Transforming America

Transforming America is an introductory survey that examines and promotes critical thinking about the origin, development, and impact of science in America from colonial times to the present. This text is the first historical survey of science in America, and its publication marks a major milestone in the steady growth of college courses on the history of science in America. Transforming America's eleven chapters examine eleven themes that have dominated the emergence of science in America. They provide an integrated view of how science developed in America and offers a pathway to understanding the emergence and evolution of modern science and how science shaped modern society. Transforming America has four objectives. It broadens students' worldview and perspective by introducing them to the origin, growth, and impact of science on society. To neglect the history of science in discussing the history of American society is to neglect the major force that has shaped and continues to shape the United States and the rest of the world. Students examine the connection between science and society's advancement and understand why some societies have advanced and others have not. It makes clear that science is a human activity or enterprise. People do science, science does not happen spontaneously. It shows that science is dynamic, not static, and that science changes over time. Scientists are not infallible and neither are their ideas. It exposes and eliminates misconceptions and erroneous beliefs that have crept into the sciences. Misconceptions and erroneous beliefs, once inserted in science, are difficult to remove and leave students with a false sense of historical and scientific truth. Transforming America puts to rest these mistaken ideas of how our modern scientific society emerged.