Why is it so difficult to find the salient features of the popularization of science in nineteenth century Great Britain? There is no question that there was a growing appeal and fascination about science all over the social spectrum in Britain. The popularization of science had a strong religious dimension that aimed to convey “right” morality and ethics to ordinary people. Hence, the message was that science was providential and God-ordained. Furthermore, the religious dimension of the popularization of science was one strategy to exercise social control upon society. Finally, the popularization of science sought to legitimate scientific disciplines. This essay aims to show the salient features of the popularization of science in the nineteenth century in Great Britain through the following five-case studies: Layton’s specialized and general dictionaries, Lightman’s popularizes of natural theology, Cooter’s popularization of phrenology, Shaffer’s public spectacles, and Topham’s Bridgewater Treatesis.
The five case-studies of popularization of science are organized according to the author’s methodology and definitions of popular science, academic science, and popularization of science. In their respective studies, David Layton (1965), Bernard Lightman (2000), and Roger Cooter (1984) assert that there are two distinct spheres in science: popular science and academic science. Their goal is to analyze the popularization of science within popular culture. Despite the fact that Simon Shaffer (1983) does not assert the existence of such two spheres in science, he takes it for granted when he argues that public lectures served two purposes. On the one hand, public lectures instructed and conveyed a moral message to a popular audience. On the other hand, public lectures amused the British upper-classes. However, Shaffer’s study of the production of science as a performance is much more sophisticated because his goal is to find the values and norms those scientists, the upper-classes and the ruling class shared. Finally, Jonathan R. Topham (1998) studies the entire social actor involved in the communication circuit of the Bridgewater Treatises. In opposition to Layton, Lightman, and Cooter, Topham argue that it is impossible to distinguish popular culture from high culture. Moreover, he asserts that popular culture is high-culture. Topham solves the dichotomy between popular culture and academic culture by focusing on all the actors involved in the communication circuit.
David Lightman’s article on “Diction and Dictionaries in the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge” shows the growing literacy rates in eighteenth century England. Moreover, Lightman builds the grounds for the “marvelous” interest on science and its popularization in the following century. Layton argues that specialized and general dictionaries played a crucial role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge in eighteenth century England - a time when scientific knowledge was accessible to only a few and when classical education prevailed. Moreover, Layton asserts that these dictionaries opened the window to self-education for persons of humble origins. Layton argues that the role of dictionaries changed over time. Republished in 1706, “The New World of Words’ ” was a general dictionary written by a non-scientist named Edward Phillips. The main role of the “The New World of Words” was to instruct and compile a definite code of scientific knowledge. The “Lexicon Technicum” was a general scientific dictionary published in 1704. Finally, the “Encyclopaedia” was a work of reference whose goal was to lay the authority and legitimate certain scientific ideas and disciplines. These dictionaries explained in non-technical language Newtonian mechanics, mathematics, astronomy, botany, and medicine. Layton’s aim is to study the popularization of science throughout the spread of general and specialized dictionaries. However, his definition of popularization – “as the existence of a reading public interested in science”[1] - does not match with the studies of his dictionaries. He does not explore the thoughts, values, norms, and views of ordinary people. Finally, Layton remains focused on members of the elite: those who wrote the dictionaries.
Along the same lines, Bernard Lightman analyzes how both natural theology and chemical retina were popularized in nineteenth century Great Britain. Following, the careers of three popularizes of natural theology: J. G. Wood, Richard Proctor and Agnes Clerke. Their articles of natural theology, in which science went together with religion, were the strategy to reach a broad audience. Lightman argues that those three popularizes of science transformed natural theology tradition by using mass visual culture and by ignoring the meanings that their audiences gave to their sermon-like lectures. Lightman’s important contribution is that he articulates the relationship between natural theology and religion. Lightman purports to analyze popular culture; however he fails to do so. For example, Lightman presents Agnes Clarke as a popularizer of science; however she was part of the scientific establishment. She became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomic Academy in 1903. Agnes Clerke was useful to the astronomers and Royal Astronomy’s interests because she popularized the astronomy they wanted to be conveyed to ordinary people. On the other hand, Lightman does not provide a definition of popularization of science. What does he mean by the use of that term? His idea of both “popularization” and “science” are unclear and diffuse. Lightman believes that by the means of depicting the spectacles and by the use of mass visual culture as a strategy to reach the popular audience, he is able to reach the cultural and social implications of the natural theology of ordinary people. Finally, Lightman’s study focuses on the intermediaries of science, rather than on ordinary people or the popular audience.
