女人们的思维活动的影响，被称作是意识形态的组成部分。 哥白尼学说的内在含义，即人类及其所居住的地球在宇宙中的中心位置被别的星球取代了，也是一个革命性科学思想中含有意识形态成分的有趣的例子。看起来，当人们被告之：他所居住的行星已经被从一个固定的中心位置上移走了，它只不过成了（用哥白尼的话说）"另一个行星，"而且从物理上讲，成了一个相当不起眼的行星，此时此刻，对他的自尊心肯定是一个实实在在的打击。约翰·多恩（他大概还没有信奉那些支持或反对那种新体系的最为简洁的、专门的天文学论证）写道，没有一个固定的位置，地球就会丢失，而且人甚至不知道到何处去找它："所有的内在联系都不复存在了。"马丁·路德对专业天文学（即使有所了解的话）了解的并不多，然而，甚至在没有阅读哥白尼所写的任何东西时，他就对哥白尼思想产生了强烈的反感。 哲学家、神学家、政治学家和社会学家，以及受过教育的男人和女人们，在考虑整个物理宇宙和自然界，考虑"自然规律"、宗教或宗教信仰的基础、以及上帝的本质甚至政府的形式时，他们的思想方式也会受到牛顿革命的影响。不过，哥白尼思想也许最终超越出了严格的科学范围之外，其影响比牛顿思想更大，这是因为，那种以为人在宇宙中有着独特的地位、而且唯人独尊的观点，亦即传统的人类中心说，被哥白尼学说动摇了。从这方面讲，哥白尼的影响大概与达尔文的影响而不是牛顿的影响更为相似。 西格蒙德·弗洛伊德把人们对他的革新的敌意与类似的人们对哥白尼思想和达尔文思想带有敌意的反应进行了比较，他就是根据他个人的痛苦经历和他对历史的长期考察进行著述的。也许，爱因斯坦革命所引起的，是20世纪世界范围内知识界最大的轰动。当然，大部分人并不理解爱因斯坦的理论，尽管如此，他们还是认为，新的相对论物理学为意味着"任何事物都是相对的"这样一种广义的相对主义提供了依据，对于宗教、伦理和道德方面的"绝对"信仰而言，不再有什么可以站得住脚的标准了。 1973年，在牛津的一次赫伯特·斯宾塞讲座上，卡尔·波普尔对科学革命和意识形态革命作了区分，这种区分还是很有用的。在他看来，一个是"一种新的理论合理地推翻一种已被确立的科学理论，"另一个则包含着"对于思想意识（甚至那些把某些科学结果掺入其中的思想意识）社会给予保护或社会予以承认的所有过程。""哥白尼革命和达尔文革命"说明了究竟是怎样"一场科学革命引起一场意识形态革命"的，从而也就例释了科学革命在什么情况下可能有着不同的"科学的"和"意识形态的组成部分"（1975，88）。革命这两个方面最令人感兴趣的大概是，一场革命也许在科学中有着深刻的影响，但其构成中却没有意识形态的组成部分。一个突出的例子就是场论物理学的引入，这项工作大部分是由法拉第和麦克斯韦完成的，它使物理学基础发生了全面的革命，而且从根本上取代了物理学的牛顿基础，它牢固地根植于有心力这一概念之中，并且为相对论物理学开辟了道路。尽管从那时起每一位物理学家都意识到，这一学科已经发生了极为根本性的转变，但是，在对经典物理学的这种大胆的改造中，却不含任何意识形态方面的成分。量子力学，"物质理论的历史中一次最为根本性的科学革命"（波普尔，1975，90），也是如此。量子力学革命没有任何意识形态方面的成分，海森伯的测不准原理并没有像几年以前的相对论那样抓住公众的想象力，这些事实使物理学家们长期感到困惑不解。值得注意的是，至少到目前为止，在我们这个时代伟大的分子生物学革命中，也并未含有任何惊人的意识形态方面的成分。 社会上对科学革命的第二种敌意，也许可以说是对科学的成果和应用的一种反应，而不是对科学本身的一种反应。