Shells and Pebbles
Interesting finds on the shores of the history of science and the humanities
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A Last Resort: Legitimizing Medical Experiments in the Colony
It is something that is considered to be self-evident today: in order to test a new pharmaceutical drug, a randomized controlled trial should be set up and the informed consent of those participating is needed. Before the Second World War, however, few such guidelines existed in print. Rather, medical ethics were implicit and flexible. This…
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‘A number of curious entomological works’
This story is published simultaneously by Gauronica (blog Special Collections of the University Library of the University of Groningen) and Shells and Pebbles. Recently, a number of colleagues from other university libraries visited us in Groningen. As usual, we did our very best to show them the beautiful objects we have in our Special Collections.…
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“Eenige merkwaardige entomologische werken”
Dit verhaal is gelijktijdig gepubliceerd door Gauronica (weblog Bijzondere Collecties van de Universiteitsbibliotheek van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) en Shells and Pebbles. Ik had onlangs een aantal collega’s van andere universiteitsbibliotheken te gast bij ons in Groningen. En, zoals vaker, dan doen we ons best om te laten zien wat voor moois we wel niet in…
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Lessons from the history of the DSM-III
In 1973, in cities across the United States, eight healthy pseudo-patients walked into unsuspecting psychiatrist’s offices. Following a brief interview, they were all admitted to different psychiatric wards. The instructions the experimenters gave were simple: each pseudo-patient should report a single symptom to psychiatrists, namely that they occasionally heard a disembodied voice say “thud”. As…
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An Interview with Paul Ziche: History of Science Today
This is the first in our series of interviews with current historians and philosophers of science. In these interviews, our guests are asked to reflect on the current status of the field, how we might be able to contribute to contemporary debates, what their own research interests are, and how these interests inform their worldview.…
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Shells and Pebbles Summer Picks
This post officially marks one full academic year since our team took over the editorship for Shells & Pebbles. We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading along. As editors, we lurk behind the scenes, but we wanted the chance to connect with you, our readers, and emerge a bit from the shadows. So, we decided to…
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Might and Right: The Trope of Wonder Weapons in Historical and Popular Imagination
This year’s wars and the role of technology in them give us good reason to reflect on the trope of “wonder weapons.” Several recent articles talk about Russia’s use of drones and glide bombs in Ukraine in terms of wonder weapons, referring specifically to weapons used by the Nazis. The phrase has been used systematically…
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Voorjaarsbijeenkomst Gewina: Menselijke resten in musea
Een lange periode hadden weinig mensen er moeite mee als overblijfselen van lichamen in musea tentoongesteld werden. De afgelopen jaren is er echter steeds meer discussie of het tentoonstellen van menselijke resten wel ethisch verantwoord is. Zo wordt er betwijfeld of het nog wel van deze tijd is om iemands overblijfselen tentoon te stellen wanneer…
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Reviewing Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer: symbolism, genius, humility and wisdom
The winner of seven Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer (2023) is not only a feast for the historian of science but an overall fan favorite. Although classic themes such as the role of theory and experiments, individual and group work, material conditions, socio-political dimensions and the emergence of “big science” feature prominently in this biopic,…
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Europa en technologie: Fundament en balanceeract tegelijk
Met 27 lidstaten en een tiental in de wachtkamer is de Europese Unie (EU) een significante factor in de wereldeconomie en de mondiale politiek. Dit is echter geen status quo. Aan alle kanten wordt aan het supranationale karakter van de EU geknaagd. Tijd dus voor een analyse van de verknooptheid van die 27 natiestaten. De…
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Marvin Minsky and the Missing Quotes: Metaphors and Anthropomorphism in AI
We will know less and less what it means to be human – José Saramago The idea of thinking machines is as old as thinking itself. The quest to create artificial life and machines with human-like abilities has deep roots in human culture and history. From mythological figures from the times of ancient Greece like…
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The story of a boy whose life continued after death
“The heart hangs out of the neonate’s body, as if it beat too harshly for too long and pulsated its way forward. It makes me wonder about whether this child was loved by someone wholeheartedly, or if it made someone’s heart beat extremely fast for other reasons than affection, like fear or fascination.” (My personal…