Building upon Layton and Lighman, Roger Cooter draws the difference between popular science and academic science as separate spheres of science. Cooter prefers to analyze the cultural and social meanings of phrenology in popular culture. In contrast, in academic science, phrenology became a vehicle of liberal ideology that led to major reforms in criminology, education, the treatment of the insane in the Anglo-Saxon world. His narrative is not easy to follow. His attempts to define concepts and draw ideas from outside of the Anglo-Saxon tradition make his English awkward to read. However, Cooter’s prosopographical study of phrenology is superb. He distinguishes phrenologists from antiphrenologists with the following categories: age, prestige, power, income, religion, and identity. Cooter asserts that phrenologists were in their forties, lacked sufficient power or prestige within academia, did not belong to the established Church, and had a sense of “social worth”.[2] Nevertheless, they were neither political nor economic radicals, they were professionals trying to legitimate a new discipline and struggling to find a place within academia. Cooter faces the same problem as Lightman: their concept of popular culture is high-culture. Cooter explains how phrenology moved from academic social circles to popular audiences in the middle of the nineteenth century. Once phrenology entered the realm of the popular audience, scientists regret its popularization. Because the use of phrenology by a popular audience automatically makes it loose status in the eyes of academic science. What is more, phrenology becomes vulgar once in the hands of a popular audience. Moreover, antiphrenologist lamented the degeneration of a discipline rooted on physiology and anatomy. Cooter carries on an excellent study of the social and cultural meanings of phrenology focusing on both scientist and its intermediaries. He has difficulties of understanding the codes, texts, meanings, and significance of phrenology for ordinary people.
Simon Shaffer writes a short masterpiece about the importance of the public spectacle in the production and legitimatization of experimental natural philosophy in the eighteenth century in England. He deploys rigorous definitions of audience, rhetoric, scientific production, and natural philosophy. The most interesting piece of the article is his explanation of the significance of public spectacles, both due to its educational role and its role of turning into a theatre for the upper-classes. Shaffer thoroughly unveils values and accepted social conventions in the form of “powers of matter”, the sublime, the aesthetics of the sublime and the beautiful, and the epistemology of controlled experience. Natural philosophers as well as the educated and wealthy English society shared the above mentioned values and norms. Shaffer highlights why the public spectacles were so important to legitimate experimental natural philosophy. Moreover, Shaffer argues that experimental natural philosophy’s legitimacy was based on norms and values of the eighteenth century English gentlemanly society.
Jonathan Topham highlights the significance of the popularization of Bridgewater Treatesis in the 1930s in England. Topham contends Robert M. Young’s “common intellectual context”[3]. Young argues that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, British intelligentsia shared a homogenous intellectual context due to the broad circulation of literature books and a strong belief on natural theology. In opposition to Young, Topham argues that the Bridgewater Treatesis had multiple meanings rather than a homogenous interpretation. Each reader invested its own meaning to the Treatesis, and thus he studies the different actors of the communication circle of the production of books. His goal is to disclose how those authors, publishers, booksellers, bookbinders, printers, and readers influenced the readership. Topham makes a subtle distinction among readers: gentlemen of science, middle-class domesticity, the public arena, and radical artists.
Jonathan R. Topham (1998) asserts the need to study the whole range of social actors of the communication circle to understand the popularization of science. Lets start with the authors of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The authors of the Bridgewater Treatesis did not have a clear purpose. On the contrary, an ambiguity regarding the author’s purpose, the content, the intention, the audience, and the genre was an outstanding feature of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The Treatesis’ genre did not fit into a traditional one; it was reviewed both by religious and specialist journalists. In addition, the readership was wide. The readership varied from experts to lay people. Neither were the Treatesis intended for a particular audience which could vary from Oxford educated men to artisans. The unclear strategy of the authors widened its readership.
