So I thought I’d post a bit of a miscellaneous collection of notes that I’ve scribbled down in my notebook while we’ve been in class or out and about. Now I’m not including my “academic” notes; these are just a few of the things that I had written down to look back at later as possible topics of investigation or at least consideration. And I’m writing them now the way I wrote them in my notebook the first time. These do not have to do with any one topic, buy any means, and they span at least a week and a half, but I thought it’d be interesting to get them out in the open:
Also, *disclaimer*, these might not all be totally coherent; they were mostly quickly scrawled out just to trigger a memory of something interesting. Just adds to the fun J
-18th century, lack of professionalism in science meant that implications that arose from scientific discovery were shared and debated in an overarching and collective elitist culture. “Science camp” not against or offending “Church camp.”
-Think about elitism amongst scientific community then and now, and the social importance of the clergy then and now. Changes how science is considered?
-Huxley vs. Bishop of Oxford: look up for development of “science camp.” Huxley’s a baller.
-Galen anatomy challenged by Vesalius, Galen made mistakes from dissecting apes and extending findings to people. What does this say about how Galen, and society at that time, viewed the relationship between humans and apes?
-Humphrey Davy: “Davey would later relate his love of science to his fascination with story-telling. What he always wanted to do was to hold an audience spellbound with wonders.”
Studies of air and various gasses, Davy inhales hydrocarbon, CO2, CO, etc. BALLER, scares the crap out of me.
Inhaled 3 quarts of hydrocarbon, almost died, then “next week he was trying to inhale carbonic acid.” Yeah, this is a genius…
-Davey vs. Stevenson- look up
Davey vs. Faraday- mentor vs. mentee
Murderer act of 1752: murderers’ bodies go to the surgeons/anatomists
Anatomy act of 1832: very poor who lived in work-houses became state property and went to anatomists after death if not claimed by family within 48 hours.
Two ideas: Davey being generally disagreeable and murderer and anatomy acts. Delve farther into Davey’s personality and Faraday’s rise to success, discuss the huge time gap between the murderer and anatomy acts, must have been a HUGE need for bodies in between.
-Modesty doll: at our tour to the college of physicians, our guide showed us a modesty doll from the Symons collection. She told us it was used in the 17th or 18th centuries in Europe so that patients could point to where their problems were so they would not have to speak the names of their body parts, quite an embarrassing experience. Later found out guide was wrong, modesty dolls actually used in 19th century in China, not Europe… Chinese women not permitted to mention body parts.
Origin’s of modesty? Why are people so reluctant to speak about the human body?
-Status between doctors (physicians), surgeons, and apothecaries, physicians get gold canes, surgeons silver, apothecaries iron.
-1830 Ivory pregnancy test: test to determine gender. Ivory pendant held over belly, orientation of pendant determines gender. “Quack treatment.”
-idea: Jenner experimentation on children vs. Davey self-experimentation
-Look into public health story centered around vaccination, everyone must be vaccinated to help the population eradicate disease as a whole, vs. vaccination now, peeps that don’t want vaccinations (Kim), how do peeps today get into school that haven’t been immunized?
-“Ohh” moment- Jenner’s publication on vaccination met w/ skepticism. “Some physicians were skeptical; others had financial interests in virulation.” Any time it’s not in a person’s best financial interest to back something, they probably won’t. Oil companies today vs. alternative energy.
-Poor law, like welfare, incentivized poor to stay on relief.
Chadwick central to creation of workhouses, purposely horrible to incentives poor to “get out” of poverty. This reform was meant to lessen burden on taxpayers by making less poor claim relief because workhouses were undesirable.
Chadwick also realized that disease, when it strikes a laboring bread-winner, creates more poverty and thus costs taxpayers more money. Does research that shows sanitation associated with disease. Public Health Act 1848- proposed cleaning up=less disease=less poverty=less $ spent.