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Practising History: Time Traveling with Ink and Etchings
Historical research is something we would not have associated with a laboratory. Instead of the dusty smell of books in an archive, we were suddenly exposed to the sizzling of pans and the strong scent of wine and burned wood. Still, this is where we found ourselves, as students of the Utrecht University History and…
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Curated Curiosity – reinstituting science museums as Wunderkammern after modernity
A walk through a twenty-first century science museum is rarely straight. As in other museums, professionals working in science museums experiment with their curatorial practices: they shuffle their showcases, scutter through depots to find forgotten objects, and try to uncover unseen entanglements. These curatorial practices often explicitly aim to revive “cabinets of curiosities” or “Wunderkammern”,…
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Kleppen van en over Schelpen
Onlangs was in het nieuws dat strandjutters op de Waddeneilanden meer kledingstukken, zwemvesten en schoenen op het strand vinden. Die toename werd in verband gebracht met de oversteek van asielzoekers naar Engeland. Het zou best wel eens kunnen dat linker en rechterschoenen op een verschillende manier aanspoelen, dacht ik. Want het deed me denken aan een onderzoek…
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Wired Fears: Electricity and Technophobia in the Nineteenth Century
Society usually accompanies the introduction of new technologies with both excitement and suspicion, being simultaneously driven by an enthusiasm for the possibility of improvement, as well as profoundly discomforted, with a sense of having little or no control over the direction of radical changes. 5G antennas are a very recent example of this dualism. On…
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Dutch Deltaification
The Dutch care so much about their delta. When widespread use of the word delta unexpectedly increased in the specific geographical area of the Netherlands, we can now speak of an epidemic. I am jesting, of course, but there is a more serious problem: the Netherlands are hardly a delta and the connotations that come…
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De Deltaïficatie van de Lage Landen
Hollanders geven om hun delta. Met de onverwachte toename van het gebruik van het woord delta in een specifiek gebied, namelijk Nederland, kunnen we nu spreken van een epidemie. Ik scherts hier natuurlijk, maar er ligt wel een ernstig probleem onder: Nederland is nauwelijks een delta te noemen en de connotaties die bij het woord…
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Twee keer een andere blik op de jaren 33-45; Oorlogswinst en De poppenspeler van Mengele dwingen tot heroverwegen
Geschiedschrijving is een beproefd middel om greep te krijgen op zowel verleden als heden. Vaak ten goede, maar niet zelden ten kwade, zoals Ivo van de Wijdeven in De macht van het verleden (nominatie Libris Geschiedenis Prijs 2023) heeft aangetoond. De blik en het taalgebruik van de schrijver/zender bepalen de boodschap die met het historisch…
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Who needs 1500 words as a means of science communication?
If there is one thing that we, as a community of historians and philosophers of science and the humanities, are acutely aware of, it is that scientific practices are often intertwined with other practices such as artisanal or artistic practices. For many of us, the recognition of this intertwinement forms an important reference point in…
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A Meme from the Past
Once in a while, the archives offer moments of exhilaration, when the sources depict something surprising, unusual, or simply strange. Sometimes these feelings can stem from finding some familiarity where you didn’t expect it to exist. That was the case when I encountered the set of drawings above in a student scrapbook from 1903 at…
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Spacewar! Early A.I. Research and the World’s First Video Game
“Can machines think?” Posed by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper “Computing, Machinery, and Intelligence,” this question remains debated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers and philosophers of science to this day. In this seminal paper, Turing introduced the world to the Imitation Game, also known as the Turing Test, which challenges an “interrogator” to differentiate…
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Leading women in early modern book printing – Report on Gewina’s fall members’ day
Why do early modern title pages regularly mention women’s businesses as the site of production? With this question in mind, we, the attendees of Gewina’s fall members’ day, rushed swiftly through beautiful Antwerp. It was one of the last sunny and warm days of the year and the many outdoor cafes were already filling up…
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Adolphe Quetelet: a statistical method for all
Statistics form the methodological basis of a large variety of disciplines, from humanities to the natural sciences. These statistical methods have their roots in nineteenth-century statistical thinking. Statistical thinking in the nineteenth century could mean different things for different thinkers. We recognise three main trends. First, the practitioners of state sciences, who were called statisticians,…