PACHSmörgåsbord: History
Friday, August 03, 2012
The Renaissance Mathematicus blog has a wonderful rant about one of my pet peeves, Whig history. The post is about how we separate those who have done science in the past into two categories: those whom we now deem as having done “correct” science (e.g. Darwin) and those deluded souls who merely believed they were doing science (e.g. Lamarck). Perhaps this is true among scientists, but I’ve found something quite different in my admittedly few collaborations with people creating popular history of science for use in science courses.
Posted by Michal Meyer on 08/03 at 07:39 PM
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
In the 1670s and 1680 scurvy became a “popular disease” in England. Scurvy grass was thought to cure scurvy and a whole host of other diseases and distempers. Scurvy grass was marketed directly to the public, sold in bookshops and brandy stores. The techniques used to market scurvy grass can seem oddly similar to more recent efforts to sell patent medicines and pharmaceuticals.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 04/25 at 12:44 PM
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
This post looks briefly at both Columbus’s motivations for sailing westward and his opinions about the size of the earth. In both we see not a forward thinking secularist but a conservative thinker motivated by religion and apocalyptic fears. Obama got it wrong
Posted by Darin Hayton on 03/27 at 02:33 PM
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Yesterday’s fun with Wordle prompted me to see what would happen if I created a few word clouds from 16th-century astrological prognostications. I then used the results to think again about the usefulness of such a tool/analysis.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 02/07 at 12:16 PM
This post make available an ePamphlet version of my “Introductory History of Astrolabes.” The pamphlet is currently available as a PDF or an iBooks format.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 02/07 at 12:16 AM
(4) Comments •
Monday, February 06, 2012
I wanted to see what happens when you feed a few plague tracts into Wordle and to think about whether or not it would be useful in my course on plagues and epidemics. While I’m not sure if it is useful, the results are interesting.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 02/06 at 01:40 PM
Sunday, January 29, 2012
An article in the NY Times reports on Mary Ebeling’s recent research on direct marketing in the pharmaceutical industry. It recalls for me the techniques used a century ago to sell patent medicines.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 01/29 at 12:06 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Shanna Freeman over at Curiosity.com made a significant error in her comments about the astrolabe. In order to correct her missteps, I decided to post a draft of a history of astrolabes I wrote a few years back.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 01/26 at 10:58 PM
(7) Comments •
Friday, January 20, 2012
Yesterday’s debates about whether or not to continue inserting a leap second are nothing new. In fact, these most recent debates and, ultimately, the decision to postpone making decision, sound a lot like medieval and early modern effort to reform a calendar or adjust time keeping practices.
Posted by Darin Hayton on 01/20 at 10:53 AM
(7) Comments •
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
In recent efforts to retro-diagnose a plague physicians have turned their attention to a fictional plague. How can this be good history or good science?
Posted by Darin Hayton on 01/17 at 03:47 PM
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