history of science
clock | September 7, 2009Zombies of the mammoth steppes. Read it now. Can you find something as riveting, yet scholarly and trustworthy, in your newspaper today?
ddobbs | September 7, 2009Bloggingheads.tv just posted a conversation Greg Laden and I had about the second-biggest scientific controversy of Darwin's time, and of Darwin's life: the argument over how coral reefs form. The coral reef argument was fascinating in its own right, both scientifically and dramatically -- for here a very capable andn conscientious scientist, Alexander Agassiz, struggled to reconcile both two views of science and the legacies of the two scientific giants of the age, one of whom was his father.
His story -- and the tumultuous 19th-century struggle to define science and empiricism -- is the…
clock | August 26, 2009From NESCent:
> "Re: Design" - This is a dramatization of the scientific correspondence between Charles Darwin and botanist Asa Gray, and is a product of the Darwin Correspondence Project. NESCent is co-sponsoring this theatrical production with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, WUNC-TV and the NCSU Theater Dept. The production will be staged at the newly renovated Thompson Hall theater at NCSU, and will employ professional actors (not undergrads!) so it should be a really high-quality production. It will run for five days (Nov. 4th through 8th), with the first four days being 8 PM…
Charles Darwin Lecture Series - Dale Russell: "Islands in the Cosmos: The Evolution of Life on Land"
clock | August 20, 2009DARWIN LECTURE SERIES CONTINUES!
How did we come to be here? Answers to this question have preoccupied
humans for millennia. Scientists have sought clues in the genes of
living things, in the physical environments of Earth - from mountaintops
to the depths of the ocean, in the chemistry of this world and those
nearby, in the tiniest particles of matter, and in the deepest reaches
of space. On Tuesday, September 29, Senior Curator of Paleontology Dale
Russell presents a talk based on his new book "Islands in the Cosmos:
The Evolution of Life on Land," which follows evolution from its origins…
laelaps | August 17, 2009
Osborn's view of the progressive evolution of the brontotheres. Notice the references to the "geneplasm" at left, which Osborn interpreted as spontaneously giving rise to new adaptations. From Osborn (1935).
Every now and then I like taking a break from the latest technical papers and conference volumes to read some vintage scientific work. Oftentimes this is an enjoyable experience, I love the history of science, but the evolutionary work of H.F. Osborn is frustratingly opaque. While Osborn certainly was one of the most prominent figures in early 20th century paleontology he cultivated…
bioephemera | August 14, 2009
It commemorates Hans Christian Ãrsted, who discovered the relationship between electricity and magenetism. Re-enact Ãrsted's experiment here.
But what about that other Hans Christian, Hans Christian Andersen? Here's what the Guardian had to say: "while there's nothing wrong with fairy stories, they haven't contributed much to the development of electric motors."
Ouch! :)
laelaps | August 11, 2009
The skeleton of an orangutan and a human compared. From Richard Owen's The Principal Forms of the Skeleton and of the Teeth.
I have developed something of a bad habit. Whenever I am reading a book, paper, or article and I spot a bit of unattributed "received wisdom" I immediately get the urge to track down the reference to see if the author is in error. The task might consume only a few minutes or it may take many hours, but I cannot help my compulsion.
An op-ed by Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk, co-creators of the Biologos website, set me to work this afternoon. The pair wrote;
But the…
clock | August 10, 2009Scientific facts are fun. But probably to a limited number of people.
It's more fun to know how scientists got those facts - their thoughts, motivations and methods. How they did it. Why they did it. Where did they get the idea to do it in the first place.
It's even more fun, for a broader number of people, if that finding is placed in a historical context - how work of previous generations of scientists, meandering around various age-specific ideas, led to the work of this particular group.
But it is even more fun watching the historians of science at work. Most recent science is pretty easy…
laelaps | August 5, 2009I have been writing a lot about extinct proboscideans lately, but when it comes to essays about elephants and their extinct relatives John McKay can't be beat. His latest is about various representations of mammoths locked in ice and is a must-read. (He even references one of the worst movies I have ever seen, Mammoth.) John promises that he has "lots more to say about this topic", too, so keep your fingers crossed for a sequel to his wonderful essay.
laelaps | July 30, 2009
A restoration of the head of Pyrotherium. From W.B. Scott's A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere.