由于许多民用技术和军用技术的迅速进步都是由新的科学或科学革命导致的，现在已经有了这样一种倾向，即把科学和技术看作是同一回事，甚至有人认为科学应对技术负责。这并非是一种全新的现象。在大萧条期间，以科学为基础的技术革新速度过快的增长，被认为应对所谓的因技术发展而导致的失业负责，以致于一度出现了一种"暂停科学"的要求。我们已经看到，对我们时代耗资巨大的空间计划，有些人提出了反对意见，其中这样一些人的反对尤为强烈：他们宁愿看到公众的钱花在改善我们的城市条件或从事其他的社会慈善事业上，而不愿把这些钱花在更新我们对太阳系和宇宙其他部分的知识上。而且，对于那些以最新的生物学发现和物理学发现作为其技术基础的武器，许多人已经表露出了一种显而易见的强烈关注。我们周围那些善良的女士和先生们，将会谴责污染和其他的环境恶化方面的现象，而且——也许对，也许不对——把这些恶果归咎于作为技术革新之主要动力的科学。还有如此之多的人认为，科学发展所经过的革命并非是乐善好施之举，而且对于"人类的条件"来说并不意味着真正的进步。 除了这类考虑之外，在科学共同体自身之中，有这样一种普遍的信念，即认为科学中的每一场革命都是一种进步。当然，总会有些顽固分子出来反对任何会摧毁现有的概念、理论和普遍信念的重要的革新。科学中的每一场伟大的革命都会在一些科学家中引起反对意见；其反对的程度和范围，甚至会被看作是反映革命性变化的深度的一种尺度。此外，每一位科学家都不会愿意他花了很多的时间和很大的精力学来的技能和专业知识变成过时的东西，从这种意义上讲，每位科学家在保持现状中都可得到一种即得利益。尽管对于变革会有这样一种出于本能的反对，但是，与在社会政冶系统中所看到的情况不同，科学系统中并不存在试图为保持事物的现状和压制科学中的革命运动而组织起来的保守党派。在科学中，你常常会看到激进分子和保守分子（甚至个别反对革命的人），而且，总会有这么一些人，他们更喜欢旧的方法和方式，而不喜欢新的。然而我认为，所有科学家都会同意已故的保罗·西尔斯记录下的对人文学科的一位同事的一段回答，这位同事说："我想，你会把我看作是一个守旧的人，但我认为，细菌与疾病没有什么联系。"他回答说："不！我并不认为你是一个守旧的人；我认为，你只不过是无知而已。" 由于科学革命会在科学领域中产生一种革新，而受其影响的主要是不同的科学家，因而非科学家并非一定要理解全新的科学。许多不同的科学家、甚至大部分科学家，尤其是其专业范围与革新无关的那些科学家，也许对新的科学理论难以理解。爱因斯坦的相对论理论就是这样的一个例子。曾经有过这么一种流行的说法，即只有8个人（或12个人）懂得相对论，这反映出该理论的所谓难理解性给人留下的深刻印象。可是，它对于公众而言的那种难理解性，既没有影响科学共同体对相对论的承认，也没有影响大众们提出这样一种看法，即爱因斯坦是一个天才，他那难以理解的、革命性的理论，是20世纪最伟大的思想成就之一。 总的来讲，科学著作只是为了写给不同的科学家看的，与此不同，艺术、音乐或文学作品往往并非（当然也不排除）只是为了让艺术家、音乐家或作家欣赏或阅读而创作的。文学作品生来就是让大家读的，艺术作品生来就是让大家看的，而音乐作品生来就是让大家听的。此外，艺术家、音乐家和作家的生活，在相当大的程度上取决于有欣赏力的观众、听众或读者所付的酬金和版税。这是一种对创作领域中真正富有革命精神的那些人不利的情况，每当大众的口味可以决定创作领域中的可接受性准则时，这种情况几乎就会不知不觉地出现。当然，也有一些例外，例如斯特拉文斯基和毕加索的情况就是如此。