Principles and Applications of Information Science for Library Professionals - John N. Olsga... Book

This book is for you if you want to affirm the idea that progress in knowledge is real and not in doubt. It is an outline of ideas and understanding relevant to the development of science and mathematics from the age of antiquity, as in Mesopotamia and Egypt and through classical Greece. Some of the ancient ideas were then adopted and interpreted by Latin thinkers in subsequent ages. With a layman's knowledge of basics in science and math, a reader can marvel at what were grasped with clarity in ancient times, such as geometrical principles and notions of empirical research, during which time very little was available in the knowledge repository and in the scientific tools and instruments. The interpretations by subsequent Latin writers, many of whom revered revealed truth over truth by reason, there was then a path away from empirical methods and from rational thinking. In tracing some of the lineages of thought, it is amazing that today, with our technology and procedure for knowledge production, we have returned to building our knowledge enterprise upon ideas laid out more than 2000 years ago.