Why has science so dramatically altered how we live and how we think about ourselves? What is the greatest scientific idea of all time? According to Professor Steven L. Goldman, "one is tempted to speak of scientific discoveries as the source of science's power to be a driver of social change - that scientists have been discovering new truths about nature, and that the change follows from that. But I argue that it is scientific ideas that are responsible for this change. Ideas are the source of science's power - not discoveries." And what is the greatest scientific idea of all? For Professor Goldman, that is surely the very idea of science, for as he puts it, "The idea of science itself is an idea that had to be invented." Content

CH1. Knowledge, Know-How, and Social Change
CH2. Writing Makes Science Possible
CH3. Inventing Reason and Knowledge
CH4. The Birth of Natural Science
CH5. Mathematics as the Order of Nature
Ch6. The Birth of Techno-Science
CH7. Universities Relaunch the Idea of Knowledge
CH8. The Medieval Revolution in Know-How
CH9. Progress Enters into History
CH10. The Printed Book-Gutenberg to Galileo
CH11. Renaissance Painting and Techno-Science
CH12. Copernicus Moves the Earth CH13. The Birth of Modern Science
CH14. Algebra, Calculus, and Probability
CH15. Conservation and Symmetry
CH16. Instruments as Extensions of the Mind
CH17. Time, Change, and Novelty
CH18. The Atomic Theory of Matter
CH19. The Cell Theory of Life
CH20. The Germ Theory of Disease
CH21. The Gene Theory of Inheritance
CH22. Energy Challenges Matter
CH23. Fields-The Immaterial Becomes Real
CH24. Relationships Become Physical
CH25. Evolution as Process Science
CH26. Statistical Laws Challenge Determinism
CH27. Techno-Science Comes of Age
CH28. Institutions Empower Innovation
CH29. The Quantum Revolution
CH30. Relativity Redefines Space and Time
CH31. Reconceiving the Universe, Again
CH32. The Idea behind the Computer
CH33. Three Faces of Information
CH34. Systems, Chaos, and Self-Organization
CH35. Life as Molecules in Action
CH36. Great Ideas, Past and Future