{"title":"Frontispiece","authors":"","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48305148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Most research into history of eighteenth-century experimentation has focused on the instrument-based traditions of natural philosophers and chemists. This article explores an alternate, but related, tradition: the experiments carried out by agricultural improvers. While authors interested in improving farming were aware of natural philosophical practices, they self-consciously devised different strategies in their own forms of experimentation. Experiments in the chemical and physical sciences generally sought to find universal laws operative everywhere; agricultural experimentation often explored the particular possibilities of a given place. The cost and likely economic success of an experiment was also worked explicitly into its design.
{"title":"Experimentation in the agricultural EnlightenmentPlace, profit and norms of knowledge-making in eighteenth-century Germany","authors":"D. Phillips","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Most research into history of eighteenth-century experimentation has focused on the instrument-based traditions of natural philosophers and chemists. This article explores an alternate, but related, tradition: the experiments carried out by agricultural improvers. While authors interested in improving farming were aware of natural philosophical practices, they self-consciously devised different strategies in their own forms of experimentation. Experiments in the chemical and physical sciences generally sought to find universal laws operative everywhere; agricultural experimentation often explored the particular possibilities of a given place. The cost and likely economic success of an experiment was also worked explicitly into its design.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41315490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many eighteenth-century projectors believed in the potential of pedagogy, including its ability to improve lives and to radically reconfigure the structure of society. Despite an obvious inability to predict how effective their projects would be if implemented, those who managed to gain the support of state leaders very frequently peddled educational reform schemes they expected would generate real improvements, including heightened abilities to apprehend the quality of usefulness. This paper considers the relationship between pedagogy and expectations in a three-part reform project put forward by an early commercial advisor and projector named Paul Jacob Marperger (1656–1730). Keenly aware of the pedagogical dimensions of ongoing efforts to both generate useful knowledge and to cultivate skilled observers and makers of it, Marperger used his project to showcase his commitment to the incremental improvement of society via the creation of new training regimens for young people and adults. The paper studies how he linked his expectations to existing institutions, technologies and ongoing reform efforts, including new teaching methods and materials.
许多18世纪的投影仪相信教育学的潜力，包括它改善生活和从根本上重新配置社会结构的能力。尽管显然无法预测他们的项目如果实施会有多有效，但那些设法获得国家领导人支持的人经常兜售他们期望的教育改革计划，这些计划会带来真正的改善，包括提高理解有用性质量的能力。本文考虑了早期商业顾问兼投影仪Paul Jacob Marperger（1656-1730）提出的一个由三部分组成的改革项目中教育学和期望之间的关系。Marperger敏锐地意识到正在进行的创造有用知识和培养熟练观察者和制造者的努力的教学层面，他利用自己的项目展示了他对通过为年轻人和成年人创造新的培训方案来逐步改善社会的承诺。这篇论文研究了他如何将自己的期望与现有的机构、技术和正在进行的改革努力联系起来，包括新的教学方法和材料。
{"title":"Projects and pedagogical expectations: Inside P. J. Marperger's ‘golden clover leaf’ (Trifolium), 1700–1730","authors":"K. Whitmer","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Many eighteenth-century projectors believed in the potential of pedagogy, including its ability to improve lives and to radically reconfigure the structure of society. Despite an obvious inability to predict how effective their projects would be if implemented, those who managed to gain the support of state leaders very frequently peddled educational reform schemes they expected would generate real improvements, including heightened abilities to apprehend the quality of usefulness. This paper considers the relationship between pedagogy and expectations in a three-part reform project put forward by an early commercial advisor and projector named Paul Jacob Marperger (1656–1730). Keenly aware of the pedagogical dimensions of ongoing efforts to both generate useful knowledge and to cultivate skilled observers and makers of it, Marperger used his project to showcase his commitment to the incremental improvement of society via the creation of new training regimens for young people and adults. The paper studies how he linked his expectations to existing institutions, technologies and ongoing reform efforts, including new teaching methods and materials.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47354049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Universities were an important site of Enlightenment improvement discourse and knowledge economies in the German-speaking lands and Scandinavia. Late eighteenth-century state building and scholars’ expectations of their own ‘usefulness’ regarding these processes were closely intertwined. The life and publications of the German-speaking Danish naturalist Johann Christian Fabricius (1745–1808) are used here to understand contemporary debates on the state of education, political economy and the development of the sciences in relation to ideas about economic and social progress. Fabricius was professor for ‘œconomics, cameral sciences and natural history’ at Kiel University for more than 30 years, from 1775 to 1808, and was one of the most outspoken writers on economic reform in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. Fabricius’ suggestions for improvement involved directly addressing social categories as well as the re-organization of universities in form and curricular content. Fabricius was engaged in debates on how to best achieve the specific knowledge and skills considered useful for the emerging nation-state. The essay analyses Fabricius’ interventions in these debates in the context of the contemporary development of the ‘research university’ around 1800.