一种总体上"全新的独创风格"，尤其是在艺术界，似乎已经使毕加索取得了普遍的成功，而且其成功的范围远远超出了公众对他的作品所能理解的范围。毫无疑问，在本世纪20年代，能够阅读、理解和充分欣赏詹姆斯·乔伊斯作品的作家和批评家的人数，与当时能真正理解爱因斯坦广义相对论的科学家的人数相差无几。不过，尽管许多科学家还不能把爱因斯坦的这一理论全部吃透，或者，尽管他们在阅读爱因斯坦的著作时尚不能轻松自如或完全理解，但爱因斯坦的结论却被他们接受并应用了。再看着乔伊斯的情况，他的作品只获得了评论界的称誉；而读者大众和大部分以写作为生的人并没有接受和应用乔伊斯的全新的改革，因为他们很难读懂他的《菲内根的觉醒》（这部作品在《变迁》周刊上连载发表时，曾被称作是"进步的作品"），而且，如果采用新的风格就会使作者脱离读者，这样就会妨害而不是改善他们的职业状况。 一些保守的社会（所有高度组织化和制度化的社会，从要自我保护这个意义上讲，本质上都是保守的），对科学中的革命活动的容忍程度已经并不单单限于容许其他形式的精神或艺术的创造性成就的存在，它们甚至还对其予以鼓励，这真是一种自相矛盾而且令人费解的现象。然而，一个有着极为激进的政治、社会或经济观点的男人或女人，就有可能遇到障碍（特别在涉及到就业问题上时更是如此），这些障碍会对正常的前途的发展产生妨碍作用，而且，这种人，作为一个持不同政见者，甚至有可能会遇到法律或国家的压制，不过，对于科学家来讲，一旦他或她最激进的观点取得成功，那就会获得特别的荣誉。科学是一种特殊的事业，在这种事业中，革命活动已经制度化了；这种系统不仅承认独创性并赋予它很大的价值（正如R．K．默顿告诉我们的那样），而且还给予成功的革命者大笔奖金并在社会方面给予报答。在文学、艺术或音乐领域中，极端的激进分子会被当作是先锋派的成员，而且他或她的观众、听众或读者有可能寥寥无几；与科学相比，这些创造性领域对于革命者既没有报答、奖金，也没有荣誉。此外，值得注意的是，尽管诺贝尔奖金定期地奖给那些做出过业已变得十分重要且确实具有革命性的贡献的科学家，但在文学界还不曾有过这样的奖励来奖赏那些有着类似的重要性和革命性且具有创新精神的作家，如奥古斯特·斯特林堡，亨里克·易卜生，马塞尔·普鲁斯特，詹姆斯·乔伊斯，或弗吉尼亚·沃尔夫等。 社会之所以愿意支持和奖励革命性的科学，甚至支持和奖励某种极端的通常难以理解的科学，其主要原因就在于，社会对于实际利益的期望是经常不断的，例如，希望生活得更健康更长寿，希望有更好的交通运输和通讯条件，有新的得到了改进的人造纤维，希望有效率更高的农业和加工业，希望日常生活中有更多的方便，国防事业中有更为完善的设备，如此等等。过去半个世纪的经验一次又一次生动地证明，越是富有创新性和革命性的科学，其实际应用的意义也就越为深远，影响也就越为广泛。 对科学革命的预见 尽管每一位科学家都会对即将来临的革命有所意识，但是，并没有什么明显的普编的迹象可以告诉科学领域中甚至最为敏锐的观察家，下一场革命将在那里发生、将采取什么样的形式。即使最有才华的科学家也无法精确地预见他们自己将会引起什么样的革命。（这正好与政治革命者或社会革命者形成了对照：政治革命者或社会革命者都有一个事先制定好的纲领，因而能把其革命活动对准精心确定下来的目标。） 在科学中之所以无法准确地预见革命将在哪里发生或它将由什么构成，一个主要的原因就是，不同的科学彼此都可谓是"艺术"。在一个领域中某项不可预见的革命性革新，也许会为某个别的领域提供手段，从而导致该领域取得惊人的进展。这是因为，某一科学领域中的革命性进展，往往依赖于其他科学领域中的革命，这种不可预见性是快速地按指数增加的。