The following three paragraphs will analyze the publishers, printers, and booksellers’ purposes with regard to the price, format, and content of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The publishers’ had control over the choice of the material form and upon the purpose of the Treatesis. The publisher's main purpose was to dignify the Treatesis. The authors of the Bridgewater looked for the best publishers in London. The first publisher was John Murray who offered a better commercial offer in comparison to Longman. Murray’s presented them as a new genre called popular science. On the contrary, Pickering, who published the second edition, had a clear-cut commercial purpose. Therefore, the Bridgewater Treatesis had an expensive price and were presented as theological works. Pickering’s buyers were wealthy and educated: the aristocracy, the gentry, and the upper-classes. Topham argues that despite the publisher’s purposes, the Treatesis turned into a commercial success because they were sold and read by a wide audience.
Printers, booksellers and bookbinders. The printers played a key role because Whittingham provided credit to Pickering. Moreover, both printer and publisher agreed on high-quality typography and were against a cheap edition of the Treatises. Nevertheless, as the audience broadened, they had no alternative but to sell a cheap edition. The booksellers were retailers. Pickering sold the Treatesis to antiquaries, bibliophiles, and to buyers of the country-market. The commercial success of the Treatesis empowered Pickering. Finally, bookbinders chose the presentation of the publication: the coloring, cotton-cloth, and the leader binding. The bookbinding tells us about the wealth of the readers rather than the durability of the books.
Topham divides the readership into four dimensions: gentlemen of science, socialites, middle-class domesticity, and radical artists. Each group invested a particular meaning and meaning to the Bridgewater Treatises that led to competing ideas of nature and the place of science.
Topham’s goal is to recreate the social world of the readers. His main historical sources are reviews, conversations, sermons, lectures, and addresses. The gentlemen of science read the Treatesis for the sake of maintaining their reputation as scientific experts. Topham focuses on Buckland’s geology. He argues that Buckland fought for his reputation as an author creating expectation, spreading rumors, carrying on intimate conversations, and writing reviews about the future publication of this geology.
It became fashionable to read the Bridgewater Treatesis because their role was to preserve the existence of a select readership. It was a way to reject the fact that ordinary people were interested in reading the Treatesis. Another important role of the fashionable society was to create a public opinion after "soires", "converzationes", and dinner parties. Buckland’s geology also provided a topic of conversation not only within the heart of middle-class domesticity, but also between young men and women. Buckland’s science was morally safe; moreover it highlighted the importance of sublime and wonders.
Both geologists and radical artists threatened the cultural and social authority of the arts and scientific academic bodies. Gentlemen of science consolidated their cultural authority through the British Association. The religious tendency of Buckland’s geology led to a conflict with the British Association. The conflict became a public spectacle. Topham argues that the public spectacle between the geologists and the British Association demonstrate how books turn into contested objects. Topham gives evidence of the multiple meanings given to the Treatesis. Artisans undermined gentlemen’s scientific authority because they had a materialist understanding of science. At the same time, gentlemen of science hold to the idea of providential nature of science. Carlileans, Owenites, and Chartists shared the antireligious end of science.