Great stink: Parliament disgusted, evacuated parliament building from smell, sanitation initiatives adopted 1858. Took 7 years to get sewer up and running after great stink. Compare to waiting period waiting for permit before driver’s license.
idea: We look back at the urban poor in filth and wonder, why did it take so long for people to be horrified and help clean them up? Answer: they never did. Chadwick only helped them because it would help taxpayers, and Parliament helped them to help themselves it seems. More research necessary.
-idea: Bazalgette doubles estimate for how big sewers need to be. Victorians made containers even 10 times overstrong for safety cuz didn’t understand materials.
Then: better safe than sorry, we only want to build things once.
Now: Better cheap and fast than good, gets us into problems (BP oil spill)
-Today’s excursion: Surgeons had to amputate a leg in under 1 minute? Nuts! Immediate thought: wouldn’t patient die of pain? Surgeons were aware, had to be quick. And with screaming and all!
American surgery more painful, point of pride. Comforting for patients?
Medical nihilism: physician responsible for damage inflicted by medicine, damage from disease (passive) not doctor’s fault=cop out…
-Microsoft vs. Apple, Brunell vs. 4’ 8.5’’ track. Dad’s comp issues, new laptop is a PC, can’t use apple because “business is done on PCs.” Barrier to entry/change: hard to overcome preexisting infrastructure.
I thought some of these ideas were worth pondering anyway. This is probably a skippable blog, but if nothing else, it helped me go over some of my notes. Now I can elaborate on some of the ideas I find especially interesting.
Out.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
The Importance of Environment, and a Mad Scientist
So during our second week in London, our class took the time to closely examine a few key figures that made major contributions to various scientific fields during the Victorian era. There was a lot going on between the mid 18th and 19th centuries that helped to expedite the progress of the period; two things in particular seemed especially influential.
First, we learned that regional scientific societies, composed of gentlemen, philosophers, what we would now consider entrepreneurs, and any other reasonably upstanding members of society with an interest in science or invention, were meeting to share ideas, explore new fields, and develop new technologies and theories. There seemed to be, at least amongst certain social circles, a lot of curiosity, a lot of creativity, and a lot of initiative during this time period, which must have had a lot to do with why so much was invented, improved, or discovered in such a short amount of time and across such a wide range of fields.
Second, we learned about the innovation of the patent system. Now this was an eye-opener. It seems so obvious to us now that if somebody invents something he should be able to profit from his invention. But I guess I never stopped to think that there might have been a time when a person was not always entitled to the rights over his own invention, when his ideas were not always his property, when nothing could stop a person from stealing and selling Foreman grills when that person’s name wasn’t George Foreman. What an exciting time it must have been when people were first able to claim ownership over their ideas. For so long, so many people must have had great ideas independently, but were too afraid to tell anyone or divulge their findings for fear of getting their work stolen or exploited without any credit or benefit for the inventor.
It’s a funny thing. Bizarre as it may sound, sometimes, since different people have different strengths, and since two minds are more, and often even better than one, and more minds still are often better than less, until of course there are so many minds attached to so many mouths that people start stepping on each other’s feet and yelling and screaming to be heard and things sort of turn into a cacophony of unintelligible noise and nonsense and nobody knows what anybody else is saying so everyone gets fed up and abandons whatever project they had all met to discuss in the first place (pause for breath), working in conjunction with others often yields positive results. People can work off of one another; someone might have a great idea of how to get a project on its feet, but another person might come up with a great way to develop it, or improve it, or find another use for it, and so on and so forth. What the patent system did was encourage the sharing of ideas, and incentivize creation and invention. Inventing became a potentially lucrative enterprise for the first time, as long as someone had an idea worth perusing. It must have been exciting, a breath of fresh air for those with a passion for invention, for those longing to take part in intellectual discussion, for those searching for a practical application for science, or for those just excited about the science itself.
Anyway, I’d like to quickly comment on the individual that we studied this week that I found the most interesting, Humphrey Davey. So, disclaimer, this guy was totally insane. Walking a seriously fine line between brilliant and actually retarded. The sort of things he was doing to himself were just… well we’ll get to that. Maybe some background first would be nice.
