Academic
Exchange Quarterly Fall 2003
ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 7, Issue 3
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Teaching Needham’s Puzzle -
Fostering Historical Thinking
Fan Ka Wai, City University
of Hong Kong
FAN, Ka wai is senior tutor at the Chinese
Civilization Center
of the City University
of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in
history from the Chinese
University of Hong
Kong. His main research interests are in the history
of Chinese science and medicine
and he has published several articles in the field.
Abstract
In this article,
the author shares his teaching experience with
regard to Needham's Puzzle and introduces online
resources and teaching materials. He points out two difficulties he encounters
in teaching the topic; the availability of model answers to the students and
their lack of understanding of academic issues relating to the question. In
conclusion, the author discusses how to foster students' historical thinking
through learning Needham's Puzzle.
Introduction
The
author, a teacher at the Chinese Civilization Center of City University of Hong
Kong, gives courses in Chinese culture at the Center. Statistics
from 1998 to 2000 show that, among many of the history subjects, the History of
Chinese Science is one of the most popular among students. In the Chinese
Civilization Course, one of the teaching modes is an online program. Since
2001, an online component has been required for teaching a Chinese Culture
course, through which students must conduct research and study. In keeping with
the requirement, the author has designed an online course that focuses on the
History of Chinese Science. In this
course, Needham’s Puzzle, one of
the most important topics, is discussed.
Joseph Needham began his
career as a biochemist working in embryology. He obtained his doctor’s degree
from Cambridge University
in 1924 and, in 1937, when he met Lu Gwei-Djen, who
came to Cambridge University
to study, Needham learned about the
extraordinary contributions made by ancient Chinese science. He became fascinated by ancient Chinese
science and, when he was 38, studied scientific information in ancient Chinese
books. After World War II, Needham
returned to Cambridge University
and began researching the history of Chinese science and technology (Cowling).
He developed a project on “Science and Civilization in China”
and invited many experts from around the world to cooperate in the project.
Today, “Science and Civilization in China”
is still an ongoing publication. The historical question that puzzled Needham
for many years was “Why did modern science not develop in China?”
In the present article, the author intends to share his teaching experience
concerning this question, which is referred to as Needham’s
Puzzle.
Objectives
The
course aims to address the two major difficulties encountered by students. The
first is that students have the same “model answer” for Needham’s
Puzzle, even though they have a keen interest in discussing the subject. This
is surprising since Chinese Language and Culture, including one topic on the
History of Chinese Science, is a requirement for secondary school students in Hong
Kong. It seems, however, that in order to help students to get a
high score in the examination, a series of model answers has been worked out by
high school teachers, and has been included in textbooks for students to learn
from for the Advanced Level Examination. The second difficulty is that students
do not fully understand the academic discussions of Needham’s
Puzzle (see IrfanHabib
and Raina, 1999; Lui and
Wang, 2002) and they even distort Joseph Needham’s ideas. Many
preconceived concepts are held by the students, which undoubtedly adds
difficulty to teaching.
The objectives of the author in designing
his course on Needham’s Puzzle are: (1) to rectify the misconceptions of
students; (2) to train the
students to think about history – historical thinking develops skills
needed to formulate questions, collect evidence, critique historical interpretations, and
construct a historical analysis among different viewpoints (Advance on Thinking
Historically; Standards in Historical Thinking; Historical Thinking Concepts; Holt
1990); and (3) to use internet
sites as teaching materials so
students will realize that an abundance of historical teaching resources is available online, which may be helpful not
only for their present but for their future studies of history.
Needham’s Puzzle
Was any science developed
in ancient China? To answer such a question is virtually impossible
because an exact definition of “science” is difficult. In the history of China, many extraordinary scientific achievements came
about, such as the well-known “four great
inventions,” which had a considerable influence on the development of culture in
the world. Unfortunately, in the last 150 years, the invasion of the Western
powers has opened a miserable page of Chinese history. Since the
May Fourth Movement in 1919, the pursuit for democracy and science has never
stopped, and Chinese culture was blamed for having prevented democracy and
science from being more firmly developed in China. The rapid development of Western science was because
of the Scientific Revolution, but why had scientific achievements in Chinese
history not been incorporated into modern science? In discussing the history of
Chinese science, the first question to ask would be: “Why has modern science in
China lagged behind that of the Western countries, despite
the illustrious scientific achievements in ancient Chinese history?” Thus, Needham’s Puzzle was conceived and developed from such a
question. “Why had a Scientific Revolution not taken place in China and why did modern science fail to develop in Chinese
civilization?”
When asked to provide an
explanation for the question posed by Needham, students most commonly give two model answers.
