Lewis Pyenson - Servants of Nature - A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises and Sensibilities

Fourth Estate

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First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Publishers 1999

Copyright © Lewis Pyenson and Susan Sheets-Pyenson 1999

Lewis Pyenson and Susan Sheets-Pyenson have asserted the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780006862178

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‘A considerable achievement.’ CASPAR HENDERSON, New Scientist

‘At best a heroic visionary, at worst a megalomaniac Frankenstein: either way triumphant individualism is taken for granted in the stereotypical scientist. So too is the disinterested purity of research conducted under lab conditions, all external considerations excluded like so many bacteria from a sterile vessel. Yet the reality has always been quite otherwise: the world refuses to stop at the laboratory door, and that has led to some of science’s greatest breakthroughs as well as its worst abuses. This highly readable, subtle and thought-provoking scientific history goes beyond whistle-blowing to consider more subtle and ultimately perhaps more interesting questions of how a changing institutional context has constrained the content and direction of we too unquestioningly take to be ‘pure’ science.’

Scotsman

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

PRAISE

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION: Science and Its Past

The discipline of history of science

Inspiration and method

The end of science

PART I: INSTITUTIONS

1 Teaching: Before the Scientific Revolution

The Mediterranean world

Eastern cultures

Islam

The Middle Ages

2 Teaching: From the Time of the Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution

The rise of the German university

The German research university in context

Universities elsewhere

3 Sharing: Early Scientific Societies

Engines of the Scientific Revolution

The rise of the scientific correspondent

Eighteenth-century expansion

Nineteenth-century consolidation

The emergence of specialized societies

4 Watching: Observatories in the Middle East, China, Europe and America

The Islamic observatory

Chinese astronomy

Innovation in instruments

Time and prediction

Astronomy and related disciplines

5 Showing: Museums

The development of modern museums

The British Museum and the ‘new museum idea’

Museums in Europe and the United States

Colonial museums

Colonial and metropolitan museums: some comparisons

Descriptions of colonial museums

Museums in Canada, South America, and Australasia

6 Growing: Botanical Gardens and Zoos

The development of botanical gardens

Kew Gardens

The evolution of zoological gardens

The rise of public zoos

PART II: ENTERPRISES

7 Measuring: The Search for Precision

Measurement in antiquity

Syncretism and measuring instruments

Newtonian measurement

Timepieces

Standardization

The ideology of precision

Measurement and industrial progress

Absolute measurement and error analysis

The transformation of mechanical precision

Old programme, new effects

Philosophy and practice

Precision regnant

Precision and the human spirit

8 Reading: Books and the Spread of Ideas

From script to print

Facilitating the birth of modern science

The rise of the scientific journal

New forms for new audiences

Showing science: the art of illustration

9 Travelling: Discovery, Maps and Scientific Expeditions

Who discovered whom?

Travellers in antiquity

Maps

Progression of people and ideas in the Malay Archipelago

European expansion

A century of wonders

The new encyclopaedia

Classifying nature

The scientific expeditions

10 Counting: Statistics

The odds

Precision and numbers

Surveying and statistics

Terrestrial means

Statistics physical and social

Doctrine of certainty

Twentieth-century uncertainty

Average lives

The popular triumph of averages

11 Killing: Science and the Military

Gunpowder

The vocabulary of military science

French military builders

Naval stars

The star chart

Military mappers

Military weathermen

Applications and prestige

PART III: SENSIBILITIES

12 Participating: Beyond Scientific Societies

The rise of literary and philosophical societies

Associations for the advancement of science

The common scientist

Scientific clubs for everyone

The overseas extension of European models

Women in science

The example of Madame du Châtelet

Women elsewhere

13 Appropriating: Science in Nations Beyond Europe

Colonial scientific societies

Early colonial universities

Independent universities

The research university in the United States

Scientific migration

Australasia

Scientist missionaries in South America

Science at American universities

Science at Japanese universities

British India and Dutch Indonesia

14 Believing: Science and Religion

Science in the Counter-Reformation

The Merton thesis

The Webster thesis: millenarianism and science

The Enlightenment

Deism

Natural theology

The argument against Darwinian evolution

Twentieth-century developments

15 Knowing: Progressing and Proclaiming

Magic and science

Baconianism

Encyclopaedism

Materialism

Positivism