On this date in 1870, Horace Donisthorpe was born in England.
Donisthorpe is hardly a household name these days, and it is perhaps kinder to his memory that this remains the case, because outside of the very small world of ant researchers (myrmecologists), he is remembered mostly for what he did wrong, and just as this sort of narrow view has led to sad legacies such as "Lamarckism" (more on Lamarck at a later date), one cannot imagine that Donisthorpism would be a positive thing at all.
Horace did his share of good for the study of ants and beetles, and that should not be forgotten. He discovered six new species, including a European rove beetle (Leptacinus intermedius). Unfortunately, he also "discovered" no fewer than twenty-four other species which were not species at all, but redescriptions of already described species. To name and describe a species is a legacy, but to have that description revoked is worse than nothing. It makes the legacy no more than a taxonomic dead end, a complication, a mistake, marked with an asterisk for all the history of science afterward. Twenty four of these is no mean feat, and no small error.
Still, there are worse ways to spend a personal fortune, and he did advance his fields with the discoveries he did make. But at no point can I imagine the term "Donisthorpian" to be accepted gratefully by any scientist I know.
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
17 March 2008
18 January 2008
Bronowski
On this date in 1908, Jacob Bronowski was born.
When I choose which events and births and deaths to profile in this blog, it's often difficult to pick the most significant. Often I have to hope that I continue to do this for more than a year, just to get back to some of the interesting stories I had to pass up the first time around. For January 18, there was no question that Bronowski would be my subject.
Jacob Bronowski is best known to most people, myself included, for his excellent work on the BBC's Ascent of Man. Ascent, for those of this generation that have not yet seen it, is a masterwork explaining the various ways that science and technology have shaped human civilization. While Darwin traced humanity's "Descent" back to our evolutionary ancestors, Bronowski chose the opposite, starting at the point we became truly modern humans and noting the way that science fostered our growth and development. It was a brilliant show.
One of the most memorable moments from Ascent was also one of the formative moments in my understanding, limited as it may be, of science. In the eleventh of thirteen episodes, Bronowski visited Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp. He proceeded to make one of the most important points I have ever heard, that certainty is the enemy not only of science, but of humanity. No explanation I could possibly offer would do better than Bronowski's own, and so here, thanks to the glory that is YouTube, is that segment. I encourage you to buy the entire series, and see why it was Carl Sagan' inspiration for making Cosmos.
When I choose which events and births and deaths to profile in this blog, it's often difficult to pick the most significant. Often I have to hope that I continue to do this for more than a year, just to get back to some of the interesting stories I had to pass up the first time around. For January 18, there was no question that Bronowski would be my subject.
Jacob Bronowski is best known to most people, myself included, for his excellent work on the BBC's Ascent of Man. Ascent, for those of this generation that have not yet seen it, is a masterwork explaining the various ways that science and technology have shaped human civilization. While Darwin traced humanity's "Descent" back to our evolutionary ancestors, Bronowski chose the opposite, starting at the point we became truly modern humans and noting the way that science fostered our growth and development. It was a brilliant show.
One of the most memorable moments from Ascent was also one of the formative moments in my understanding, limited as it may be, of science. In the eleventh of thirteen episodes, Bronowski visited Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp. He proceeded to make one of the most important points I have ever heard, that certainty is the enemy not only of science, but of humanity. No explanation I could possibly offer would do better than Bronowski's own, and so here, thanks to the glory that is YouTube, is that segment. I encourage you to buy the entire series, and see why it was Carl Sagan' inspiration for making Cosmos.
05 January 2008
Kathleen Kenyon and the Birth of Quantitative Archaeology
On this date in 1906, Dame Kathleen Kenyon was born.