Humphrey Davey was a kid that loved to read. He also loved to be told stories and to tell stories himself, a feature of his personality that has a large impact on his persona later on. His parents died while he was still young, both of fever, but he was adopted by some guy and put in a good school when it was realized that he had a passion for learning. He was apprenticed to a surgeon, but eventually developed a strong interest in chemistry, the field for which is most remembered. He ended up holding various impressive positions, became director of the Royal society, all that god stuff for which I have little interest. What I am more interested in is his personality and experimental methods.
First, let’s look at his personality. Davey became a professor of chemistry, and is remembered for being a brilliant lecturer. People used to love to hear him speak, not only for his content, but also for his charisma and masterful employment of the English language. If I do recall, it was also mentioned in class that Davey was a bit of a poet, and that other poets used to come to his chemistry lectures in order to add to their list of usable metaphors, which I found pretty funny. As much as I liked our readings’ description of Davey’s popularity as a lecturer, I guess he could also be quite disagreeable. Just to gloss over a couple examples of this, a sort of contest between Davey and a man named Stevenson over who had the best anti-explosive mining lamp revealed Davey’s pugnacious nature. He also demonstrated that he could be quite jealous and spiteful through his later interactions with his rising protégé, Michael Faraday. Though Davey may not be an ideal person, I still have a pleasant impression of him, just because I like when brilliant men of science end up being brilliant and charismatic public speakers as well. Sort of shatters the stereotype of the antisocial, awkward scientist that I hate so much. I guess I’d just love to be a personable, captivating scientist one day, so I like learning about people I can look up to (I’ll try to be a little nicer than him, though).
Oh, and the shocking thing about Davey that makes him a fun person to learn about is his self-experimentation. Davey is remembered for discovering several elements, especially several alkali earth metals, but his most humorous experiments involve his studies with gasses. Another of his most memorable contributions to science is his discovery of the effects of gaseous nitrous oxide, but he “studied” a wide range of gasses. And how did he go about doing this? Well he’d cook up some interesting concoctions, collect the gasses released, and “test “ them himself, by which I mean, he would inhale them and see what happened. Now this worked out all right when what he was inhaling was laughing gas (nitrous oxide). He had plenty of fun over that discovery. But you can imagine what happened with his experiments with stuff like carbon dioxide and monoxide. He was the sort of guy that would inhale three liters of pure hydrocarbon, convulse, pass out, wake up 30 hours later, acknowledge that if he had inhaled any more he would have died, and then the very next week start inhaling gaseous carbonic acid. Maniac! (Oh, and it’s deceptive to say that he’s this “type of guy,” because he actually is this guy) He must have done soooo much damage to his body over the course of his studies it hurts my lungs just to think about it. But anyway, in retrospect, his methods are just hilarious. Nobody these days would be so reckless, though it’s arguable that his approach, being so proactive and hands on, had a lot to do with his success and productivity in a reasonably short amount of time.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there. Peace.
First, we learned that regional scientific societies, composed of gentlemen, philosophers, what we would now consider entrepreneurs, and any other reasonably upstanding members of society with an interest in science or invention, were meeting to share ideas, explore new fields, and develop new technologies and theories. There seemed to be, at least amongst certain social circles, a lot of curiosity, a lot of creativity, and a lot of initiative during this time period, which must have had a lot to do with why so much was invented, improved, or discovered in such a short amount of time and across such a wide range of fields.
Second, we learned about the innovation of the patent system. Now this was an eye-opener. It seems so obvious to us now that if somebody invents something he should be able to profit from his invention. But I guess I never stopped to think that there might have been a time when a person was not always entitled to the rights over his own invention, when his ideas were not always his property, when nothing could stop a person from stealing and selling Foreman grills when that person’s name wasn’t George Foreman. What an exciting time it must have been when people were first able to claim ownership over their ideas. For so long, so many people must have had great ideas independently, but were too afraid to tell anyone or divulge their findings for fear of getting their work stolen or exploited without any credit or benefit for the inventor.
