The historiography of history of science runs into two major problems. First of all, the history of science has been, and largely remains, a side-line activity of scientists. While this can provide interesting first-hand, or, at least, observer accounts, it more often results in works such as by Archibald Geike, which are unreadable for their Victorian Ever-Marching-Progress-by-the-Brows-of-Great-Men-in-Search-of-Truth. Admittedly, Geike has the alibi of actually being a Victorian, but, ninety-plus years hasn't seen an end of the strain. Secondly, historians seem to be scared of it. Indeed, the writing of history of science does require an understanding of basic science. Yet, much as an art historian should know something about the techniques of art, but need not practice them, the historian of science need not be continuously down at the lab.
If we look back to the 16th century, science looks much different than the popular modern view of it. Laboratories, exotic mathematics, and the like, had little to do with most of early science. Much was philological, as movable type made the production of critical editions of ancient works practical, and available. With Aristotle, and other authorities, in print copies, it was more likely for people to compare actual nature to the books. While this was slow in coming for certain fields, such as human biology, the task of noting discrepancies within botany was quicker (and more pleasant). The sciences were also helped by a reproducible pictorial method, first in woodcuts, and, then by engraving. The importance of this should not be underestimated. The proper identification of similar plants and animals, as well as the description of unfamiliar things, were greatly clarified by good visuals.
Additionally, science in the early modern period was not as compartmentalized, or specialized, as is now the case. Newton, in addition to his inquiries into the nature of light, and the effects of gravity, pursued the enterprise of Chronology1, an attempt at a unified natural/world history. Gesner was a basically a botanist, but made contributions to zoology by producing compilations of everything then known, drawing from ancient, medieval and contemporary sources.
With these points in mind, it is convenient to consider two basic strains of scientific inquiry, grouped as we now consider them to be separated. This thematic arrangement should not imply an identity with modern sciences, nor with how the fields would have been thought of at that time. In fact, I feel that this arrangement can best demonstrate the diverse influences between what we now consider different branches of study.
Physics is the natural place to begin in a history of science, because of its apotheosis within the rationalist discourse. It has been considered the summation of the hard sciences, as opposed to the "softer" life, and social sciences, and, thus, the epitome of scholarly standards. This has even resulted in a complex, "physics envy," often found among social scientists. This phenomenon approximates Freud's penis envy, with social scientists feeling insufficient, due to the lack of "hard" statistical data. Yet, it is interesting to note, that much as modern theoretical physics is coming to a very different understanding of the cosmos than the Victorianist perceptions of science most nonscientists hold2, the early period of "physics" was not so "hard" as one might think.
Astronomy, in the modern period, exists in a strange state of grace, in that unlike the other natural sciences, it is not thought of derogatorily as a "stamp-collecting" science. Two factors account for this; it has the expensive hardware of a "hard science"; and, it was (and still is in small colleges) intimately connected to physics.
Niklas Koppernigk (1473-1543), better known as Copernicus, studied astronomy, canon law, classics, mathematics, and, medicine. In 1520, he successfully held the town of Allenstein against an invasion of Teutonic Knights, which gives a sense of the determination of the canon of Frauenburg.3 While the Almagest's predictive ability for the motion of heavenly bodies was certainly flawed, Copernicus's main issue of contention with Ptolemy was with the equant4, which he considered to contradict the "rule of absolute motion," by which view the whole universe rotates around a single point. With the precedent of some Greek philosophers, he postulated that a moving Earth, orbiting the Sun, like the other planets, might be able to account for the celestial motions, and, fit his notion of one true still point. Yet, there were a number of severe problems, of a theoretical nature, to account for, including a reason for there not to be a great perpetual wind caused by the Earth's supposed motion. Interestingly, the Protestants of the Continent were to object to the theory long before the Catholic Church; Luther expressed contempt before the 1543 publishing date of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, while Rome did not move against it until after 1600: mostly as a result of it having been espoused by the heretic Giordano Bruno. It was this situation that set Galileo up for some hard times with the Catholic Church, being more hardheaded than really prudent for the times.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is certainly one of the most familiar figures in the history of science5, most notably for his condemnation by the Catholic Church. This has been represented as a battle between a superstitious tradition, versus an innovative truth. This view has started to break down in the historiography, just as the late 19th century presentation of Galileo as the vision of the Empirical and Positivistic Scientist, has come under re-analysis.6 It is important to note that the conflict Galileo came into with the Catholic Church was the result of him challenging Aristotelianism, not Scripture. Additionally, he had made the unwise move of insulting the scholarly work of a Jesuit, through his book The Assayer.
