Editing History of science (section)

===Post-Scientific Revolution===
====Bioelectricity====
During the late 18th century, researchers such as [[Hugh Williamson]]<ref name="VanderVeer 2011">{{cite journal |last=VanderVeer |first=Joseph B. |title=Hugh Williamson: Physician, Patriot, and Founding Father |journal=Journal of the American Medical Association |volume=306 |issue=1 |date=6 July 2011 |doi=10.1001/jama.2011.933 }}</ref> and [[John Walsh (scientist)|John Walsh]] experimented on the effects of electricity on the human body. Further studies by [[Luigi Galvani]] and [[Alessandro Volta]] established the electrical nature of what Volta called [[galvanism]].<ref name="Edwards 2021">{{cite web |last=Edwards |first=Paul |title=A Correction to the Record of Early Electrophysiology Research on the 250th Anniversary of a Historic Expedition to Île de Ré |url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03423498/document |publisher=HAL open-access archive |access-date=6 May 2022 |date=10 November 2021 |id=hal-03423498 |archive-date=6 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220506153323/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03423498/document |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Bresadola 367–380">{{cite journal |last=Bresadola |first=Marco |title=Medicine and science in the life of Luigi Galvani |journal=Brain Research Bulletin |date=15 July 1998 |volume=46 |issue=5 |pages=367–380 |doi=10.1016/s0361-9230(98)00023-9 |pmid=9739000|s2cid=13035403}}</ref>

====Developments in geology====
[[File:Anoplotherium 1812 Skeleton Sketch.jpg|thumb|1812 skeletal and muscular reconstruction of ''[[Anoplotherium]] commune'' by Georges Cuvier based on fossil remains from the Paris Basin]]
Modern geology, like modern chemistry, gradually evolved during the 18th and early 19th centuries. [[Benoît de Maillet]] and the [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Comte de Buffon]] saw the Earth as much older than the 6,000 years envisioned by biblical scholars. [[Jean-Étienne Guettard]] and [[Nicolas Desmarest]] hiked central France and recorded their observations on some of the first geological maps. Aided by chemical experimentation, naturalists such as Scotland's [[John Walker (natural historian)|John Walker]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=Matthew Daniel Eddy|title=The Language of Mineralogy: John Walker, Chemistry and the Edinburgh Medical School 1750–1800|date=2008|publisher=Ashgate|url=https://www.academia.edu/1112014|access-date=19 September 2014|archive-date=3 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150903230852/http://www.academia.edu/1112014/The_Language_of_Mineralogy_John_Walker_Chemistry_and_the_Edinburgh_Medical_School_1750-1800_2008_|url-status=live}}</ref> Sweden's Torbern Bergman, and Germany's [[Abraham Werner]] created comprehensive classification systems for rocks and minerals—a collective achievement that transformed geology into a cutting edge field by the end of the eighteenth century. These early geologists also proposed a generalized interpretations of Earth history that led [[James Hutton]], [[Georges Cuvier]] and [[Alexandre Brongniart]], following in the steps of [[Nicolas Steno|Steno]], to argue that layers of rock could be dated by the fossils they contained: a principle first applied to the geology of the Paris Basin. The use of [[index fossil]]s became a powerful tool for making geological maps, because it allowed geologists to correlate the rocks in one locality with those of similar age in other, distant localities.

====Birth of modern economics====
[[File:AdamSmith.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Adam Smith]] wrote ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'', the first modern work of economics]]
The basis for [[classical economics]] forms [[Adam Smith]]'s ''[[The Wealth of Nations|An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations]]'', published in 1776. Smith criticized [[mercantilism]], advocating a system of free trade with [[division of labour]]. He postulated an "[[invisible hand]]" that regulated economic systems made up of actors guided only by self-interest. The "invisible hand" mentioned in a lost page in the middle of a chapter in the middle of the "[[Wealth of Nations]]", 1776, advances as Smith's central message.

====Social science====
Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment. It was during this period that Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. Traditions of jurisprudence, history, philology and sociology developed during this time and informed the development of the social sciences of which anthropology was a part.