It’s a funny thing. Bizarre as it may sound, sometimes, since different people have different strengths, and since two minds are more, and often even better than one, and more minds still are often better than less, until of course there are so many minds attached to so many mouths that people start stepping on each other’s feet and yelling and screaming to be heard and things sort of turn into a cacophony of unintelligible noise and nonsense and nobody knows what anybody else is saying so everyone gets fed up and abandons whatever project they had all met to discuss in the first place (pause for breath), working in conjunction with others often yields positive results. People can work off of one another; someone might have a great idea of how to get a project on its feet, but another person might come up with a great way to develop it, or improve it, or find another use for it, and so on and so forth. What the patent system did was encourage the sharing of ideas, and incentivize creation and invention. Inventing became a potentially lucrative enterprise for the first time, as long as someone had an idea worth perusing. It must have been exciting, a breath of fresh air for those with a passion for invention, for those longing to take part in intellectual discussion, for those searching for a practical application for science, or for those just excited about the science itself.
Anyway, I’d like to quickly comment on the individual that we studied this week that I found the most interesting, Humphrey Davey. So, disclaimer, this guy was totally insane. Walking a seriously fine line between brilliant and actually retarded. The sort of things he was doing to himself were just… well we’ll get to that. Maybe some background first would be nice.
Humphrey Davey was a kid that loved to read. He also loved to be told stories and to tell stories himself, a feature of his personality that has a large impact on his persona later on. His parents died while he was still young, both of fever, but he was adopted by some guy and put in a good school when it was realized that he had a passion for learning. He was apprenticed to a surgeon, but eventually developed a strong interest in chemistry, the field for which is most remembered. He ended up holding various impressive positions, became director of the Royal society, all that god stuff for which I have little interest. What I am more interested in is his personality and experimental methods.
First, let’s look at his personality. Davey became a professor of chemistry, and is remembered for being a brilliant lecturer. People used to love to hear him speak, not only for his content, but also for his charisma and masterful employment of the English language. If I do recall, it was also mentioned in class that Davey was a bit of a poet, and that other poets used to come to his chemistry lectures in order to add to their list of usable metaphors, which I found pretty funny. As much as I liked our readings’ description of Davey’s popularity as a lecturer, I guess he could also be quite disagreeable. Just to gloss over a couple examples of this, a sort of contest between Davey and a man named Stevenson over who had the best anti-explosive mining lamp revealed Davey’s pugnacious nature. He also demonstrated that he could be quite jealous and spiteful through his later interactions with his rising protégé, Michael Faraday. Though Davey may not be an ideal person, I still have a pleasant impression of him, just because I like when brilliant men of science end up being brilliant and charismatic public speakers as well. Sort of shatters the stereotype of the antisocial, awkward scientist that I hate so much. I guess I’d just love to be a personable, captivating scientist one day, so I like learning about people I can look up to (I’ll try to be a little nicer than him, though).
Oh, and the shocking thing about Davey that makes him a fun person to learn about is his self-experimentation. Davey is remembered for discovering several elements, especially several alkali earth metals, but his most humorous experiments involve his studies with gasses. Another of his most memorable contributions to science is his discovery of the effects of gaseous nitrous oxide, but he “studied” a wide range of gasses. And how did he go about doing this? Well he’d cook up some interesting concoctions, collect the gasses released, and “test “ them himself, by which I mean, he would inhale them and see what happened. Now this worked out all right when what he was inhaling was laughing gas (nitrous oxide). He had plenty of fun over that discovery. But you can imagine what happened with his experiments with stuff like carbon dioxide and monoxide. He was the sort of guy that would inhale three liters of pure hydrocarbon, convulse, pass out, wake up 30 hours later, acknowledge that if he had inhaled any more he would have died, and then the very next week start inhaling gaseous carbonic acid. Maniac! (Oh, and it’s deceptive to say that he’s this “type of guy,” because he actually is this guy) He must have done soooo much damage to his body over the course of his studies it hurts my lungs just to think about it. But anyway, in retrospect, his methods are just hilarious. Nobody these days would be so reckless, though it’s arguable that his approach, being so proactive and hands on, had a lot to do with his success and productivity in a reasonably short amount of time.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there. Peace.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Reasons for being here, Reasons for writing, and Reasons for rambling
