Olhares inexplorados sobre a Amazônia no ensino de física: uma abordagem da história da ciência e da tecnologia na Amazônia com ênfase nos relatos dos naturalistas

Abstract

This study proposes an interdisciplinary dialogue between the Teaching of Physics, Nature and Amazonian Culture, starting with the account of the European Naturalists who traveled throughout the region in the middle of the nineteenth century because of their territory and rich biosociodiversity. It seeks to extract from his works the testimony of a local know-how (protophysics), as an empirical source of knowledge or an incipient science, that after being proclaimed, was buried by European science as something useless, mistakes of ignorance, common sense. Rediscover this knowledge so that its assumptions can be reworked with a more up-to-date and critical look. It is demonstrated that this rich legacy of proto-physics involves a spectrum of questions whose framing constitutes an epistemic constellation so that they do not dissociate and break into autonomous and isolated fragments. Impossible to be subsumed into a single category, in an attempt to make these connections visible and elucidate, we use the theoretical references of Kuhn, Toulmin and Bassala, as well as the following strongly interwoven methodological elements: multicausal approach, formulation and application of flow concepts, moving frames, border shifting and zeitgeist. Through these milestones, we examine how memory, history, science and culture intertwine and articulate to create a coherent epistemic picture, under the backdrop of vague and imperfect ideas, the so-called extra-scientific impurities. Pari passu opens new and significant perspectives for the markers used by Enlightenment thought, which has impacted the evolution of scientific knowledge, the increase of specialties, the founding of Academies and Sciences, the growth of the production of scientific publications and, above all, the priority given to Natural History as a consensual language used by the Naturalists in scientific expeditions in the Amazon, driven by expansionist and colonialist ventures during the economic and commercial exploration of the region. In this correlation of forces, between the center and the periphery, imperialism and subordination of completely different peoples and cultures, Natural History contributed to bury the proto-physics of the local population. A diffusing vector of the Illuminist Science, scientific journeys have developed a new look at the Amazonian environment, whose appeal for the marvelous has been altered by other controversial and controversial issues, such as the weakness of the American man, climatic determinism, the role of biodiversity for the evolution of species, etc. The arrival of the Portuguese royal family, introduces a new route to the process of transplantation of the institutionalization of science in the country, especially in the Amazon region, peripheral region, far from the political decisions and outside the axis in which the scientific institutions of the country were located. The arrow of time will reveal the existence of Upper Courses attached to the Botanical Museum of Amazonas (1884) that did not consolidate, but planted the seeds that would sprout in the Guarda Club of the State of Amazonas, the 1st Brazilian University: the Free University School of Manáos (1909). Implanted at a time when Manaus was experiencing a great period of financial prosperity, accelerated urbanization, modernization of technical-scientific services resulting from the international trade of rubber exports, its main source of income. From 1912, Manaus enters in crisis under the effects of the fall of the prices of the rubber and of the First World War. Events that will accelerate the process of fragmentation and extinction of the Faculties of the University of Manáos. The process of institutionalization of the sciences in Manaus goes beyond the mere implantation of the Physics course, but expresses the valorization of the teaching dynamics as a social, economic, political and cultural activity, indispensable elements for the consolidation and diffusion of scientific knowledge. Needless to say, a contextualized discussion based on the Socio-Cultural History of Science.