在德语区和斯堪的纳维亚半岛，大学是启蒙运动改善话语和知识经济的重要场所。十八世纪晚期的国家建设和学者们对这些过程的“有用性”的期望紧密交织在一起。德语丹麦博物学家Johann Christian Fabricius（1745–1808）的生平和出版物被用来理解当代关于教育状况、政治经济和科学发展与经济和社会进步思想的辩论。从1775年到1808年，法布里修斯在基尔大学担任了30多年的经济学、摄像学和自然史教授，是石勒苏益格-荷尔斯泰因和丹麦经济改革方面最直言不讳的作家之一。法布里修斯的改进建议包括直接解决社会类别问题，以及在形式和课程内容上对大学进行重组。法布里修斯参与了关于如何最好地获得被认为对新兴民族国家有用的特定知识和技能的辩论。本文以1800年前后“研究型大学”的当代发展为背景，分析了法布里修斯对这些争论的干预。
{"title":"What is a useful university? knowledge economies and higher education in late eighteenth-century Denmark and central Europe","authors":"Dominik Hünniger","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Universities were an important site of Enlightenment improvement discourse and knowledge economies in the German-speaking lands and Scandinavia. Late eighteenth-century state building and scholars’ expectations of their own ‘usefulness’ regarding these processes were closely intertwined. The life and publications of the German-speaking Danish naturalist Johann Christian Fabricius (1745–1808) are used here to understand contemporary debates on the state of education, political economy and the development of the sciences in relation to ideas about economic and social progress. Fabricius was professor for ‘œconomics, cameral sciences and natural history’ at Kiel University for more than 30 years, from 1775 to 1808, and was one of the most outspoken writers on economic reform in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. Fabricius’ suggestions for improvement involved directly addressing social categories as well as the re-organization of universities in form and curricular content. Fabricius was engaged in debates on how to best achieve the specific knowledge and skills considered useful for the emerging nation-state. The essay analyses Fabricius’ interventions in these debates in the context of the contemporary development of the ‘research university’ around 1800.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48274197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Albert Einstein made three visits to Oxford between 1931 and 1933, staying for a month in the spring of each year. For our understanding of Einstein's work, the Rhodes Memorial Lectures that he delivered during his first visit are of special interest. They show him in a period of intense rethinking of his cosmological views in the light of Edwin Hubble's recent evidence in favour of an expanding universe, an idea that Einstein had hitherto opposed. The lectures, heavily mathematical and delivered in German, were challenging. Nevertheless, they were well received, and Frederick Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell) saw them as a springboard for a continuing association between Einstein and the University's Clarendon Laboratory. To that end, Lindemann persuaded his college, Christ Church, to invite Einstein for a month in 1932 and each of the four years that followed. The arrangement, part of Lindemann's plan to revitalize Oxford physics, was soon overtaken by political events in Germany and Einstein's emigration to Princeton in October 1933.