So when I applied to study abroad in London for the summer, I did it for several reasons. My first thought was that it’d be awesome to travel to Europe. I mean, as much as I couldn’t wait to jump back into school as soon as I finished my spring semester (sarcasm?), traveling was obviously a considerable allure of the program. My second thought was, “hey, they speak my language in London, that’d sure be smart of me to go there.” I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, but I’ve studied French for many years and have come to the following conclusion: I am not linguistically gifted. And I really don’t want to study French anymore. While I’m sure being in France for an extended period of time and immersing myself into the language and culture would improve my conversational French tremendously, I just don’t have any interest in studying it anymore, and that seems to be what summer school in France is all about: studying French. Then I looked at the subject matter for the London study abroad program. Science, technology, and medicine in Victorian London, eh? Well I like science, I’m studying science, and I want to go into medicine in a sense. I’ve also found my knowledge of history to be a bit lacking, so I’ve been meaning to bone up on that a bit. I don’t know much about technology, or Victorian London for that matter, but all in all the course descriptions made them seem tailor made to my interests. I thought, “wow, what were the odds of my finding such interesting sounding courses offered in a program abroad in a place where they speak my language and have a train that can get me to Paris in 2 hours flat? This is going to be great! Now I know I could not have been more wrong…
Just kidding, it’s great. I’d say the first week of class was interesting-ish for me; it dealt mostly with broad themes of Victorian England, and we looked into the Great Exhibition, which was cool and all, what with the internationalism and the building a giant glass building over trees, but for me, I was still waiting for the sciencey, mediciney aspects of the course. We’re supposed to keep a blog while we’re here (oh hey, this is it now!), so I’ve been keeping my ears open in class and my eyes open while reading (which really helps by the way), listening and looking for things that really make me think, or things that I can relate in some way to my life today. The first week of class I wasn’t super inspired, which was to be expected given the first week is usually the orientation week. However, the second week of class had the light bulbs going off a mile a minute, which is kind of an incompatible combination of expressions, but you get the idea.
So that’s that, now I’ll be picking random tid-bits to jaw about. Since my last blog entry ended sort of abruptly, I thought I’d quickly clarify what the actual point of that blog post was, or at least what it was supposed to be originally. I ended up sort of rambling towards the end of it; I was actually inspired by the whole, “Darwin on the dollar,” observation a couple days before I actually had time to write about it (yes I know, he’s on a pound note, not a dollar, but I wanted the alliteration), and when I did finally write about it I was at a café in Paris (yes, I did make it down to Paris and it was AWESOME) that happened to have wifi, and I was sleep deprived and tired from having such an awesome time in Paris that I’m not totally surprised I sort of lost my point and started to ramble just like I am now, sooooo now on to the point.
What I originally wanted to say was that I was impressed when I learned that Darwin was on the ten pound note. Since then, I’ve learned that such figures as Shakespeare and Faraday have also been immortalized on English currency, which I think is just fantastic. The presidents (featuring Franklin and Hamilton) on American currency were influential and all, and I understand celebrating our founding fathers, but it really sends a different kind of message putting a Darwin or a Faraday on a bill than a Hamilton or a Washington. It celebrates the importance of progress, of invention, of intelligent men using their intelligence not only for the good of mankind, but also because it was what they loved to do. And I would bet that the majority of people in America do not know who Michael Faraday is, despite his giant impact on the world we live in, just sayin’.
But in any case, there is an interesting point that I wanted to ponder last time that I don’t think I ever got around to (writing it anyway, I’m sure I’ve pondered it at some point). I think the fact that science was explored and shared in Britain in the times of Darwin amongst an elite that encompassed gentlemen, clergymen, potentially any well-to-do citizen, meant that Darwin’s findings were weighed fairly by those elite. I’m sure he was given the opportunity to plead his case and display his observations and conclusions to an audience that was not unwilling to hear him, and that was why his theory of evolution was accepted. The clergymen of the time, as a part of the elite, would have also considered Darwin’s findings with an open mind, because their role in society was not confined to just preaching and adhering to traditional religious views. Sure, they did those things, but back then to be a member of the clergy meant that you were probably well educated. More than that, it meant that you probably wanted to be well educated. I think this is a distinction between a member of the clergy today and a member of the clergy in Victorian England. Now it’s all adhering and no learning (a vastly unfair overgeneralization, but I fear it may apply to the majority of cases). And this may have a lot to do with the fact that the church plays a considerably smaller role in society than it used to. Anyway, that was the point I wanted to ponder.
