Science in a historical context

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As you read the textbook, you will come across profiles of the most famous scientists throughout history. While some of their contributions are obviously extraordinary (e.g., Einstein), it is sometimes more difficult to comprehend how significant the contributions of some others are. Newton’s second law (F = ma) is an extremely simple mathematical relation, and it is a concept that we consider extremely basic today. Yet, it revolutionized the way humans saw the world at the time. Concepts that we take for granted today often required major leaps of logic to obtain.
With that in mind, I’d like you to do some light research on a famous scientist of your choice. You can pick one of the ones discussed in Ch. 1-6, or you can pick another scientist that you might have read about before taking this course (or you can skim future chapters to find someone that interests you). Please check the posts before you begin your research, so that there is as little overlap as possible. If you start your research and write your post, only to find that someone has already posted on your scientist, that is perfectly fine, but try to avoid duplicates if at all possible. Some topics to discuss include, but are not limited to:
• What was the state of our knowledge before their major discovery? What did people believe to be true that this discovery countered?
• Who else was working on this problem? What were their conclusions and/or missteps? (For example, Newton is generally credited with the discovery of calculus, but Gottfried Leibniz and others were very closely working on it as well, and may even have discovered them independently)
• Any scholarly analysis (meaning something well researched and backed up with facts) of myths or other interesting facts surrounding the discovery (e.g., did an apple really fall on Newton’s head causing him to realize what gravity truly is, or is that just an embellishment?)

 

Sample Solution

Our day is marked by talk of a global revolution from an industrial to a knowledge-based civilization. Since the seventeenth century, and particularly since the nineteenth century, scientific knowledge has been one of the determining factors in culture and society, and there is little doubt that the sciences, culture, politics, and society are all interdependent. As a result, from the Renaissance to the present, the emergence and transitions of the contemporary information society have become a worldwide academic field. Cultural transitions, such as worldwide and intercultural information transmission and science popularization, are major topics in this discipline.

the authority and influence a leader has over a group, if the leader has positional power, they will be able to implement the leadership style they best see fit for the situation. Positional power cannot be measured or quantified, making it highly ambiguous and hard for a leader to understand whether they have it or how then can gain it. It becomes the responsibility of the organisation to have policies in place to provide leaders with some positional power, usually by establishing a clear hierarchal structure. By establishing a hierarchy, the leader is perceived by the group to be able to make demands and expect compliance from them giving the leader legitimate power (French and Raven, 1959). Secondly, by providing the leader with the ability to reward compliance and punish non compliance from the group, the leader has reward and coercive power (French and Raven, 1959). To obtain complete power over the group the leader must gain the trust and belief of the group that they are capable of success, by ensuring the group are both satisfied and meeting performance goals.
The importance of establishing a hierarchy became evident during the planning stage of the outdoor management course for the red team, the coordinators within the team assumed leadership roles but were unable to gain positional power due to the team being a peer group (Pettinger, 2007). The leaders selected had little authority and influence over the group as everyone was perceived to have the same rank, status and occupation, hence the leaders had none of French and Ravens five bases of power (Pettinger, 2007). The result was leaders with no positional power over the group, so could not direct the group with the method of leadership required for the situation. The task had significant constraints, particularly a short time frame and a large group size, for this situation Chelladurai recommends an autocratic leadership style would be most favourable (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). The leaders attempted an autocratic leadership style, setting individual tasks for the group, however due to the poor leader member relations and lack of positional power the leadership structure quickly became a democracy. The product was an extremely unproductive workforce initially because of the time spent discussing how was best to approach the task. Because of how the leaders were perceived by the group there was little mutual trust, respect or confidence that the leaders were making the correct decisions, and as a result any management style they tried to implement would have been unsuccessful (Pettinger, 2007). Ultimately, if the leaders had analysed their position and the group they would have realised this and chosen a more democratic approach initially the group w

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