{"title":"Einstein in Oxford","authors":"R. Fox","doi":"10.1098/RSNR.2018.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/RSNR.2018.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Albert Einstein made three visits to Oxford between 1931 and 1933, staying for a month in the spring of each year. For our understanding of Einstein's work, the Rhodes Memorial Lectures that he delivered during his first visit are of special interest. They show him in a period of intense rethinking of his cosmological views in the light of Edwin Hubble's recent evidence in favour of an expanding universe, an idea that Einstein had hitherto opposed. The lectures, heavily mathematical and delivered in German, were challenging. Nevertheless, they were well received, and Frederick Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell) saw them as a springboard for a continuing association between Einstein and the University's Clarendon Laboratory. To that end, Lindemann persuaded his college, Christ Church, to invite Einstein for a month in 1932 and each of the four years that followed. The arrangement, part of Lindemann's plan to revitalize Oxford physics, was soon overtaken by political events in Germany and Einstein's emigration to Princeton in October 1933.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/RSNR.2018.0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44876265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The historiographical construct of the ‘Baconian programme’ rose to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. It has since shaped views of Bacon and his followers, particularly concerning Bacon's utilitarianism. It has also set expectations concerning how defined and prescriptive Bacon's vision of the future ought to be for later Baconians. Yet, neither Bacon nor those who claimed to follow him thought of his work in programmatic ways. The early modern view of Bacon's futuristic writing allowed his followers great agency in re-sketching it to fit changing times. This essay first follows the rise of a ‘Baconian programme’ in historiography. It then returns to the past to outline some of the rich vocabulary for future-oriented writing deployed by the first generation of Bacon's self-proclaimed followers. Finally, testing how Bacon's plans appeared over a longer durée, it skips forward to Peter Shaw (1694–1763) and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). Shaw employed one of Bacon's futuristic terms (desiderata), dropped another (optativa) and developed the significance of a new category (hint). Shaw's case illustrates the creativity that even Bacon's most ardent followers expected to be within their rights. Baconianism invited future redrafting and haphazard invention, rather than adherence to a predictive programme.
{"title":"Deprogramming Baconianism: The meaning of desiderata in the eighteenth century","authors":"Vera Keller","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0008","url":null,"abstract":"The historiographical construct of the ‘Baconian programme’ rose to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. It has since shaped views of Bacon and his followers, particularly concerning Bacon's utilitarianism. It has also set expectations concerning how defined and prescriptive Bacon's vision of the future ought to be for later Baconians. Yet, neither Bacon nor those who claimed to follow him thought of his work in programmatic ways. The early modern view of Bacon's futuristic writing allowed his followers great agency in re-sketching it to fit changing times. This essay first follows the rise of a ‘Baconian programme’ in historiography. It then returns to the past to outline some of the rich vocabulary for future-oriented writing deployed by the first generation of Bacon's self-proclaimed followers. Finally, testing how Bacon's plans appeared over a longer durée, it skips forward to Peter Shaw (1694–1763) and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804). Shaw employed one of Bacon's futuristic terms (desiderata), dropped another (optativa) and developed the significance of a new category (hint). Shaw's case illustrates the creativity that even Bacon's most ardent followers expected to be within their rights. Baconianism invited future redrafting and haphazard invention, rather than adherence to a predictive programme.