And as for why the US has such a big problem with evolution compared to the UK, I guess I don’t have a simple idea of how to answer that.
Like I said, from now on I’ll be commenting on interesting tid-bits of what I’m learning in my classes while I’m here in London. For now, I’m signing out.
Just kidding, it’s great. I’d say the first week of class was interesting-ish for me; it dealt mostly with broad themes of Victorian England, and we looked into the Great Exhibition, which was cool and all, what with the internationalism and the building a giant glass building over trees, but for me, I was still waiting for the sciencey, mediciney aspects of the course. We’re supposed to keep a blog while we’re here (oh hey, this is it now!), so I’ve been keeping my ears open in class and my eyes open while reading (which really helps by the way), listening and looking for things that really make me think, or things that I can relate in some way to my life today. The first week of class I wasn’t super inspired, which was to be expected given the first week is usually the orientation week. However, the second week of class had the light bulbs going off a mile a minute, which is kind of an incompatible combination of expressions, but you get the idea.
So that’s that, now I’ll be picking random tid-bits to jaw about. Since my last blog entry ended sort of abruptly, I thought I’d quickly clarify what the actual point of that blog post was, or at least what it was supposed to be originally. I ended up sort of rambling towards the end of it; I was actually inspired by the whole, “Darwin on the dollar,” observation a couple days before I actually had time to write about it (yes I know, he’s on a pound note, not a dollar, but I wanted the alliteration), and when I did finally write about it I was at a café in Paris (yes, I did make it down to Paris and it was AWESOME) that happened to have wifi, and I was sleep deprived and tired from having such an awesome time in Paris that I’m not totally surprised I sort of lost my point and started to ramble just like I am now, sooooo now on to the point.
What I originally wanted to say was that I was impressed when I learned that Darwin was on the ten pound note. Since then, I’ve learned that such figures as Shakespeare and Faraday have also been immortalized on English currency, which I think is just fantastic. The presidents (featuring Franklin and Hamilton) on American currency were influential and all, and I understand celebrating our founding fathers, but it really sends a different kind of message putting a Darwin or a Faraday on a bill than a Hamilton or a Washington. It celebrates the importance of progress, of invention, of intelligent men using their intelligence not only for the good of mankind, but also because it was what they loved to do. And I would bet that the majority of people in America do not know who Michael Faraday is, despite his giant impact on the world we live in, just sayin’.
But in any case, there is an interesting point that I wanted to ponder last time that I don’t think I ever got around to (writing it anyway, I’m sure I’ve pondered it at some point). I think the fact that science was explored and shared in Britain in the times of Darwin amongst an elite that encompassed gentlemen, clergymen, potentially any well-to-do citizen, meant that Darwin’s findings were weighed fairly by those elite. I’m sure he was given the opportunity to plead his case and display his observations and conclusions to an audience that was not unwilling to hear him, and that was why his theory of evolution was accepted. The clergymen of the time, as a part of the elite, would have also considered Darwin’s findings with an open mind, because their role in society was not confined to just preaching and adhering to traditional religious views. Sure, they did those things, but back then to be a member of the clergy meant that you were probably well educated. More than that, it meant that you probably wanted to be well educated. I think this is a distinction between a member of the clergy today and a member of the clergy in Victorian England. Now it’s all adhering and no learning (a vastly unfair overgeneralization, but I fear it may apply to the majority of cases). And this may have a lot to do with the fact that the church plays a considerably smaller role in society than it used to. Anyway, that was the point I wanted to ponder.
And as for why the US has such a big problem with evolution compared to the UK, I guess I don’t have a simple idea of how to answer that.
