| Botnst |
09-10-2006 10:08 AM |
I cut this from an article about how scientists view their pursuit. I hope the historical perspective is appropriate to this discussion.
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Although scientists have been committing their memoirs to paper for centuries, there seems to be a difference in tone between memoirs written in the twentieth century and those that came before. Earlier memoirs describe a world where science was still largely an amateur activity—literally, one pursued out of love—rather than a profession. In their memoirs, Joseph Priestley, Charles Darwin, and others demonstrate a sentiment about science rather than any distinct scientific personality. That sentiment was infused with an abiding wonder and fascination with the natural world—not wholly devoid of ambition, of course, but also bounded by a humility that came from their respect for the vast amount that was, and would remain, unknowable. The ambition to be the known discoverer of new truths about nature was concealed, in large measure, in the stylistic modesty of the student, a modesty in tune with the culture of the age. Present, too, was an idealism that perhaps could only be nurtured in an age of amateur science, still filled with a healthy appreciation for the power of chance. Not long before his death in 1727, Isaac Newton touched on this sentiment when he wrote, “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, 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.”
The nonconformist Unitarian clergyman Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) demonstrates a similar approach to the natural world in his Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley. Priestley’s tale is that of a religious man who happens to enjoy dabbling in science, and most of the text is devoted to his various theological wranglings. As a young man, Priestley had an eclectic education, studying algebra and geometry as well as reading Locke and learning Hebrew and Arabic. His own assessment of his young talents was modest: “For my own part,” he wrote, “I can truly say I had very little ambition, except to distinguish myself by my application to the studies proper to my profession.” That profession, the ministry, was not always an easy one for him. His pronounced stammer and unorthodox ideas often tried the patience of his congregations and his clerical superiors. (Priestley eventually fled England for the United States after a mob, angry over his views on religion and his support of the French Revolution, attacked his home).
Alongside Priestley’s questioning of church doctrine existed a questioning spirit about the natural world. His earliest interest was in electricity, and he maintained a correspondence with Benjamin Franklin on the subject (admitting in his memoir that he was gravely disappointed that Franklin was not a Christian). Priestley published a history of electricity in 1767 that was fairly well received. But it was his move to a parish in Leeds—and the chance of fate that found him living in a house next to a brewery—that piqued his curiosity about the properties of air. A series of experiments eventually yielded what he called “dephlogisticated” air—as opposed to the “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) he found in the brewery—in 1774. (The French chemist Lavoisier would build on Priestley’s discovery, naming the new gas oxygen.) Yet even after such a momentous discovery, Priestley was more a man of the cloth than a man of science: his memoir describes a trip to France, where he met with “many unbelievers in Christianity,” but neglects to describe the meeting with the French chemists where he explained his discovery.
Although rarely personally or emotionally revelatory (he refers to his wife only as “a daughter of Mr. Isaac Wilkinson, an ironmaster”), Priestley’s memoir does provide the reader with a sense of the culture of science at the time. Despite the existence of at least some men dedicated solely to science, the field still welcomed the discoveries of amateurs like Priestley. A small but thriving international community of the scientifically minded existed, with journals and meetings and the other accoutrements of a fledgling profession. But the careful gate-keeping and credentialing and hyper-specialization of later eras had not yet taken firm hold, allowing a dabbler like Priestley to make an important contribution to man’s knowledge of nature. One is left, in the end, with an impression of Priestley as a seeker—primarily after spiritual fulfillment and only secondarily after knowledge of God’s creation.
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