First, since the Tang dynasty, Civil Examinations were almost the only way to
recruit talented people; because science was not part of the Civil Examination
the development of science was hindered. Second, the Chinese people are nature
loving, and would not want to damage nature; within Chinese culture, science is
viewed as being detrimental to nature. Chinese people, therefore, have
generally not studied scientific activities. The model answers make points
about “restraining factors” – factors in Chinese culture that hindered the
development of science in China. Is it suitable, however, for students to discuss the
idea that “China lagged behind other countries in science
development”? To rectify preconceived ideas, it is not meaningful to find one
or two more explanations that students had not known before. Students may simply memorize the one or two
reasons, without considering them more deeply.
Therefore, the teaching method designed by the author is intended to
enable students to understand the meaning of the Puzzle and the discussion that
exists in the academic community, and to understand the extent to which these
model answers may be true, by carefully scrutinizing and discussing their answers.
Teaching
Structure and Content
Student learning in the course on Needham’s Puzzle differs from the approach used at
secondary school. Discussions are held in tutorial classes. Students then go to
a website and reply to questions asked by the author; there is discussion on
the internet with the author and with classmates. Internet resources are
recommended, many of which are from The Needham Research Institute (NRI), a
site linked to the student website, that introduces the life of Joseph Needham and his contributions to
research into the history of Chinese science.
The following three articles found on the
web are particularly important in relation to the puzzle; Fan Dainian, “A Discussion on
Reasons for China’s Lagging behind in Science”, Liu Dun, “A New Survey of the
Needham Question” and Nathan Sivin, “Why the
Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Did It?” These articles
discuss three aspects of Needham’s
Puzzle. Fan Dainian’s
article introduces previous research on the Puzzle. By reading the article,
students may be able to understand the various discussions and viewpoints. Liu
Dun’s article discusses the derivation and academic meaning of Needham’s Puzzle.
Finally, Nathan Sivin’s article is an important work
on thorough re-thinking of Needham’s Puzzle; it
points out the academic meaning of the Puzzle and mentions various mistakes
made by Needham when he was
searching for the answers to the question.
The structure of the course is such that,
students first learn about Joseph Needham (1900-1995), gaining an understanding
of his life and contributions to the history of science. The students consider the six conditions which, according to Needham, should be met for researchers on the
history of Chinese science (Wang, 1992):
1. The researcher must have scientific accomplishment and many years of
experience in
scientific research and practice;
2.
The researcher must be familiar with the history of Western science and have
experience researching a certain aspect of the history;
3.
The researcher must have knowledge about the social and economic
background of scientific and technological development for each of Europe’s
historical periods;
4.
The researcher must have a personal taste of the life of Chinese people;
5.
The researcher must understand Chinese and at least be able to look
up
original works and any necessary reference literature; and
6.
The researcher must be fortunate enough to obtain adequate guidance
and
instruction from a good number of Chinese scientists and scholars.
The next step is to
ask students to answer two questions: (1) Are you able to satisfy the above
conditions? (2) Why should you be required to be familiar with the historical
development of Western science, and have knowledge about the social and
economic background of scientific and technological development in each period
of European history to be able to do research on the history of Chinese
science?
The students are then
guided to probe more deeply into Needham’s Puzzle. After
having completed reading
of the articles by Fan Danian, Liu Dun and Nathan Sivin, mentioned above, students go to a Discussion
Forum
on the course website to discuss the question. The author expressly:
1.
tells
students that the focus of discussion is not to find out one or two more
answers to the question as to why China is lagging behind in science development,
or to determine which factors are more important than others.
2. asks whether “Needham’s Puzzle” is a false statement.
3. tells students that, when reading the
articles provided, they should not only focus on the content of the arguments,
but also on whether the methods used by the scholars are correct, and if the
arguments are tenable.
4. tells students to weigh their previously held ideas and decide whether or not
they are tenable.
In summary, the key
points of the arguments of Nathan Sivin and the
author of this article, are the following:
1. “China is lagging behind in science” is a
comparative conclusion; that is, the conclusion was made after comparing the
scientific development in China to that of Western countries. If, for
example, China had been compared with African countries, then the conclusion “China is advanced in science” might have been
obtained. In this case, is it meaningful to be “advanced” or “lagging behind”?
2.
Although
a scientific revolution did not take place in China, is it meaningful to ask, “Why did
scientific revolution not take place in China?” Under what circumstance would it be
meaningful to discuss “a matter that never happened”? Does it make sense to say
that it should have but did not happen? (Nathan Sivin) For example, imagine meeting a classmate who is taking the same computer
course as are you. The class was given an examination today, but you did not
take the examination. The meaningful question to ask would be, “Why did you not
take the examination?” If you were not enrolled in the class, however, the
question would be meaningless.
3. Why should scientific revolution or
scientific development have happened in China? If we ask, “Why did Confucianism not
emerge in Britain”, could a reasonable answer be found? In most civilizations, such as
the Indian, Islamic, African, or South American, “Scientific Revolutions” did
not occur. The Scientific Revolution only existed in Western civilization. Thus
the territory to be defined is the meaning of “other civilizations” vs “Western civilization.