Like I said, from now on I’ll be commenting on interesting tid-bits of what I’m learning in my classes while I’m here in London. For now, I’m signing out.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Darwin, England, and Rambling
On our first night here in London, our troop, made up of eight Harvard undergraduates and one from Princeton, went out to dinner at an English pub/restaurant, Angel Sea Arms. There we met our course heads, Anne Harrington, who's history of psychiatry class I had taken previously, and John Durant, her husband and a professor at MIT. The dinner was meant to be a welcoming for us, the students, and to give us a chance to meet one another and also to acquaint ourselves with our professors. Our table was long, so we broke into conversations with those closest to us. I was on the end opposite the professors, but from across the table, Professor Durant held up a ten pound note and asked if we recognized the gentleman depicted on it. I was too far away to really see the man's face written on the bill, but Seth, another student in the program, immediately identified the face as belonging to Charles Darwin, the 19th century English naturalist who is known as the father of the theory of Evolution. Now although I have not explicitly asked each individual in our group where they stand on the whole "Evolution vs. Creationism" debate, I feel fairly safe in assuming that as Ivy League students studying science or its history, all of us are comfortable with the legitimacy of evolution, and recognize Darwin as an extremely positive and influential force in both science and history. However, soon after Darwin's mug had been identified, Professor Durant added, "You wouldn't see the likes of him on American Currency!" with a laugh. Those may not have been his exact words, but you get the idea (I may remember Professor Durant saying it like this just because he's an Englishman, and the phrase "the likes of" just sounds British to me). Though the professor's quick poke at American “culture” was just meant to be a joke part of the light dinner table conversation, it certainly made me think. I had had no idea that somebody like Charles Darwin was on English currency. And it's true, if such a thing as putting Charles Darwin on the ten dollar bill was proposed in the United States (dismissing any sentiment associated with the slighting of our dear Mr. Hamilton), there would be an uproar; people would be swift and merciless in quashing the proposal before the idea had time to get off the ground. But why? What makes the UK and the US so different on this matter?
The next day we had our first day of class. We were informed that our first week would be an introductory period; we would be studying science, technology, and medicine in Victorian England, so logically the first thing we did was learn a bit about the Victorian period, what it was, and what questions we could ask to better understand the time period. In discussing the ancient universities, Oxford and Cambridge, it came up that, to be eligible to study at either university during the Victorian age, one had to have been a registered member of the national church of Britain. Then, as now, and unlike the U.S., England was a Christian state. Not only that, but many influential men of science in the Victorian age were also members of the clergy. But wait, I thought the United States had a problem with evolution because Christians feel it contradicts creationism? Americans get riled up that evolution, an investigative science, and not creationism, a set of religious assumptions, is taught in science classes in the U.S., despite the fact that we have an explicit separation of church and state. Britain, however, not only does not have as big an “Evolution vs Creationism” problem, it celebrates Darwin for his achievements to science and the world. So what is the difference between the US and the UK in this regard? I think it might be pride.
The English are proud of their achievements, and proud of their notable heroes that brought about those achievements. Just walking around London for a day or two you see Darwin’s name everywhere. "To your left we’re coming up on the Darwin museum, on your right you’ll see the Darwin center of this or that, and straight ahead folks, that sidewalk is where Darwin once helped an old lady across the street." Seriously, he’s everywhere. And it’s fantastic! Why is it that Britain doesn’t seem to have an underlying hatred of this narrow-minded anti-religion theory we Americans call evolution? Because England had time to weigh the issue. The theory was brought up in England by an Englishman with good standing amongst other Englishmen as a member of the middle upper class. I’m sure plenty of people had problems with Darwin at first; the creationism debate undoubtedly permeated the conversation. But England in the mid 19th century was in an age of discovery. They were hungry for invention and exploration. And who were making the discoveries? Gentlemen. Clergymen. The occasional scholar. Who was Darwin originally? Certainly not a naturalist. He had gone to medical school and was hired on the Beagle as the captain’s companion. Not to say that keeping a ship captain company isn’t a big responsibility, but it’s not what you’d expect of one of biology’s forefathers. The point is, scientists, by this name, didn’t really exist in Victorian England until much later. Professors at universities weren’t lecturing on the side and doing their own specific research primarily. For example, we learned in class that John Herschel (1792-1871), a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, actually turned down a professorship at Cambridge because it was easier to do his research simply as a well-to-do gentleman than as a professor at a leading university. So science as a profession didn’t really exist. And so when theories, such as evolution, were proposed, it wasn’t like there were distinct science and religion camps that were constantly in conflict with one another. Scientific discoveries were weighed and debated in an overarching culture amongst an elite free of engrained prejudices. Today in the US, it seems like there are religion and science “teams,” and no matter what one team says, the other team doesn’t like it. I’ve been rambling for a while now, and may have lost my point. I think I’ll separate myself from this post for a while, and possibly come back later and point out my… point. Oh, and Seth found a two pound coin minted in 2009 commemorating Darwin’s 200th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species.” He’s everywhere.