Unexpectedly, the man most commonly thought of as the Father of Science, was at one point a lecturer on literature, most notably on Dante's Inferno. 7 In 1581, he had been sent to University, to study medicine, only to be seduced by geometry. Had his father not relented, and permitted his son such frivolity, the history of science would have read much differently. Unlike some of his contemporaries, such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo applied mathematics, not in an esoteric way, to find, for example, a harmony of the spheres linked to the Platonic solids, but, instead, to quantitatively investigate material phenomena. This should not be thought of in the narrow, rationalistic form of empiricism taught to school children as "The Scientific Method," which holds that facts lounge around awaiting discovery as The Objective Truth. Galileo expresses, in Two New Sciences, that hypotheses are to be based on experience, and, that experience must be interpreted according to a theoretical framework.8 This is not circular logic, but, in fact, is the natural result of a cumulative world view. Often, science comes to new understandings of the world when common sense explanations of phenomena are suspended long enough to observe what happens, and, then, describing those results according to known principles.
Galileo's main theoretical shift is coming to consider the celestial realm to operate according to the same rules as those operating in the terrestrial sphere. By discovering the craters of the Moon, sunspots, and four of Jupiter's moons, Galileo broke through the notion of "perfect heavens/imperfect earth." This clarified as much as his account on comet orbits shattered the crystal spheres of the Ptolemaic system. In doing so, Galileo was to usher in a new way of viewing the world, as a united whole, as opposed to a dialectical system.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is a figure of great importance to the history of science, and, one most misunderstood by populist accounts. Since the eighteenth century, Newton has been presented as the first of the modern scientists. The Victorians were particularly party to this, spurred by both their rhetoric of rational progress and nationalistic pride. While Newton certainly changed the face of science radically by his ever-probing intellect, he was not the First Modern Man. Lord Keynes, on the basis of his reading of a portion of Newton's private papers, declared in 1942,
He [Newton] was the last of the magicians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began our intellectual inheritance rather less than ten thousand years ago.9This probably overstates the case, but it is a fact that Newton was not a rationalist, and, in fact, was more than a dilettante in the practice of alchemy. Through his development of the calculus 10 , formulation of the laws of gravity, and his work in optics, Newton provided many of the tools and premises on which classical mechanics, and, by extension, pre-quantum physics was based. Yet, Newton himself could not see how his discoveries would change the worldview.
If physics is the king of the sciences, geology is the forgotten cousin. Science historiography is biased towards physics and chemistry, and away from archaeology and geology, with biology and psychology somewhere in between. The "lab sciences" are favored over the "field sciences," presumably because of the suzerainty quantitative research has achieved. Fieldwork has been termed "stamp-collecting" by some laboratory scientists. Indeed, some practitioners of, what I like to consider, the interpretive sciences have come to believe this accusation and have turned to "statistical" methods to overcome this "problem". This devaluation has even lead to a discipline name-change, as geology is becoming "geoscience."
Fossils have been interpreted in various ways, according to the prevalent thought of the age. The very term "fossil" has changed in meaning, coming from the Latin fossilis,11 as something dug up, to the more specific modern meaning, as evidence of earlier life. The changing views about fossils were informed by, and shaped the course of, wider geological thought.
In 1565, Conrad Gesner finished his book On Fossil Objects1 , which is notable for three innovations, which, with hindsight, can be seen as invaluable in the development of paleontology, and, historical geology. Firstly, it includes a great number of illustrations, which Gesner himself explained as useful "... so that students may more easily recognize objects that cannot be very clearly described in words."13 Secondly, it is the first time that a collection of "fossils" is referred to plainly, and, Gesner went so far as to include the catalogue of a friend's collection in his volume.14 Thirdly, Gesner's book is the first with a clear motivation to increase scholarly communication about "fossils".15
In other natural sciences of the time, these innovations were the standard. Gesner's work is unusual only in the sense that he reformulates the way "fossils" are considered, to match contemporary flora and fauna studies. Dry gardens, and preserved animals, were collected for study, much, indeed, as were antiquities. With plants and animals, it was a second best attempt to contemplate non-local specimens; for "fossils" such collections were imminently suitable. In addition, stimulating interest in fossils was a more important task, in the sense that sites for their collection were much more localized. Unlike collecting a buck, "fossils" might be turned up only in the course of other work, such as quarrying, or preparing a foundation, requiring immediate collection by someone already there.