4. Can the “restraining factors” explain “why a
scientific revolution did not take place in China”? In other words, is it useful to say that
certain factors in the Chinese culture were contrary to scientific development?
Nathan Sivin cites the example of whether the
appearance of the carriage in Europe had
pushed or hindered the invention of the automobile. If the carriage had provided impetus for the
invention of the automobile, it might have been because the people were eager
to find substitutes, since they were not satisfied with the performance of the
carriage. Alternatively, if the carriage had hindered the invention of the
automobile, perhaps the people were not eager to find substitutes because they
were satisfied with the performance of the carriage. (Nathan Sivin). It would be difficult to show clearly whether
the appearance of the carriage helped or hindered the invention of the
automobile.
5. How do preset conclusions affect our
viewpoint about historical issues? That is, if we conclude that “China has lagged behind” to be a fact, then what
errors may result from our further reasoning on this basis? A similar question
would be to ask: If an elephant has four legs, then if another animal has four
legs, is it an elephant?
6. When we impute the non-occurrence of a
matter to a certain factor, and if such a factor was eliminated, then is it
fair to assume that the matter would have taken place? When referring to
“restraining factors” in connection with the lack of a scientific revolution in
China, is it logical to assume that if such
factors had not restrained the development of science, then a Scientific
Revolution would have occurred?
Finally, after students have considered the above questions, they need
to answer a further question in the Discussion Forum: “Did Civil Examinations
hinder the scientific development in China?” The author does
not preset answers for this question, and students can answer either “Yes” or
“No.” The purpose of the question is to remind students to consider whether or
not the argument: “Science did not develop because science was not part of the
Civil Examinations” is reasonable. Further questions are asked such as: “Was the
development of science hindered by Chinese people putting a greater importance
on moral education?” “Was the development of science hindered by Chinese people
loving nature?”
By responding to discussion questions and reviewing the
answers, students should be able to understand the following key points:
1.
The question, “Why did a scientific revolution not take place in China?” is not asked to
find a final answer, but is asked to provide an opportunity to consider the
characteristics of the historic development of China. As Nathan Sivin suggests, the question is heuristic.
2.
When researching the history of China, world history must
also be studied and used for making comparisons.
3.
The history of science can communicate both arts and science. In many
countries, history is often considered to be a social science as well as an
art. The situation in Hong Kong is different,
however, as history is regarded as a purely an art, not a social science.
4.
When researching history, finding an ultimate answer for historical
issues is not always
necessary. The key point is to understand the true historical situation and
seek historical evidence, instead of making unfounded guesses. When studying history, all relevant aspects
need to be evaluated, instead of just one or two factors independently.
Conclusion
The teaching of Chinese history using the internet is a new
aspect of education in Hong Kong. The author has
developed a tutorial and internet based course dealing with Needham’s Puzzle. The
course involves discussion and interpretation and focuses on “historical
thinking”. The students have responded positively to the course, they feel that
they have gained an appreciation of the value of history and have acquired
critical thinking skills. Clearly, teachers and history researchers should
guide students in the exploration of available information resources, and
invigorate their thinking so that it is both logical and constructive. The
author believes that by participating in critical discussion students have increasing
confidence to evaluate the varying historical interpretations they encounter. By the end of the course, they show independent and wise
judgments.
References
Holt, Thomas C. Thinking Historically: Narrative,
Imagination, and Understanding.
New
York:
College Entrance Examination Board, 1990.
Lui, Dun, and Wang Yangzong (eds), Chinese
Science and Scientific Revolution: Selected Essays on Needham’s Puzzle and
Related Researches. Shenyang
shi : Liaoning
jiao yu publishing
house, 2002.
S. IrfanHabib and Dhruv Raina (eds),
Situating the History of Science: Dialogues with
Joseph Needham. New Delhi:
Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Wang, Guozhong, Joseph Needham
and China.
Shanghai: Shanghai ke xue pu
ji
publishing house, 1992.
Wineburg, Samuel S., Historical
Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the
Future of Teaching the Past. Philadelphia:
Temple University
Press, 2001.
Resources on the Web
Advance
on Thinking Historically
http://home.arcor.de/civici01a/teaching/+histhinking.htm
Fan Dainian, “A Discussion on
Reasons for Lagging behind in China
in Science”
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/issue/article/970922.htm
Historical Thinking Concepts http://www.historylab.org/concepts.htm
Liu Dun, “A New Survey of the Needham
Question”.
http://www.ihns.ac.cn/members/liu/doc/needq.htm#_ftn1
Maurice Cowling, Joseph Needham &
the history of Chinese science
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/11/feb93/cowling.htm#back1
Nathan
Sivin, “Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not
Take Place in China
--Or Didn't It?” http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/scirev.html
Needham
Research Institute http://www2.soas.ac.uk/Needham
Standards
in Historical Thinking
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/standards/nhs1.html