A work that explores the interaction between the practice of science and public life. * In this penetrating work, Lewis Pyenson and Susan Sheets-Pyenson identify that major advances in science stem from changes in three distinct areas of society: the social institutions that promote science, the sensibilities of scientists themselves and the goal of the scientific enterprise. * Servants and Interpreters of Nature begins by examining the institutions that have shaped science: the academies of Ancient Greece, universities, the growth of museums of science, technology and natural history, botanical and zoological gardens, and the advent of modern specialized research laboratories. * It is equally comprehensive when it analyses changing scientific sensibilities -- for example, the relationship between religion and science, or the interplay between the growth of democracy and the growth of scientific knowledge. * The final section of this book is on the changing nature of the scientific enterprise and considers how the goals of science have evolved. * It is an indispensable account of how science, perhaps above all other human endeavours, has shaped, and been shaped by, the world we inhabit today.