Layton, Lightman, and Cooter’s flaw is their belief in the split between popular culture and high-culture. I argue that popular culture is high culture because of the impossibility of finding texts, historical sources, and codes that tell us what ordinary people thought. The three scholars study popular culture focusing on intermediaries who devoted part of their lives to preaching, instructing, and publicizing science. However, those intermediaries do not tell us about the meaning that ordinary people gave to science. What is more, those intermediaries were literate and were even recognized members of scientific circles. The attempt to study the cultural and social meanings of science upon ordinary people is worthwhile and necessary. However, I contend with the methodology and the historical sources to reach that goal. Shaffer has a much more sophisticated analysis of the historical sources. He concentrates on values shared by both natural scientists and gentlemanly society: sublime, beauty, wonder, spectacle, and aesthetics are the main characters of the scientific stage. Shaffer’s contribution is to define scientific production as spectacle. Thus, he questions the authority of certain disciplines and shows their strategies to become legitimate fields of study. Topham broadens the actors and its purposes within the popularization of science. Topham claims that radical artists and scriptural geologists threatened and undermined the scientific authority of English gentlemen of science. Morrell and Thrackray argue that the gentleman of science’s central ideology was an emphasis on the relationship between science and religion. At the same time, Chartists, Carlileans, Owenists, and scriptural geologists challenged that view of science. The former ones supported a materialists and non-religious worldview of science. The latter conveyed a religious understanding of geology. The conclusion is that the concept of science had different meanings depending on who read it.
The readership interested in science broadened. Moreover, there were groups – dictionary authors, science popularizers, phrenologists, and scriptural geologists – that both popularized science and even challenged the place of science. Science had become marvelous, beautiful, and mysterious in the eyes of both upper-middle classes and ordinary people. In addition, the religious dimension of science becomes more important. The English gentlemen of science related science to a providential idea of religion. On the contrary, radical artists developed a materialist and non-religious view of science. The popularizers of natural theology – J. G. Wood, Richard Proctor and Clerke – also conveyed a moral and religious message. Finally, the popularization of science sought to legitimate scientific disciplines. Phrenologists fiercely fought to legitimate their new field. Nineteenth century Britain marveled at scientific spectacles and discoveries. The unsolved problem is which was the best way to explain and interpret science popularization; does academic culture belong to a distinct sphere from popular science? Is the communication circuit an interesting approach to understand the popularization of science? Are there relationships that link academic science to popular science? Where intermediaries of science should be placed?
Georgetown University
Department of History
[1] David Layton, “Diction and Dictionaries in the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge” , British Journal for History of Science, 77 (September, 1965): 226.
[2] David Lightman, “The Visual Theology of Victorian Popuarizers of Science: From Reverent Eye to Chemical Retina”, Isis, 91, No 4 (Dec., 2000): 679
[3] Jonatham Topham,”Beyond the “Common Context”: The Production and reading of Bridgewater Treatesis”, Isis, Vol. 89, no 2 (June, 1998): 234
The five case-studies of popularization of science are organized according to the author’s methodology and definitions of popular science, academic science, and popularization of science. In their respective studies, David Layton (1965), Bernard Lightman (2000), and Roger Cooter (1984) assert that there are two distinct spheres in science: popular science and academic science. Their goal is to analyze the popularization of science within popular culture. Despite the fact that Simon Shaffer (1983) does not assert the existence of such two spheres in science, he takes it for granted when he argues that public lectures served two purposes. On the one hand, public lectures instructed and conveyed a moral message to a popular audience. On the other hand, public lectures amused the British upper-classes. However, Shaffer’s study of the production of science as a performance is much more sophisticated because his goal is to find the values and norms those scientists, the upper-classes and the ruling class shared. Finally, Jonathan R. Topham (1998) studies the entire social actor involved in the communication circuit of the Bridgewater Treatises. In opposition to Layton, Lightman, and Cooter, Topham argue that it is impossible to distinguish popular culture from high culture. Moreover, he asserts that popular culture is high-culture. Topham solves the dichotomy between popular culture and academic culture by focusing on all the actors involved in the communication circuit.
