Nature Engaged: Science in Practice from the Renaissance to the Present (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History)

This volume gathers essays that focus on the worldliness of science, its inseparable engagement in the major institutional bases of social life: law, market, church, school, and nation. With a chronological span reaching from the Renaissance to Big Science, its topics range from sundials to genetic sequences, from calculating instruments to devices that simulate human behavior, from early cartography to techniques for tracing radioactive fallout on a global scale. The book aims to show readers, with episodes drawn from the span of their modern history, the sciences in action throughout human society. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: A Mingled Yarn....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Scientific Conventions: International Assemblies and Technical Standards from the Republic of Letters to Global Science....Pages 19-39 Practicing Eighteenth-Century Science Today....Pages 41-58 The Textbook Case of a Priority Dispute: D. I. Mendeleev, Lothar Meyer, and the Periodic System....Pages 59-82 Complex Systems and Total War: British Operational Research and the PM Statistical Branch at the Beginning of World War II....Pages 83-100 Front Matter....Pages 101-101 Witnessing Astronomy: Kepler on the Uses and Misuses of Testimony....Pages 103-123 Improvement for Profit: Calculating Machines and the Prehistory of Intellectual Property....Pages 125-146 Genes, Railroads, and Regulations: Intellectual Property and the Public Interest....Pages 147-162 Epidemiology, Tort, and the Relations between Science and Law in the Twentieth-Century American Courtroom....Pages 163-183 Front Matter....Pages 185-185 Mercator Maps Time....Pages 187-204 Rethinking 1633: Writing about Galileo after the Trial....Pages 205-226 Front Matter....Pages 227-227 Machines in the Garden....Pages 229-248 Cosmography and the Meaning of Sundials....Pages 249-262 The Web of Knowing, Doing, and Patenting: William Thomson’s Apparatus Room and the History of Electricity....Pages 263-285 Back Matter....Pages 287-301 Cover 1 Contents 7 Figures 9 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: A Mingled Yarn 11 Part I Conventions 26 1 Scientific Conventions: InternationalAssemblies and Technical Standardsfrom the Republic of Letters toGlobal Science 27 2 Practicing Eighteenth-CenturyScience Today 48 3 The Textbook Case of a PriorityDispute: D. I. Mendeleev, LotharMeyer, and the Periodic System 66 4 Complex Systems and Total War:British Operational Research andthe PM Statistical Branch at theBeginning of World War II 90 Part II Laws 108 5 Witnessing Astronomy:Kepler on the Uses and Misuses ofTestimony 109 6 Improvement for Profit: CalculatingMachines and the Prehistory ofIntellectual Property 130 7 Genes, Railroads, and Regulations:Intellectual Property and thePublic Interest 152 8 Epidemiology, Tort, and theRelations between Science andLaw in the Twentieth-CenturyAmerican Courtroom 168 Part III Histories 189 9 Mercator Maps Time 190 10 Rethinking 1633: Writing aboutGalileo after the Trial* 208 Part IV Things 230 11 Machines in the Garden* 231 12 Cosmography and theMeaning of Sundials 251 13 The Web of Knowing, Doing,and Patenting: William Thomson’sApparatus Room and the History ofElectricity 265 Contributors 288 Index 291 "Gathering essays that focus on the worldliness of science, this volume offers a kaleidoscopic survey of some of the newest and most exciting work in the history of science. The contributions here are situated at the intersection of science studies and cultural history, revealing science's inseparable engagement with the major institutional bases of social life: law, market, church, school, and nation. With a chronological span reaching from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, these pieces explore sundials, genetic sequences, simulations of human behavior, cartography, radioactive fallout, and a host of other historical phenomena that show the sciences in action throughout human society"-- Publisher's description