For now, signing out.
The next day we had our first day of class. We were informed that our first week would be an introductory period; we would be studying science, technology, and medicine in Victorian England, so logically the first thing we did was learn a bit about the Victorian period, what it was, and what questions we could ask to better understand the time period. In discussing the ancient universities, Oxford and Cambridge, it came up that, to be eligible to study at either university during the Victorian age, one had to have been a registered member of the national church of Britain. Then, as now, and unlike the U.S., England was a Christian state. Not only that, but many influential men of science in the Victorian age were also members of the clergy. But wait, I thought the United States had a problem with evolution because Christians feel it contradicts creationism? Americans get riled up that evolution, an investigative science, and not creationism, a set of religious assumptions, is taught in science classes in the U.S., despite the fact that we have an explicit separation of church and state. Britain, however, not only does not have as big an “Evolution vs Creationism” problem, it celebrates Darwin for his achievements to science and the world. So what is the difference between the US and the UK in this regard? I think it might be pride.
The English are proud of their achievements, and proud of their notable heroes that brought about those achievements. Just walking around London for a day or two you see Darwin’s name everywhere. "To your left we’re coming up on the Darwin museum, on your right you’ll see the Darwin center of this or that, and straight ahead folks, that sidewalk is where Darwin once helped an old lady across the street." Seriously, he’s everywhere. And it’s fantastic! Why is it that Britain doesn’t seem to have an underlying hatred of this narrow-minded anti-religion theory we Americans call evolution? Because England had time to weigh the issue. The theory was brought up in England by an Englishman with good standing amongst other Englishmen as a member of the middle upper class. I’m sure plenty of people had problems with Darwin at first; the creationism debate undoubtedly permeated the conversation. But England in the mid 19th century was in an age of discovery. They were hungry for invention and exploration. And who were making the discoveries? Gentlemen. Clergymen. The occasional scholar. Who was Darwin originally? Certainly not a naturalist. He had gone to medical school and was hired on the Beagle as the captain’s companion. Not to say that keeping a ship captain company isn’t a big responsibility, but it’s not what you’d expect of one of biology’s forefathers. The point is, scientists, by this name, didn’t really exist in Victorian England until much later. Professors at universities weren’t lecturing on the side and doing their own specific research primarily. For example, we learned in class that John Herschel (1792-1871), a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, actually turned down a professorship at Cambridge because it was easier to do his research simply as a well-to-do gentleman than as a professor at a leading university. So science as a profession didn’t really exist. And so when theories, such as evolution, were proposed, it wasn’t like there were distinct science and religion camps that were constantly in conflict with one another. Scientific discoveries were weighed and debated in an overarching culture amongst an elite free of engrained prejudices. Today in the US, it seems like there are religion and science “teams,” and no matter what one team says, the other team doesn’t like it. I’ve been rambling for a while now, and may have lost my point. I think I’ll separate myself from this post for a while, and possibly come back later and point out my… point. Oh, and Seth found a two pound coin minted in 2009 commemorating Darwin’s 200th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species.” He’s everywhere.
For now, signing out.
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