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46808630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Creating a sketch, a plan or a model for the future is often closely related to endeavouring to predict what it may yield. It is also a process that stabilizes contemporary portrayals of social realities, including those aspects understood as problems, or in need of improvement. As Sang-Hyun Kim and Sheila Jasanoff have shown in their work on ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, frequently plans and ‘visions of scientific and technological progress’ act as vehicles for communicating ideas, implicitly and explicitly, about ‘public purposes, collective futures and the common good’ in a particular historical moment.1 Plans and sketchy visions for the future are worthy of study in their own right, even if they are never realized, because of the efforts to organize expectations and to assimilate ideas about what is (and is not) in the ‘public interest’ that they purport to represent.2 Attending to the origins and expectations inducing projects of envisioning the future, that is, attending to ‘dreamscapes’ that may or may not have been realized in the long eighteenth century, is a major task of this special issue. All of the essays take as their starting point that the imagined futures of this period reveal a distinct constellation of agendas, moral imperatives and politics. Indeed, the eighteenth century was full of dreamscapes. Their makers routinely devised particular categories and practices to both articulate and, in some cases, to actually build the imagined futures they desired—or claimed to desire. In this period's ‘knowledge economy’, a term now generally associated with the work of economic historian Joel Mokyr, makers of dreamscapes and professional analysts of the future were often called ‘projectors’ or ‘project makers’.3 This particular cadre of ‘dreamscapers’ tended to anchor their visions in sketches, schemes or plans for improvement(s). Mokyr focused on the British context during the dramatic …
{"title":"Expectations and utility in eighteenth-century knowledge economiesNotes and Records special issue introduction","authors":"L. Stewart, K. Whitmer","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2018.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Creating a sketch, a plan or a model for the future is often closely related to endeavouring to predict what it may yield. It is also a process that stabilizes contemporary portrayals of social realities, including those aspects understood as problems, or in need of improvement. As Sang-Hyun Kim and Sheila Jasanoff have shown in their work on ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, frequently plans and ‘visions of scientific and technological progress’ act as vehicles for communicating ideas, implicitly and explicitly, about ‘public purposes, collective futures and the common good’ in a particular historical moment.1 Plans and sketchy visions for the future are worthy of study in their own right, even if they are never realized, because of the efforts to organize expectations and to assimilate ideas about what is (and is not) in the ‘public interest’ that they purport to represent.2 Attending to the origins and expectations inducing projects of envisioning the future, that is, attending to ‘dreamscapes’ that may or may not have been realized in the long eighteenth century, is a major task of this special issue. All of the essays take as their starting point that the imagined futures of this period reveal a distinct constellation of agendas, moral imperatives and politics.\u0000\u0000Indeed, the eighteenth century was full of dreamscapes. Their makers routinely devised particular categories and practices to both articulate and, in some cases, to actually build the imagined futures they desired—or claimed to desire. In this period's ‘knowledge economy’, a term now generally associated with the work of economic historian Joel Mokyr, makers of dreamscapes and professional analysts of the future were often called ‘projectors’ or ‘project makers’.3 This particular cadre of ‘dreamscapers’ tended to anchor their visions in sketches, schemes or plans for improvement(s). Mokyr focused on the British context during the dramatic …","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49632826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Scottish natural philosopher George Sinclair (or Sinclar) (c.1630–1696) was one of the earliest British writers on hydrostatics. He visited London in 1662, when he met Sir Robert Moray and Robert Boyle and left a manuscript treatise at the Royal Society. Receipt of this work was never recorded by the Society, and Sinclair felt that he had been dealt with unfairly. A Latin version, Ars nova et magna gravitatis et levitatis, was published in 1669, followed by his Hydrostaticks in 1672. All Sinclair's works were vituperatively and pseudonymously criticized by James Gregory and William Sanders in The Great and New Art of Weighing Vanity of 1672. Here, Sinclair's life is summarized, and his disputes with the Royal Society and with Gregory and Sanders are examined. It is argued that, despite his other limitations, Sinclair's knowledge of hydrostatics was considerable, and that the criticisms made against him were exaggerated. Yet his work was subsequently neglected. Sinclair's treatment sheds light both on academic rivalries and on the procedures of the early Royal Society.
