Shells and Pebbles
Interesting finds on the shores of the history of science and the humanities
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The Times They Are A-changin’: Academia in the Age of Open
The academic world in the Netherlands is abuzz with the government and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands’ (VSNU) firm position in negotiations with Elsevier. The push to open up academic literature to become freely accessible and reusable online, which is usually recognized under the umbrella term of Open Access, has become quite real…
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‘Slow science’ in het digitale tijdperk
Open access betekent ruim baan voor het digitale publiceren. Maar is alle wetenschap hier wel bij gebaat? Een pleidooi voor ‘slow science’ in de tijden van terabytes en 4G.
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How to diagnose their ills?
In 1998, the Australian professor of colonial medicine Warwick Anderson warned his readers that ‘[w]e should not assume that the colonial world was a passive receptacle for germ theories or any other form of Western medical knowledge’.[1] Although Anderson meant that the arrival of new medical theories to the colonies led to changes that were…
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Garlic, magnets, Roman science: a review of Daryn Lehoux, What Did the Romans Know?
In order to keep in touch with what happens in historiography, I sometimes spend a few days reading the introductions of recent historical publications. In a relatively efficient way, it gives me the comfortable feeling that I am still aware of what historians claim they are doing. Sometimes, however, I remind myself to read the…
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Much ado about Ablaut and Umlaut
In the Summer of 1829, Franz Bopp and August Wilhelm von Schlegel quarreled about Sanskrit sound shifts. They quarreled so badly it ended their correspondence, and they never met again.
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Bronstige bokken
Schapen en geiten zijn een veel geziene combinatie. Zo prees de manifestatie ‘Dag van het Schaap’ in 2014 haar activiteiten aan met de ondertitel ‘nu ook met geiten!’ en ook in veel ambtelijke stukken worden schapen en geiten veelal onder hetzelfde kopje geschaard.[1] Daarnaast lijken de beide diersoorten ook wel wat op elkaar, zeker als…
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Climate Change and History of Science: An Emotional Call to Arms!
By Hans Schouwenburg In response to the global People’s Climate March on September 21, 2014, Shells and Pebbles editor Hans Schouwenburg walks you through the history of the debate about man-made climate change. He concludes that historians of science should take their responsibility and assist their colleagues in the natural sciences in work and deed.
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Aangespoelde stenen. W.F. Hermans en de tweedeling in de wetenschappen
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”…
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Wetenschap als instrument van politieke verzoening en modieus koningschap. Charles II en de Royal Society
Door Gijs Rommelse Na een drukke dag met tal van activiteiten dineerde Samuel Pepys, één van de belangrijkste ambtenaren van de Engelse admiraliteit, op woensdagavond 14 november 1666 in de Pope’s Head, een bekende herberg in het hart van Londen. In zijn later beroemd geworden dagboek noteerde hij dat één van zijn tafelgenoten, de prominente…
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Historical demarcation problems, part II
By Jeroen Bouterse The physicist (P), the sociologist (S) and the historian (H) continue their discussion about the demarcation of science in history P: “OK, so let us retrace our steps and see how we got in this weird place, where you asked me whether an uninfluential Galileo would still be of interest to historians…
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Zeeridders en zeemonniken. Adriaen Coenen over het zestiende-eeuwse zeeleven
Door Lieke Smits In de Scheveningse Keizerstraat kunnen badgasten en winkelende toeristen uitrusten op bankjes waarvan de rugleuningen met wonderlijke voorstellingen zijn versierd. Wie goed kijkt zal verschillende diersoorten kunnen herkennen, waaronder veel vissen, maar ook wonderlijke wezens zoals basilisken en cyclopen. Deze afbeeldingen zijn afkomstig uit het Visboeck van de zestiende-eeuwse visser Adriaen Coenen,…
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The Re-Invention of Giambattista Vico
By Floris Solleveld Giambattista Vico died in poverty in January 1744, having spent his last pennies on a new edition of the Principi di Scienza Nuova. Outside Naples, nobody cared. No notices appeared in the learned journals; no obituaries were read at royal or local academies. Eighty years later, his work was translated into German…