I do not remember much from my elementary school education, but there are a few fragments that have stuck with me. One day in 6th grade geography, for example, Mr. McCutcheon asked the class what we thought the continents of South America and Africa looked like. Africa was easy, it looked like the head of an African elephant (northwestern Africa being the right ear and Madagascar the tip of the trunk), but there was a greater diversity of opinion about South America. The…
laelaps | July 28, 2009
When I was a kid the movie Alligator seemed to be on television almost every other weekend. It was one of the first movies I can remember seeing, although truth be told I probably should not have been allowed to watch it. The pool scene alone was enough to give me nightmares.
For those who have not seen it, the film features an enormous, marauding alligator that grew to such prodigious size by feeding on test animals a biomedical corporation dumped in the sewer. It was a pretty clever explanation for how an ordinary alligator could become so gigantic, but long before Hollywood…
laelaps | July 27, 2009
A progressive "march" of elephant evolution as portrayed in Ingersoll's The Life of Animals. From left to right Moeritherium, Palaeomastodon, Gomphotherium ("Trilophodon"), Mammut americanum (American mastodon), Elephas maximus (Asian elephant).
Every now and then I like to browse through old popular-audience books about evolution. Given that I am writing such a popular book myself I enjoy looking back to see how other authors have approached the same task. In some cases I have come away quite impressed, but other times it seems that some authors of old used such platforms to give their…
laelaps | July 24, 2009
A recent restoration of Deinotherium from Markov, et al (2001) "A reconstruction of the facial morphology and feeding behavior of the deinotheres." The World of Elephants, International Congress, Rome 2001. Taken from The World We Don't Live In.
Poor Deinotherium. Although it is one of the most readily recognizable proboscideans (the larger group to which modern elephants belong) it has long been treated as an uninteresting distant cousin of more popular fossil elephants like woolly mammoths. During the early 20th century, especially, it was often seen as something of a failed evolutionary…
laelaps | July 23, 2009
The incomplete skull of Nicrosaurus (formerly "Belodon"), one of the earliest-recognized phytosaurs. It is missing teeth and it did not have an extended downward extension of the palate (the outline that extends below the upper jaw marked by the dotted line) like modern crocodiles. From A guide to the fossil reptiles and fishes in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural History).
On the occasion of our third anniversary my wife bought me one of my most favorite works of paleo-art; a scene from the late Triassic set in what is now Arizona's Petrified…
laelaps | July 21, 2009
Mentioning Richard Dawkins is a quick way to polarize a conversation. One acquaintance once told me that she refused to read anything by Stephen Jay Gould because of Dawkins' criticisms while, on the other hand, many of my friends have voiced their exasperation with the English biologist's attacks on religion. Regardless of whether you consider him a saint or a sinner, though, Dawkins is one of the most controversial scientific figures working today, and Fern Elsdon-Baker has contributed The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin's Legacy to the ongoing arguments about the "…
emjohnson | July 17, 2009
The World's Fair is recreated in all it's glory! Skulls in the Stars is currently hosting the thirteenth installment of the History of Science Blog Carnival. There are some amazing pieces in this edition so head on over right now and check them out. GG was also kind enough to include my post The Grassroots of Scientific Revolution.
Some of the most interesting pieces I read in this edition include:
Brian at Laelaps discusses the controversy of the cuttlefish:
Meyranx and Laurencet's paper played right into Geoffroy's hands. Even though they had not intended on refuting Cuvier, the…
laelaps | July 17, 2009Yesterday the 13th edition of The Giant's Shoulders was posted over at Skulls in the Stars. It is an excellent edition in a "guided tour" format. The next iteration will go on display next month at The Dispersal of Darwin.
laelaps | July 16, 2009
A traditional restoration of Platybelodon as seen in H.F. Osborn's 1936 elephant monograph. From Lambert (1992).
Whenever I visit the American Museum of Natural History in New York I make sure to at least pass through the fourth-floor fossil halls before I leave, and one of my favorite displays features the shovel-mouthed proboscidean Platybelodon. In a glass case in the shadow of a mammoth skeleton is a growth series showing the development of the Platybelodon jaw, from juvenile to adult. Like many AMNH displays, however, this series was not a product of the renovation of the fossil halls…
emjohnson | July 6, 2009Rejection of authority and working-class values inspired the scientific method.
As everyone knows, when food is digested it is processed into chyle and turned into blood by the liver. This blood then flows to the lungs where it releases any impurities into the air. Flowing from the lungs into the left ventricle of the heart the blood then mixes with air and is charged with animal spirit - where it changes from dark purple to bright red. This charged blood then passes through the arteries and throughout the body.At least, if you had lived anywhere in the Western world up until the early 1600s…