While Gesner, and Agricola before him, were important in the development of the study of fossils, we must not confuse matters by projecting questions, not then formulated, back into their work. While they did seek a more sophisticated method of organizing the subject than mere alphabetical order, at the time this was not thought of in terms of separating those "fossils" of organic from those of inorganic origin. Partly this was a result of the difficult nature of the "actual" fossils with which they were dealing. Between strange preservation, and, bizarre creatures unknown in life, what we now know was much less than obvious.
From Gesner's juxtaposition of certain fossils with modern creatures, it is reasonable to believe he thought that some of his "fossils" were the remains of once living creatures.16 This is especially compelling with regards to glossopetrae (tongue stones) and sharks' teeth, and is also suggested by presentation of a fossil crab with a modern crab. Yet it is one thing to believe some "fossils" are the remains of animals, and another to consider the matter of major import.
Both the Neoplatonism of Gesner's time, and, the reformed Aristotelianism that followed, provided explanations for the similarities between "fossils," and other objects, which fit with their understanding of the universe. The Neoplatonist saw the universe as an intertwined web, with correspondences between higher, and lower, levels of creation. It was just as natural that some stones look like sea urchins, as it was that mandrake have the form of man, or, starfish resemble heavenly bodies.
While the Aristotelians struck a sharper line between the living, and non-living, world, they still considered spontaneous generation possible; nor were they opposed to "seed" developing simulacrum of organisms within the earth out of stony materials. It is important to understand that this "mystical" interpretation was not a result of religious conservatism, but, was the product of two dominant and "progressive" frameworks.17 Before a modern explanation of fossils could become tenable, the very understanding of the universe had to change.
In order for it to become acceptable to consider a certain class of "fossils" as organic remains, proof against in situ production was required. The most important issue is not so much how this was proved, but why. Steno can be considered to have started the revolution through his digression on tongue stones, in his The head of a shark dissected. and, continued it in Of Solids Naturally Contained within Solids. Robert Hooke was also a defender of the once organic nature of certain fossils, largely as an outgrowth of philosophical views.18 Simply put, he could see no purpose to be served by fossils not being the remains of the creatures they seemed to imitate. Taking the universe to be sensible, and, no longer holding to the principle "as it is above, so is it below," the only explanation for identity of form was identity of function. "To ascribe to Nature the production of truly fibrous bones is the same as saying that Nature can produce a man's hand without the rest of the man."19
With hindsight, we could say that Hooke, and Steno, and various other contemporaries, were right, but, the matter is much more complex. Between Hooke and us, the matter goes through many twists and turns. Like Mendel, Hooke and his work play little part in the main course of the development of a science of paleontology and historical geology, being "rediscovered" once it could be pointed to as an "ancestor" to the winning theory. Two major problems proved to be stumbling blocks. On the one hand, the method of deposition posited did not account for all the evidence.20 It could not explain fossil biostratigraphy, and, with time, problems of this sort mounted. And, on the other hand, there was an implication that some forms of life had gone extinct, which seemed a serious problem, conflicting both with "the Christian doctrine of providence"21 and the ancient notion of plenitude.
Science, like any other human endeavor, is guided by the historical currents of the time. The writing of the history of science is influenced by the same processes. The Victorians considered themselves to be carrying the banner of Progress, with Science as their clarion. Naturally, they discounted the inherent self-consistency of other modes of thought, in order to elevate the worth of their way of thinking. This mindset is evident in the way they wrote history of science. They often dismissed the accomplishments of people who went before, because they had missed the Right Answers. They also recast certain figures, in order to make them, Galileo and Newton, for example, more like the Victorians. This trend became the standard in history of science for a long time, and directed the choice of which sciences would be considered.
This paper itself is the product of its times, being based on trends represented in the works of Stephen Gould, Thomas Kuhn, and, various others. The new historiography of science runs parallel to the "punctuated-equilibrium" view of evolution, posited within the last twenty years. It also takes direction from the "de-stabilization" of science, in the wake of interesting results in high-energy physics.
In the end, science represents the thought paradigms of the time. These paradigms eventually shift because of stresses caused by contradictory answers. Contrary to the views of the Victorians, science, and the history of science, is not built of Right Answers, true for all time, but is founded on process. The reasons why, or why not, theories were accepted are important; in this pursuit, the "failures" are at least as important as the "successes". Together, they indicate the path taken to our present, and how that road was made.