David Lightman’s article on “Diction and Dictionaries in the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge” shows the growing literacy rates in eighteenth century England. Moreover, Lightman builds the grounds for the “marvelous” interest on science and its popularization in the following century. Layton argues that specialized and general dictionaries played a crucial role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge in eighteenth century England - a time when scientific knowledge was accessible to only a few and when classical education prevailed. Moreover, Layton asserts that these dictionaries opened the window to self-education for persons of humble origins. Layton argues that the role of dictionaries changed over time. Republished in 1706, “The New World of Words’ ” was a general dictionary written by a non-scientist named Edward Phillips. The main role of the “The New World of Words” was to instruct and compile a definite code of scientific knowledge. The “Lexicon Technicum” was a general scientific dictionary published in 1704. Finally, the “Encyclopaedia” was a work of reference whose goal was to lay the authority and legitimate certain scientific ideas and disciplines. These dictionaries explained in non-technical language Newtonian mechanics, mathematics, astronomy, botany, and medicine. Layton’s aim is to study the popularization of science throughout the spread of general and specialized dictionaries. However, his definition of popularization – “as the existence of a reading public interested in science”[1] - does not match with the studies of his dictionaries. He does not explore the thoughts, values, norms, and views of ordinary people. Finally, Layton remains focused on members of the elite: those who wrote the dictionaries.
Along the same lines, Bernard Lightman analyzes how both natural theology and chemical retina were popularized in nineteenth century Great Britain. Following, the careers of three popularizes of natural theology: J. G. Wood, Richard Proctor and Agnes Clerke. Their articles of natural theology, in which science went together with religion, were the strategy to reach a broad audience. Lightman argues that those three popularizes of science transformed natural theology tradition by using mass visual culture and by ignoring the meanings that their audiences gave to their sermon-like lectures. Lightman’s important contribution is that he articulates the relationship between natural theology and religion. Lightman purports to analyze popular culture; however he fails to do so. For example, Lightman presents Agnes Clarke as a popularizer of science; however she was part of the scientific establishment. She became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomic Academy in 1903. Agnes Clerke was useful to the astronomers and Royal Astronomy’s interests because she popularized the astronomy they wanted to be conveyed to ordinary people. On the other hand, Lightman does not provide a definition of popularization of science. What does he mean by the use of that term? His idea of both “popularization” and “science” are unclear and diffuse. Lightman believes that by the means of depicting the spectacles and by the use of mass visual culture as a strategy to reach the popular audience, he is able to reach the cultural and social implications of the natural theology of ordinary people. Finally, Lightman’s study focuses on the intermediaries of science, rather than on ordinary people or the popular audience.
Building upon Layton and Lighman, Roger Cooter draws the difference between popular science and academic science as separate spheres of science. Cooter prefers to analyze the cultural and social meanings of phrenology in popular culture. In contrast, in academic science, phrenology became a vehicle of liberal ideology that led to major reforms in criminology, education, the treatment of the insane in the Anglo-Saxon world. His narrative is not easy to follow. His attempts to define concepts and draw ideas from outside of the Anglo-Saxon tradition make his English awkward to read. However, Cooter’s prosopographical study of phrenology is superb. He distinguishes phrenologists from antiphrenologists with the following categories: age, prestige, power, income, religion, and identity. Cooter asserts that phrenologists were in their forties, lacked sufficient power or prestige within academia, did not belong to the established Church, and had a sense of “social worth”.[2] Nevertheless, they were neither political nor economic radicals, they were professionals trying to legitimate a new discipline and struggling to find a place within academia. Cooter faces the same problem as Lightman: their concept of popular culture is high-culture. Cooter explains how phrenology moved from academic social circles to popular audiences in the middle of the nineteenth century. Once phrenology entered the realm of the popular audience, scientists regret its popularization. Because the use of phrenology by a popular audience automatically makes it loose status in the eyes of academic science. What is more, phrenology becomes vulgar once in the hands of a popular audience. Moreover, antiphrenologist lamented the degeneration of a discipline rooted on physiology and anatomy. Cooter carries on an excellent study of the social and cultural meanings of phrenology focusing on both scientist and its intermediaries. He has difficulties of understanding the codes, texts, meanings, and significance of phrenology for ordinary people.