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Een telescoop uit Delft
Door Marlise Rijks Op 14 mei 2014 haalde het bericht het achtuurjournaal: in Delft was Nederlands oudste bewaarde telescoop gevonden. Het instrument werd opgegraven door archeologen die in eerste instantie dachten een kogelhuls te pakken te hebben. Na onderzoek door Museum Boerhaave bleek het echter te gaan om een telescoop uit de vroege zeventiende eeuw.…
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‘Illegal Science’ – the case of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) and German biology education
By Constance Sommerey “Guard your children!”[1] was a demand that echoed through multiple Prussian newspapers in 1877 (Depdolla 1939). It was uttered by a very concerned protestant minister who warned parents against the moral state of emergency at Prussian schools. The root of all evil? The incorporation of Ernst Haeckel’s evolutionism into biology classes. Five…
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Zomerstop / Summer break
Shells&Pebbles houdt een pauze in de zomer en is volgende maand weer terug. Schrijf je in voor de nieuwsbrief of volg ons op Twitter (@ShellsAndPebbles) als je een seintje wilt krijgen! o-o-o There will be no posts in the following weeks, since we are on vacation. We will resume our regular schedule next month; if…
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The chemical skeleton: why chemistry mattered to 18th-century medicine
By Ruben Verwaal Imagine yourself as an 18th-century medical student at Leiden university. You are curious to know why you sometimes feel all weak and limp, while elderly people may have stiff muscles. Why can there be days you suffer from constipation, while on other days you have diarrhoea? Questions such as these also kept…
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Using Philosophy as a Weapon Against Itself. Johann Georg Hamann and the Birth of ‘Metacritique’
By Roland Bertens With the publication in 1781 of his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant tried to prove that philosophical reason could be a stand-alone source of knowledge. Among the many followers and detractors immediately reacting to the first step Kant made on the road to ‘German Idealism’, one relatively unknown thinker should be…
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Het belang van afdankertjes
Door Rienk Vermij De geschiedenis van de “wetenschappelijke revolutie”van de zeventiende eeuw wordt veelal beschreven als een opeenvolging van ontdekkingen en nieuwe theorieën. Niemand zal zeggen dat die niet belangrijk zijn, maar zo’n verhaal mist wel een belangrijke dimensie. Want niet alleen wonnen nieuwe ideeën veld, er werden ook oude afgedankt.
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Over Fedde’s neerhalen van Newton
Door Floris Cohen De redactie van ‘Schelpen en Steentjes’ heeft me gevraagd om op Fedde Benedictus’ boutade over Newton te reageren, ik denk omdat ik de auteur ben van een boek over Newton. En inderdaad, in de epiloog van Isaac Newton en het ware weten vind ik een heel reeksje van zwakke punten van Newton…
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The Father of Modern Science?
By Fedde Benedictus Both the originality and the intrinsic value of the work of Isaac Newton have been grossly overestimated. According to traditional history of science, Newton’s work (of which primarily his Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687) was the 17th century’s very pinnacle of the mechanistic worldview, and with that, it provided one of…
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On little boys and furry animals – or what happened to Little Albert?
By Ivan Flis Every scientific discipline has its famous experiments. The case is no different for psychology. In the company of famous psychological experiments, one study is often mentioned as the fulcrum of the behaviorist revolution of American psychology – the story of a little boy named Albert and the attempt to teach him fear.
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The Riddle of the Phantom Island
By Daniel Stinsky Maps contain lots of information in a condensed and abstract visual format. We trust maps to depict reality, and we trust that they are produced with scientific rigor. But as the fairly recent case of a “phantom island” in the Coral Sea shows, maps can contain false information, even in the age…
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Purity or performance
By Bert Theunissen Of all sports horses competing at the most recent Olympic Games, 30 % were Dutch-bred. And of the ten gold medals available, five were awarded to horses from the Netherlands. This is a remarkable achievement, considering that the Dutch do not have a long tradition in horse breeding like the Germans, the…