Wikipedia:WikiProject History/Review/Peer review/History of science
I know it needds more references and I'm working on that. I'd like to know what else it needs to get it up to FA Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 14:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I've had a look at the Early cultures and Early experimental science section and have a few comments. What is and isn't included as science in early culture seems a bit counterintuitive. Mathematics is not treated as a modern science later in the article and there is a seperate history of mathematics article. While Astronomy, one of the earliest sciences, is only given a brief treatment. There is a lot of information in the Early cultures section which is developments in technology rather than science. For example "The wootz, crucible and stainless steels were invented in India, and were widely exported, resulting in "Damascus steel" by the year 1000" and "The Four Great Inventions of ancient China' are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking, and printing." In order to develop a technology the science behind it doesn't necessarily need to be known. If technologies are to be included then should the early metallurgical developments that led to copper, bronze and iron etc be included?
The periods covered in the early civilisation section end at the 16th century for India and the 17th century for China and then the next section starts at the 12th century (after a brief comment on the 7th century) which I think gives the article an odd flow. The section titles also don't seem very accurate unless there was no experimental science in India before the 16th century and China before the 17th century. In the hellenistic world experimental science occured for example that carried out by Archimedes but there is not information about this in the experimental science section. It might be better to keep the Early civilisation section for very early developments.
The time periods in the article are not complete for example there is nothing mentioned about science in Europe between the ancient greeks and the 12th century. I don't know if there were any scientific developments made by the Romans, although there were technological developments such as concrete, but Bede who lived in the 8th century was definately an experimental scientist and I think there must have been others during this period. The article also seems to be very focussed on particular geographical regions while mentioning others only briefly or not at all. For example Africa, in particular Egypt, South America particularly regarding astronomy, Japan and Indonesia.
This is my first article review and I'm not sure this is useful with the FA stuff but I'm hoping a fresh perspective will help with the article. --Kaly99 (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)