Simon Shaffer writes a short masterpiece about the importance of the public spectacle in the production and legitimatization of experimental natural philosophy in the eighteenth century in England. He deploys rigorous definitions of audience, rhetoric, scientific production, and natural philosophy. The most interesting piece of the article is his explanation of the significance of public spectacles, both due to its educational role and its role of turning into a theatre for the upper-classes. Shaffer thoroughly unveils values and accepted social conventions in the form of “powers of matter”, the sublime, the aesthetics of the sublime and the beautiful, and the epistemology of controlled experience. Natural philosophers as well as the educated and wealthy English society shared the above mentioned values and norms. Shaffer highlights why the public spectacles were so important to legitimate experimental natural philosophy. Moreover, Shaffer argues that experimental natural philosophy’s legitimacy was based on norms and values of the eighteenth century English gentlemanly society.
Jonathan Topham highlights the significance of the popularization of Bridgewater Treatesis in the 1930s in England. Topham contends Robert M. Young’s “common intellectual context”[3]. Young argues that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, British intelligentsia shared a homogenous intellectual context due to the broad circulation of literature books and a strong belief on natural theology. In opposition to Young, Topham argues that the Bridgewater Treatesis had multiple meanings rather than a homogenous interpretation. Each reader invested its own meaning to the Treatesis, and thus he studies the different actors of the communication circle of the production of books. His goal is to disclose how those authors, publishers, booksellers, bookbinders, printers, and readers influenced the readership. Topham makes a subtle distinction among readers: gentlemen of science, middle-class domesticity, the public arena, and radical artists.
Jonathan R. Topham (1998) asserts the need to study the whole range of social actors of the communication circle to understand the popularization of science. Lets start with the authors of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The authors of the Bridgewater Treatesis did not have a clear purpose. On the contrary, an ambiguity regarding the author’s purpose, the content, the intention, the audience, and the genre was an outstanding feature of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The Treatesis’ genre did not fit into a traditional one; it was reviewed both by religious and specialist journalists. In addition, the readership was wide. The readership varied from experts to lay people. Neither were the Treatesis intended for a particular audience which could vary from Oxford educated men to artisans. The unclear strategy of the authors widened its readership.
The following three paragraphs will analyze the publishers, printers, and booksellers’ purposes with regard to the price, format, and content of the Bridgewater Treatesis. The publishers’ had control over the choice of the material form and upon the purpose of the Treatesis. The publisher's main purpose was to dignify the Treatesis. The authors of the Bridgewater looked for the best publishers in London. The first publisher was John Murray who offered a better commercial offer in comparison to Longman. Murray’s presented them as a new genre called popular science. On the contrary, Pickering, who published the second edition, had a clear-cut commercial purpose. Therefore, the Bridgewater Treatesis had an expensive price and were presented as theological works. Pickering’s buyers were wealthy and educated: the aristocracy, the gentry, and the upper-classes. Topham argues that despite the publisher’s purposes, the Treatesis turned into a commercial success because they were sold and read by a wide audience.
Printers, booksellers and bookbinders. The printers played a key role because Whittingham provided credit to Pickering. Moreover, both printer and publisher agreed on high-quality typography and were against a cheap edition of the Treatises. Nevertheless, as the audience broadened, they had no alternative but to sell a cheap edition. The booksellers were retailers. Pickering sold the Treatesis to antiquaries, bibliophiles, and to buyers of the country-market. The commercial success of the Treatesis empowered Pickering. Finally, bookbinders chose the presentation of the publication: the coloring, cotton-cloth, and the leader binding. The bookbinding tells us about the wealth of the readers rather than the durability of the books.
Topham divides the readership into four dimensions: gentlemen of science, socialites, middle-class domesticity, and radical artists. Each group invested a particular meaning and meaning to the Bridgewater Treatises that led to competing ideas of nature and the place of science.
Topham’s goal is to recreate the social world of the readers. His main historical sources are reviews, conversations, sermons, lectures, and addresses. The gentlemen of science read the Treatesis for the sake of maintaining their reputation as scientific experts. Topham focuses on Buckland’s geology. He argues that Buckland fought for his reputation as an author creating expectation, spreading rumors, carrying on intimate conversations, and writing reviews about the future publication of this geology.