苏格兰自然哲学家乔治·辛克莱（或辛克莱）（约1630–1696年）是英国最早的流体静力学作家之一。1662年，他访问了伦敦，会见了罗伯特·马里爵士和罗伯特·博伊尔，并在皇家学会留下了一篇论文手稿。学会从未记录过收到这件作品的情况，辛克莱觉得自己受到了不公平的对待。1669年出版了拉丁语版本《Ars nova et magna gravitis et levitatis》，1672年出版了《Hydrostatics》。辛克莱的所有作品都受到詹姆斯·格雷戈里和威廉·桑德斯在1672年《衡量虚荣的新艺术》中的谩骂和笔名批评。本文对辛克莱的生平进行了总结，并考察了他与英国皇家学会、格雷戈里和桑德斯之间的纠纷。有人认为，尽管辛克莱有其他局限性，但他对流体静力学的了解是相当多的，对他的批评被夸大了。然而，他的工作后来被忽视了。辛克莱的处理揭示了学术竞争和早期皇家学会的程序。
{"title":"The hydrostatical works of George Sinclair (c.1630–1696): their neglect and criticism","authors":"A. Craik","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2017.0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0044","url":null,"abstract":"The Scottish natural philosopher George Sinclair (or Sinclar) (c.1630–1696) was one of the earliest British writers on hydrostatics. He visited London in 1662, when he met Sir Robert Moray and Robert Boyle and left a manuscript treatise at the Royal Society. Receipt of this work was never recorded by the Society, and Sinclair felt that he had been dealt with unfairly. A Latin version, Ars nova et magna gravitatis et levitatis, was published in 1669, followed by his Hydrostaticks in 1672. All Sinclair's works were vituperatively and pseudonymously criticized by James Gregory and William Sanders in The Great and New Art of Weighing Vanity of 1672. Here, Sinclair's life is summarized, and his disputes with the Royal Society and with Gregory and Sanders are examined. It is argued that, despite his other limitations, Sinclair's knowledge of hydrostatics was considerable, and that the criticisms made against him were exaggerated. Yet his work was subsequently neglected. Sinclair's treatment sheds light both on academic rivalries and on the procedures of the early Royal Society.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0044","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46487239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines a pre-industrial Scottish natural history text by Robert Sibbald called Scotia Illustrata (Edinburgh, 1684), which is significant for two reasons: (i) it is based on data submitted by correspondents from across Scotland, and (ii) it only includes biological species attested to be present by witnesses or found in previous historical accounts of the country. These facts allow us to adopt a unique methodology: After its introduction, this paper approaches the text as a potential source of biodiversity information, and extracts data on the presence/absence of fauna in the seventeenth century. The extracted species are identified (as far as possible) to species level, and then the gathered information is used as a baseline to discuss later losses from the biodiversity of Scotland during the industrial period.
{"title":"Robert Sibbald's Scotia Illustrata (1684): A faunal baseline for Britain","authors":"L. Raye","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2017.0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0042","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines a pre-industrial Scottish natural history text by Robert Sibbald called Scotia Illustrata (Edinburgh, 1684), which is significant for two reasons: (i) it is based on data submitted by correspondents from across Scotland, and (ii) it only includes biological species attested to be present by witnesses or found in previous historical accounts of the country. These facts allow us to adopt a unique methodology: After its introduction, this paper approaches the text as a potential source of biodiversity information, and extracts data on the presence/absence of fauna in the seventeenth century. The extracted species are identified (as far as possible) to species level, and then the gathered information is used as a baseline to discuss later losses from the biodiversity of Scotland during the industrial period.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0042","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48311226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper draws on extended life story oral history interviews with scientists who, beginning in the 1980s, turned to writing popular books, making radio and television programmes and taking to the stage for public lectures and debates, with relations between science and religion often a key topic: Peter Atkins, Nicholas Humphrey, Steve Jones, John Polkinghorne, Russell Stannard and Lewis Wolpert. I show that these interviews capture aspects of motivation and experience missed in much existing work on popular science. Stressing historical and individual particularity, I argue that what these scientists say about their decisions, aims and rewards should make us question a strong tendency in recent scholarship both to regard popular science as part of scientific work in general, and also to read the outcomes of popular science – such as advocacy for science or the promotion of certain theories – as the motivations for its production.
{"title":"Particular popular science: British scientists writing, speaking and broadcasting on science and religion from the 1980s","authors":"P. Merchant","doi":"10.1098/rsnr.2017.0045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0045","url":null,"abstract":"This paper draws on extended life story oral history interviews with scientists who, beginning in the 1980s, turned to writing popular books, making radio and television programmes and taking to the stage for public lectures and debates, with relations between science and religion often a key topic: Peter Atkins, Nicholas Humphrey, Steve Jones, John Polkinghorne, Russell Stannard and Lewis Wolpert. I show that these interviews capture aspects of motivation and experience missed in much existing work on popular science. Stressing historical and individual particularity, I argue that what these scientists say about their decisions, aims and rewards should make us question a strong tendency in recent scholarship both to regard popular science as part of scientific work in general, and also to read the outcomes of popular science – such as advocacy for science or the promotion of certain theories – as the motivations for its production.","PeriodicalId":49744,"journal":{"name":"Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1098/rsnr.2017.0045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46717999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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