Daughter of the Biblical scholar Sir Frederick Kenyon, Kathleen was born into the study of history. Her father would later become Director of the British Museum. She studied history at Oxford, before beginning her career as a photographer on the Great Zimbabwe expeditions of Gertrude Caton-Thompson. As rare as a female archaeologist was in Kenyon's day, it was even rarer in Caton-Thompson, and the elder scientist must have been a heavy inspiration on young Kathleen. Her next work was with Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and it was this work that I want to center on in today's blog.
Wheeler was a star in the world of archaeology. Keeper of the London Museum, he was a precious rarity in science, an extremely talented researcher with an uncanny ability to translate his findings to a larger audience. He was the first to lay out excavations in a grid system to keep track of where items were found to a more specific degree than was previously common. Kenyon learned this system from him at Verulamium, a Roman excavation north of London. She then took Wheeler's ideas and expanded on them, and improved them.
Where Wheeler had concentrated primarily on the horizontal arrangement of artifacts, Kenyon was just as interested in the vertical, the depth at which things were found. Her tweaks to Wheeler's strategy became the Wheeler-Kenyon Method.
In the Wheeler-Kenyon Method, excavation sites are divided into 5x5 meter squares, in a grid. Anytime you see old video of excavation sites, with large squares cut into the earth, they were using Wheeler-Kenyon. Kathleen Kenyon's addition was to leave walls, 1 meter thick, remaining between all of Wheeler's squares. This allowed the layers of soil and other materials to be analyzed alongside the artifacts they held. So much information had previously been swept away, the artifacts seeming to be the important thing. The value of what Kenyon did cannot be overestimated. She realized that the context of the artifacts would be as important as the pieces themselves, and that the layer of sediment surrounding them could tell volumes about when the piece was buried and what was going on there at the time.
Kenyon went on to become principal at St. Hugh's College at Oxford, and was honored as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire upon her retirement. She died five years later, but left behind a science firmer and more robust than she had found, something to which every scientist would do well to strive.
Tomorrow: Daylight Savings Time and the Energy Crisis
Daughter of the Biblical scholar Sir Frederick Kenyon, Kathleen was born into the study of history. Her father would later become Director of the British Museum. She studied history at Oxford, before beginning her career as a photographer on the Great Zimbabwe expeditions of Gertrude Caton-Thompson. As rare as a female archaeologist was in Kenyon's day, it was even rarer in Caton-Thompson, and the elder scientist must have been a heavy inspiration on young Kathleen. Her next work was with Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and it was this work that I want to center on in today's blog.
Wheeler was a star in the world of archaeology. Keeper of the London Museum, he was a precious rarity in science, an extremely talented researcher with an uncanny ability to translate his findings to a larger audience. He was the first to lay out excavations in a grid system to keep track of where items were found to a more specific degree than was previously common. Kenyon learned this system from him at Verulamium, a Roman excavation north of London. She then took Wheeler's ideas and expanded on them, and improved them.
Where Wheeler had concentrated primarily on the horizontal arrangement of artifacts, Kenyon was just as interested in the vertical, the depth at which things were found. Her tweaks to Wheeler's strategy became the Wheeler-Kenyon Method.
In the Wheeler-Kenyon Method, excavation sites are divided into 5x5 meter squares, in a grid. Anytime you see old video of excavation sites, with large squares cut into the earth, they were using Wheeler-Kenyon. Kathleen Kenyon's addition was to leave walls, 1 meter thick, remaining between all of Wheeler's squares. This allowed the layers of soil and other materials to be analyzed alongside the artifacts they held. So much information had previously been swept away, the artifacts seeming to be the important thing. The value of what Kenyon did cannot be overestimated. She realized that the context of the artifacts would be as important as the pieces themselves, and that the layer of sediment surrounding them could tell volumes about when the piece was buried and what was going on there at the time.
Kenyon went on to become principal at St. Hugh's College at Oxford, and was honored as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire upon her retirement. She died five years later, but left behind a science firmer and more robust than she had found, something to which every scientist would do well to strive.
Tomorrow: Daylight Savings Time and the Energy Crisis
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