HENRY

The journal Nature has digitised their entire publication archive - dating all the way back to November 4th, 1869. Nature has been one of the most influential journals in science (the wikipedia has a good history), so this is a good chance to poke around their archives. Unfortunately, all the good stuff is still behind a pay-to-view firewall, but the history page has some interesting information.

It’s fascinating to see the differences in science writing that 140 years can bring. This paper, in the second issue, discusses the “Dulness of Science” (sic), and sounds like a mix between a Dickens novel and an allegory:

But, alas ! the blind in this sense are numbered by myriads ; and as they, for a time, almost threaten to carry their point, a few remarks upon  the dulness of science, or rather, perhaps, the dulness of men, may not be out of place.

We have in out mind’s eye at the present moment several notable specimens of blind men. One of these lives not very far from where we write - a most hopeless individual; we had better not inquire too narrowly concerning his occupation; he will be found somewhere in the purlieus of this great city. His one sense is the sense of gain. We remember once seeing through a microscope the animalcules of a drop of water, and we noticed that one of the largest of these had one end fixed to the side of the vessel, while its arms and mouth were busy gathering up and swallowing its smaller neighbours. Now, the man of whom we speak is only this animalcule magnified without the microscope. Ignorant of all laws, civil, religious, physical, moral, social, sanatory, he rots in his place until Dame Nature, in one of her clearing-out days, fetches at him with her besom the plague; and he is swept aside and seen no more.

“F.R.S.”, Page 43, Nature,  vol 1, iss.2, 1869

Ruth Barton also cherry-picks a few gems (doi):

The most bitter exchange was between the physicists P. G. Tait, a regular controversialist from Edinburgh, and John Tyndall of London, whom Tait accused of scientific error in his Lectures on Light. Tyndall had won distinction as a popularizer but, according to Tait, at the cost of “martyring” his scientific authority. Tyndall retaliated, accusing Tait of lacking “manhood” (11 and 18 September 1873). The following year, Tait accused the renowned evolutionary philosopher Herbert Spencer of being confused about newtonian mechanics (26 March 1874). The ensuing debate ran in Nature for five months, with contributors from three continents.

Posted on January 7th, 2008 by Simon Greenhill