Science in the West was born in the 16th century, and like all living things, science did not appear fully developed but has continued to grow and mature to the present day. This book targets a general audience, developing two themes: the unity of science and critical changes in methods that kept science advancing during the last century. Author Kootsey begins by constructing a novel and comprehensive organization of all scientific fields entitled "The Catalog of the Universe.". This new structure contains a biological "tree of life," adding all other known sciences. Nuclear physics and chemistry are at the bottom, materials science and geology parallel biology, cooperating groups of living forms are next, with the earth and the cosmos at the top. The "cooperating groups" level includes ecologies with communicating diverse forms of life and human group activities such as families, education, societies, businesses, governments, the arts, religion, etc. Every physical object in the universe appears in this Catalog and past and future things. (Hint: The structure of the universe at any time would be an entirely different kind of diagram!) The author then shows that the Catalog is a hierarchy of complexity and what that means for origins, research, and human creativity. There is one principle that accounts for the structure of the entire Catalog. Can you recognize it? Religion and the "sciences" appear in the same hierarchy so that we can be specific about their relationship. Based on the Catalog, author Kootsey explains why the change from solo researchers to multidisciplinary teams and the appearance of computers were so crucial to scientific advancement. In the final chapters, Kootsey reminds the reader that science is a human social activity with human flourishing as its goal.
About the Author: Ph.D. J. Mailen Kootsey is a multidisciplinary scientist and a pioneer in applying physical principles, mathematics, and computing to biology and medical physiology. In addition to research on heart muscle electrical activity, he has been an educator in multiple disciplines and a university administrator. Kootsey's education includes a Ph.D. in physics (Brown University) and four years of postdoctoral study in physiology (Loma Linda University School of Medicine and Duke University Medical School). He learned computer skills as the field developed, beginning with a primitive vacuum-tube computer in 1957 and later teaching computer-related subjects. Kootsey has been an active communicator with scientific colleagues and with the public. His scientific publications include 62 articles in scientific and technical journals, five chapters in scientific monographs, and more than 100 presentations at scientific conferences in the US and 18 other countries. Kootsey prepared consultant reports for corporations and agencies in the US, Canada, and Switzerland and received two patents. He has also written 15 printed and blog articles for general audiences and made more than 100 illustrated presentations. In addition to postdoctoral fellowship awards from the Bank of America Giannini Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, Kootsey received more than $10 million in research grant awards from the US National Institutes of Health and private foundations. One of these grants permitted him to establish and direct a National Research Resource in biomedical simulation at Duke University. This group developed software and mathematical techniques for modeling and simulating biomedical systems, distributing this package to 500 sites worldwide, and teaching week-long simulation workshops at 30 university sites in the US and Australia.