分子生物学的兴趣就是一个例子，尤其是DNA结构的阐释，它需要利用物理学中发展起来的一门技术——X射线晶体学。由于技术中最为迅速的变革往往来自基础科学中那些无法预见的革命，因而在技术的预测方面，尤其是对于技术领域中即将来临的革命的预测，也就有了一种按指数增长的不确定性。计算机科学家中流传着这样一种说法：在本世纪40年代末50年代初，计算机这门新兴专业的一位大专家曾预见说，只要有六、七台计算机就能满足美国未来的需要了，再多几台就能满足整个欧洲的需要了。尽管当时的计算机十分庞大，但最终表明，这个数字还是太小了。这位不知名的预见者难以预测到，在未来，一系列的革命（如固体物理学中的革命那样）竟然能完全改变计算机的大小、性质和功能。 科学中的革命是不可避免的，从这个意义上讲，它们也是不可抗拒的，至少，只要科学继续存在，情况就会是如此。当然，它们也许不得不等待，直到有一个特殊的富有革命精神的天才来点燃导火索。而科学家们，正如我们所说的那样，是不希望革命受到阻碍的。不过，这些革命的进度，或者，它们发生的频率，既可能减慢也可能加快。也就是说，有些因素，例如大规模的财政支持，能够加快科学进步的速度，能够使更多的领域向具有革命性的科学活动开放，因为这种支持能为研究提供更多的人力，能够制造或购买昂贵的仪器设备。开展野外调查，或考察、探险，进行观测，在科学共同体中建立起更完善的通讯系统，以及给那些富有创造精神的女士和先生们更多的时间进行思考（亦即，让他们从过去繁重的教学和管理岗位上解脱出来），所有这些都需要大笔的资金。有可能获得职业基金和用于培训研究生的奖学金，这种希望吸引着具有创造潜力的青年男女步入科学界。相反，资金匮乏不仅限制着购置和制造研究用的仪器设备、限制着考察的进行，而且还限制着人们外出和进行无拘无束的交流，以及对于进步来说必不可少的科学情报机构的中枢系统的活动。更为重要的是，缺少资金会使专业人数和奖学金的数额减少，并且会缩小用来招募下一代科学家的通信网。这种人力的减少，就会使富有革命精神的天才人物在恰当的时间位于恰当的位置上的可能性减小，从而直接减缓科学革命的速度。 科学革命概念的转变 今天，谈论科学革命、哥白尼革命、达尔文革命、计算机革命、信息革命等等已经不足为奇了。近年来，几乎科学技术中的每一个进步，都在每天的新闻报道中被描述成是一场革命。从某种程度上可以认为，这是因为在语言的使用中有些词使用得太滥了，但另一方面，这也是这样一个简单的事实的反应，即科学中已经发生了许多革命，而且还在继续发生着革命。在我撰写本章时，只要我向书房中的一个书架上瞥一眼就会看到十几本有关计算机的书，这些书的书名都有"革命"的字样。谁会否认已经有了一场计算机革命呢？ 不过，即使到了20世纪，科学家和科学史家也并没有普遍认为，科学是通过一系列的革命而进步的。在本世纪上半叶，人们一般认为，科学中发生革命是极为罕见的事。相反，科学被看作主要是以一种渐进的方式发展的，也就是说，科学是通过一个累积的过程而发展的，在这个过程中，一个小的发展或增长，多少有点规律地随着另一个进步或增长的发生而出现。按照这种模型，比通常增长量大很多的发展，例如与牛顿、拉瓦锡、达尔文、卢瑟福或爱因斯坦等人的活动相当的进步，也许可以说是构成了一场革命；革命的发生，也有可能是一个又一个本身很小的进步累积而成的。然而，如此重要的科学领域中的重组活动，即使有人认为它们的确发生过，其发生也会被认为是极为罕见的。 乔治·萨顿，科学史这一学术研究领域的主要奠基者之一，并不是一位科学革命的伟大信徒。他甚至这样认为，其实只是我们肤浅的"对科学进步的第一印象"告诉我们，科学是通过不连续的巨大发展而前进的。