SCI321 Week 1 Essay Assignment - Ancient Greek civilization
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Apr 3, 2024
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Was ancient Greece the first scientific civilization?
Wilmington University
Technology in the Sciences 20490.B1
Was ancient Greece the first scientific civilization?
Ancient Greece pioneered many major innovations and contributions that has influenced our modern world today. Some of the most prominent scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, and scholars included Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato (among many others). While prominent advances encompassed ancient Greece, we ask the question were the Greeks the first scientific civilization in human history? I will attempt to explore and examine if they truly can be regarded as the first.
Ancient Greece began to distinguish themselves during this “scientific revolution” during
the 6
th
century BCE. (Mark, J. J., 2023). The concept of philosophy flourished throughout Greece, beginning with Thales of Miletus. During this period, Greeks began transforming into a scientific based society, shifting their beliefs away from mythological beings and towards a more
evidence based and logical approach to understanding the universe. “Once the Greeks formulated the idea of a cosmos, and began to try to explain it in terms of theories, then their science and their philosophy began to progress very rapidly, in a way not seen in previous societies. The Greeks developed philosophical logic and geometry as an axiomatized system. Once one has theories, as opposed to myth, one then has to choose which theory to accept.” (Gregory, A., 2005) However, other ancient cultures such as Chinese, Mesoamerican, Egypt and Babylonian heavily influenced ancient Greek scientists of the time such as Thales. The significant difference between ancient Greece versus the other ancient cultures is that the Greeks developed the scientific theory to explain the unexplained phenomenon, rather than excusing it as divine intervention. Previous societies treated knowledge extensively well, logging and drawing up encyclopedic tables (McClellan, J. E., III, & Dorn, H., 2015), but it was the Greeks that took the knowledge to develop theories to explain the natural world.
The ancient Greeks are regarded in many circles as the first scientific civilization, and I believe that has valid merit. Although other cultures that came previously and independently provided the groundwork for the Greeks, the Greek philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, scholars, and astronomers are the first group to apply science against the background of myth and mystic theology. While ancient Greece may not have been the only spark to ignite the fire of
science, they had a refined emphasis on observation, reasoning, and logical explanations that sets
them apart from the cultures that came before them.
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References
Gregory, A. (2005). Ancient Greece and the origins of science. ResearchGate
. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304862296_Ancient_Greece_and_the_Origins_
of_Science
McClellan, J. E., III, & Dorn, H. (2015). Science and technology in world history: An Introduction
. JHU Press.
Mark, J. J. (2023). Ancient Greek science. World History Encyclopedia
. https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Science/