Wisdom from a the Fathers of Science - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jul 2, 2005

Wisdom from a the Fathers of Science

Date: Jul 2, 2005

Here, here.

Date: Jul 2, 2005

Welcome back Jameela! Thanks so much for this.

Date: Jul 3, 2005

Jameela Lares wrote:

A number of recent threads have concerned the USM Administration's tendency to see research as short-term gain. Last week I found an arresting statement in an old but still relevant document, Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London. In this 438 page work, printed in 1667, Sprat provides an account of the foundation, principles, and methodology of the Royal Society, an organization that marked the real beginning of modern science in the Engish speaking world. Officially founded in 1660, though active before then, the Royal Society promoted dispassionate, repeatable, empirical research. Early fellows included Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and Isaac Newton, and the roll of fellows reads like a Who's Who in science. (I note, for instance, that Daniel Fahrenheit was elected in 1724.) The Royal Society is still going strong--see at http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/. Like most human organizations, it now admits women. What I thought particularly apropos to the situation at USM was Sprat's statement in 1667 that concern for "present profit" in science diminishes that very profit for which men strive. It busies them about possessing some petty prize; while nature it self, with all its mighty Treasures, slips from them: and so they are serv’d like some foolish Guards; who, while they were earnest in picking up some small Money, that the Prisoner drop’d out of his Pocket, let the Prisoner himself escape, from who they might have got a great ransom. (68) Thus at the very beginnings of modern science, we have a warning against the seductions of short-term gain. I hope someone is listening. Jameela

Stick to English Lit, all the individuals mentioned in the above passage with the exception of Isaac Newton made a living and in some cases a fortune off of their science. Isaac Newton was basically a nut case, who invented calculus but would not tell anyone what it was for 30 or so years while he became a religious fanatic. Of course there are those who say this is what we should do - earn public money, think deep thoughts and crawl into a hole.

Date: Jul 3, 2005

looking in wrote:

Stick to English Lit, all the individuals mentioned in the above passage with the exception of Isaac Newton made a living and in some cases a fortune off of their science. Isaac Newton was basically a nut case, who invented calculus but would not tell anyone what it was for 30 or so years while he became a religious fanatic. Of course there are those who say this is what we should do - earn public money, think deep thoughts and crawl into a hole.

This is English Lit, actually, the result of researches into my next book. Literary research isn't as compartmentalized as you seem to want to believe.

From your post I must assume that it is you who doesn't actually know much about Newton. I've heard him called a number of things by the major Newton scholars I know, but never a "nut case." The Royal Society didn't, in fact, make much money off their science--most of them were already gentlemen with disposable incomes--unless you count patronage, but that's not the same as "public money" in the modern, public/private sector sense. And it's possible that everyone in the original group would be "religious fanatics" according to our secular society. Robert Boyle certainly was, as he founded a lecture series on Christianity and science, and he underwrote a number of Bible translations. Newton himself was a heretic (he denied the doctrine of the trinity) but hardly a religious fanatic. True, he did write more on theology than on mathematics, but as I say, this is a matter of curiosity to Newton scholars but hardly alarm. Ironically, one of the first jobs of the Royal Society was to convince an equally religious nation that it was okay for them Christian to do scientific experiments (then called "natural philosophy").

None of the four people I mentioned fit your description of idealistic, alienated sponges. Their researches all contributed to benefits we still enjoy. It's just that they didn't put money first.

Cheers,

Jameela