这些巨大的发展像一组"巨大的楼梯，每一级巨型台阶都代表一个必不可少的重要发现，即那些几乎是骤然之间就使我们到达了一个更高的水准之上的发现。"他说，当我们"作出我们的分析时"，我们发现，这些大的进步……可以划分成较小的进步，而那些小的进步还可以划分成另外一些更小的进步，直到最后，这些进步似乎完全消失了为止（1937，21－22人许多科学家和史学家们都同意这一点；卢瑟福（1938，73）说，"并非任何一个人都会理所当然地做出一项惊人的发现，"这段话实际上充分地再现了R．A．密立根的这一粗暴的论断——科学中发生革命是极为罕见的事。萨顿的分析使他确信，科学所具有的积累性是它的一个主要部分；事实上，他（1936，5）断言，科学只不过是"实实在在地积累和渐进着的"人类活动——J．B．科南特（1947，2O）和其他一些人也都赞同这一看法。在许多分析家看来，科学中的革命，倘若确实发生的话，那么一定像社会政治领域中那些伟大的革命一样，是一些并不常见的事，包们只是偶而地打断一下在其他方面均为"常态的"有规律的或渐进式的发展。 1962年，T． S．库恩的《科学革命的结构》一书，从根本上改变了我们对科学变化的看法。没有几本科学史方面的著作曾经引起人们如此巨大的兴趣和持续这么长久的讨论。甚至那些并非在所有细节上都同意库恩的分析的人，也不得不承认，科学的发展并非必然就是一个积累的过程，科学中存在着一些大的革命，在这些大的革命之间还有一些较小的革命，革命的过程是科学知识增长模型的一个组成部分。 在其具有创新性的研究中，库恩并没有阐述一般的历史，而是根据与库恩所说的"常态科学"交替出现的一系列革命，阐述了科学变革的社会动力学。库恩图式业已适用于多种不同的领域，如历史政治学理论，科学和公共政策（生物医学知识的应用除外），除了适用于历史、哲学和科学社会学以外，它甚至还可以用来说明现代大学的性质问题。人们对库恩大胆描述的一个主要反应，就是对他分析的某些部分提出了怀疑，并指出，他的图式并不是普遍适用的，它只适用于某些科学、或某些特殊的时期或特定的事件。人们对他的专门术语（即著名的"范式"这个词）的确切含义，也不得不提出疑问（或者说，不得不对这个术语含义的模糊性和多重性加以探究）。在涉及到科学变革时使用革命这一概念是否合宜，对此已经有人提出了疑问。这些问题以及库恩的贡献将在本书第2章和第26章中进行讨论；这里只需认识到，在有关科学的过去、现在和未来的讨论中，库恩对对于革命这个概念的推广使用有着引人注目的影响。 翻一翻任何有关当代科学史的著作或文章，看一看世界各地的杂志中赋予科学革命无处不在的名声，就可以了解到，本世纪扣年代以来事态是如何变化的。自1962年以来，大批专门论述17世纪科学革命的著作问世了。其中有5本［作者分别是巴萨拉，里格希尼-博内利和谢伊，布洛，卡尼，以及罗西］涉及到编年史，而且所有这些书，其大部分内容都是不同领域中尝试定义、解释或分析科学革命原因的那些学者所作论述的摘录。在这几本书中，乔治·巴萨拉编的那本书讨论了现代科学兴起的"外在因素和内在因素"；在这里，编者"有意地避开了科学革命这个术语，而使用了一个不那么讲究但更为精确的短语16世纪和问世纪科学的兴起。"在第15届国际科学史大会上（爱丁堡，1977），讨论哲学、方法论和历史的第11小组中，每6篇文章中就有1篇涉及到革命问题。 在大量的而且还在不断增长的有关科学革命的文献中，在对这一课题几乎每一个可以想象得到的方面的研究和分析中，几乎无人提及这个概念的历史。