HSHM 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Conflict Thesis, Global Catastrophic Risk, Genesis Flood Narrative

• School: Yale University
• Department: Hist of Science, Hist of Med
• Course: HSHM 211
• Professor: William Rankin

Document Summary

Catastrophe vs. disaster: catastrophe: prediction, evidence, consensus, prevention, not directly experienced, ha(cid:448)e(cid:374)"t happe(cid:374)ed, or (cid:373)ay (cid:374)ot happe(cid:374, problem in the history of knowledge, disaster: unpredictable, preparedness and response. Catastrophes: prehistoric, the flood, extinction of the dinosaurs, natural resources, overfishing, (cid:862)peak oil(cid:863, atmospheric, global warming, ozone hole, nuclear winter. Key takeaways: predicting catastrophe means thinking about time, geologic time vs. human time, scientific consensus is not a cumulative march of progress. It"s a(cid:271)out (cid:449)ays of doi(cid:374)g s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e: change can be abrupt, no easy relationship between science and social, political, cultural responses. Questions of the time: have there ever been global catastrophes, yes, but there has been disagreement, how old is the earth, 4. 54 bil. years. Discarding catastrophe: the conflict thesis: idea that science and religion are opposing concepts. If rejection of catastrophe is part of the definition of scientific geology, we must deal with the conflict thesis: flood is earliest theory of global catastrophe, and separates science from non-science.