It became fashionable to read the Bridgewater Treatesis because their role was to preserve the existence of a select readership. It was a way to reject the fact that ordinary people were interested in reading the Treatesis. Another important role of the fashionable society was to create a public opinion after "soires", "converzationes", and dinner parties. Buckland’s geology also provided a topic of conversation not only within the heart of middle-class domesticity, but also between young men and women. Buckland’s science was morally safe; moreover it highlighted the importance of sublime and wonders.
Both geologists and radical artists threatened the cultural and social authority of the arts and scientific academic bodies. Gentlemen of science consolidated their cultural authority through the British Association. The religious tendency of Buckland’s geology led to a conflict with the British Association. The conflict became a public spectacle. Topham argues that the public spectacle between the geologists and the British Association demonstrate how books turn into contested objects. Topham gives evidence of the multiple meanings given to the Treatesis. Artisans undermined gentlemen’s scientific authority because they had a materialist understanding of science. At the same time, gentlemen of science hold to the idea of providential nature of science. Carlileans, Owenites, and Chartists shared the antireligious end of science.
Layton, Lightman, and Cooter’s flaw is their belief in the split between popular culture and high-culture. I argue that popular culture is high culture because of the impossibility of finding texts, historical sources, and codes that tell us what ordinary people thought. The three scholars study popular culture focusing on intermediaries who devoted part of their lives to preaching, instructing, and publicizing science. However, those intermediaries do not tell us about the meaning that ordinary people gave to science. What is more, those intermediaries were literate and were even recognized members of scientific circles. The attempt to study the cultural and social meanings of science upon ordinary people is worthwhile and necessary. However, I contend with the methodology and the historical sources to reach that goal. Shaffer has a much more sophisticated analysis of the historical sources. He concentrates on values shared by both natural scientists and gentlemanly society: sublime, beauty, wonder, spectacle, and aesthetics are the main characters of the scientific stage. Shaffer’s contribution is to define scientific production as spectacle. Thus, he questions the authority of certain disciplines and shows their strategies to become legitimate fields of study. Topham broadens the actors and its purposes within the popularization of science. Topham claims that radical artists and scriptural geologists threatened and undermined the scientific authority of English gentlemen of science. Morrell and Thrackray argue that the gentleman of science’s central ideology was an emphasis on the relationship between science and religion. At the same time, Chartists, Carlileans, Owenists, and scriptural geologists challenged that view of science. The former ones supported a materialists and non-religious worldview of science. The latter conveyed a religious understanding of geology. The conclusion is that the concept of science had different meanings depending on who read it.
The readership interested in science broadened. Moreover, there were groups – dictionary authors, science popularizers, phrenologists, and scriptural geologists – that both popularized science and even challenged the place of science. Science had become marvelous, beautiful, and mysterious in the eyes of both upper-middle classes and ordinary people. In addition, the religious dimension of science becomes more important. The English gentlemen of science related science to a providential idea of religion. On the contrary, radical artists developed a materialist and non-religious view of science. The popularizers of natural theology – J. G. Wood, Richard Proctor and Clerke – also conveyed a moral and religious message. Finally, the popularization of science sought to legitimate scientific disciplines. Phrenologists fiercely fought to legitimate their new field. Nineteenth century Britain marveled at scientific spectacles and discoveries. The unsolved problem is which was the best way to explain and interpret science popularization; does academic culture belong to a distinct sphere from popular science? Is the communication circuit an interesting approach to understand the popularization of science? Are there relationships that link academic science to popular science? Where intermediaries of science should be placed?
Georgetown University
Department of History
[1] David Layton, “Diction and Dictionaries in the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge” , British Journal for History of Science, 77 (September, 1965): 226.
[2] David Lightman, “The Visual Theology of Victorian Popuarizers of Science: From Reverent Eye to Chemical Retina”, Isis, 91, No 4 (Dec., 2000): 679
[3] Jonatham Topham,”Beyond the “Common Context”: The Production and reading of Bridgewater Treatesis”, Isis, Vol. 89, no 2 (June, 1998): 234
Good analysis of the popularization of history of science. Could you add somethig about why was popularization important?
ReplyDeleteBut the concept of popularization is well writen.
ReplyDeletethanks
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed it
ReplyDelete