刘易斯·福伊尔的著作《爱因斯坦和科学时代》（1974，241-252）则是个例外，这本书例举了把革命这个概念用于科学之上的一些例子，这些例子主要是19世纪末和20世纪的。倘若事实上科学史家并非大都以忽视他们自己的学科和专业的历史而著称的话，那么，科学史家对这一论题的忽略或许更会令人惊讶（参见萨克雷和默顿1972；萨克雷1980）。 本书的目的就是要填补文献中的这个空白——在科学家、哲学家和史学家构想出的科学变等的道路上，探索四个世纪以来诸多变革的由来。在许多情况下，那些使用"革命"这一术语的学者们，心中所想的恐怕不是别的，只是用一个历史的比喻来表示某一伟大的转变，或某一项确实很有意义的发明。这也是一种印象主义的并且带有个性色彩的用法；我怀疑，学者们在论及科学中的革命时，心中所想的是否总是它与某个特定的社会革命或政治革命相类似。不过，我们将考察许多实例，它们表明社会革命和政治革命的理论对科学革命概念的改变产生了强烈的影响。我们还将看到，这些概念是怎样受到学者们所生活的时代中实际发生的社会革命和政治革命的进一步影响的。 例如，在世界许多地方，那些具有革命性的科学，其形象都受到人们对1917年俄国革命中产生的布尔什维主义的厌恶的影响。在18世纪，拉瓦锡尚且可以把他的化学革命与法国正在进行的政治革命相比较，当时，法国革命正处在波旁王朝的君主专制制度的更迭这样一个较为温和的阶段；然而不久，当革命的过火行为进入了恐怖时期时，这种比较就失去了它的那种意义，而拉瓦锡本人也在断头台上一命呜呼了。生活在18世纪后半叶的英国史学家，在考虑光荣革命甚至在考虑美国的独立战争时，大概非常有理由把革命看作是温和的，是对恢复英国人的某些自然权力起到了一定影响的。不过，这样的史学家也必须合情合理地承认，法国大革命是有害的一大灾祸，因为伴随着它的是更为狂热的社会暴力活动，它对业已建立起来的秩序的破坏也更为彻底。这不像是一个理论上的例子，因为它把爱德蒙·伯克的观点准确地描述了出来。 当前的一种观点为革命概念随着时间的推移而变化提供了一个关键性的例子，这种观点认为，科学革命也许已经延续了一个世纪，甚至延续了三个世纪，即从1500年到1800年（霍尔，1954）。这不仅使得这场科学革命成了有历史记载以来持续时间最长的革命，而且，它也许还暗示着一种与光荣革命、美国独立战争以及法国大革命等模式完全不同的革命概念。也就是说，现在流行的有关科学革命的观点，在有意或无意地使用着这样一种革命概念：这种概念显然不是通过从一组假定的政治革命和社会革命的原则和实践中进行抽象、并把它们原封不动地用于对科学增长的思考之上得来的。 无论一种给定的有关科学变革的观念是受社会政治理论或社会政治事件的影响，还是受其他外部原因的影响，我们都可以胸有成竹地说，它总要受到科学发展本身的影响——即总要受到使科学家们对其领域的认识、或者使其专业中的实践一天天发生戏剧性变化的那些理论、发明或系统阐述的影响。从对科学变革的本质毫无认识的时代到亲眼目睹科学变革的时代，史学家、哲学家或科学家对科学变革究竟有什么看法，我们尚无法充分了解。只有在将来的某个时候，我们才能够正确地评价：更大的社会范围内的那些看法和事件是以什么样的方式影响了对这些事件的解释的。出于这个原因，本书把相当大的篇幅集中在具体的科学发展的各个阶段上——亦即对一个理论被构想、被讨论、被反对、被改造、直到最后被承认有可能导致有关自然界的一种革命性的新观点为止这一过程的各个阶段，进行探索。简而言之，本书不仅要讨论科学革命的概念，而且还要展示一些实际发生的科学革命事件的主要特点，对于这些事件来讲，革命这一思想是完全适用的，并且，这些事件还倒示了不同世纪中科学革命的典型。