ABSTRACT
The development of materials technology was an essential precondition of the evolution of modern science. Of equal importance as the development of materials technology, without which the emergence of modern science was impossible, were developments in mathematics. Taylor describes a historical process by which religious elements of understanding the physical universe are gradually removed by the incursions of modern science. Looking at modern science as a whole, it is useful to divide its explanatory territory into three large areas: physical science, including astronomy, physics, and chemistry; biological science, including genetics, anatomy, physiology, and evolution; and social science, including psychology, sociology, and economics. In the Whig view, the beginning of modern science was, in effect, a revolution that overthrew the constraints of medieval social organization and Christian doctrine imposed by the Church. There is an ideological account of the increasing dominance of modern science that is often accepted—what can be termed the standard or "Whig" view.
