Science for students at Oswego is more than just Galileo and Kepler.  They're also learning about how Indian, Arab, Egyptian and Mayan scientists contributed to current understanding of how the world works.

The students are exploring the "Cultural Diversity of Science" in a new course that name.  It may well be the first of its kind in the nation.
 

Alok Kumar of the physics department, a native of India, believes that the current version of the history of science "is not correct and should be revised."
 

"Most European and Western historians are trained in Western thought," he says.  "They describe the history of science as the contributions of the Greeks with a sudden explosion in the European Renaissance."  Actually, many innovations of the European Renaissance
"happened because of influences of other civilizations," Kumar says.
 

Many cultures have contributed  For instance, he explains that Copernicus in the 16th century was not the first scientist to propose the idea of the heliocentric universe-the planets orbiting a stationary sun.  Scientists in other cultures suggested it earlier, including Aryabhatta in fifth century India.
 

Kumar's course outlines the contributions to science made by various cultures from antiquity to the late medieval period.  He cites scientists from Greece, Egypt, India, Spain, Persia, China, the Arab-Orient and Mesoamerica.
 

"This course will show how their exchanges and interactions led eventually to the formation of the core of scientific knowledge sufficient to support the later scientific revolution," Kumar explains.
 

Kumar believes that people of differing cultures should not rely only on "tolerance" to get along.  "A much more solid foundation for a diverse society is respect and appreciation for the achievements of various cultures," he says.
 

Kumar says his course is important because it makes science accessible even for people without a scientific background.  "Today, we are living in a highly technological society," he says.  "We cannot alienate ourselves from science."
 

His students are enthusiastic about the course.  Sandy Miner, a sophomore psychology major, says that although she was fearful of taking a physics course at first, she has found it "absolutely phenomenal."  She enjoys the course because it clears up "a lot of misconceptions about scientific discoveries and how and where they were discovered."
 

Paul Lupa, who works in the chemistry department as an instructional support associate, says he took "Cultural Diversity in Science" because he "wondered about the different background of things in chemistry."  He calls the course "an eye opener" and "thought provoking."
 

Because the course is so new, there is no textbook.  Kumar relies on his own notes, which he hopes to develop into a textbook, to be used by other colleges as well.  He also uses sources from the various cultures the class is studying.
 

His own book "Science in the Medieval World," the translation of a treatise by a noted philosopher of 11th century Muslim Spain, has been hailed as "an invaluable reference work for historians of Islamic science in particular, but also for historians of science in other cultural areas" by the British Journal of the History of Science. -Michele Reed