Promoting the Public Interest in History of Science
Posted by Darin Hayton on 09/05 at 02:49 PM
A couple months back I offered some initial thoughts on how PACHS might “promote the public understanding of history of science, technology and medicine.” That post was prompted by the publication of a recent survey by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the AAAS: “Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media.” At the time I assumed that the public was interested in history of science, technology and medicine. While I think that was a safe assumption, we (or at least I) will benefit from examining that assumption.1
I think it is safe to say that the public is interested in the history of science because they think it has something to contribute to their lives.2 What that contribution might be is not always clear, but the reading, watching public must think the history of science is somehow relevant to the lives they live, for they choose to watch a program on “Brothel Tech,” which examines “examine the technology used by prostitutes to protect themselves from violence and disease, prevent pregnancy, and occasionally please themselves,” or purchase a book on Poincaré’s conjecture about topology, which is surely not all that applicable to most people’s lives (there are at least two recent books on Poincaré’s conjecture). Obviously, I am rejecting the idea that history of science is inherently interesting. Instead, I would argue that these books and television programs promote themselves by connecting otherwise esoteric or specialized topics to the public’s contemporary interests and concerns. In other words, the producers and authors of such works make the effort to tell the public why they should be interested in these shows or books.
Historians of science make up a tiny minority of those authors and producers of popular history of science. Instead, most such work is produced by journalists, scientists, and scholars “proper” historians of science would dismiss as dilettantes. Historians of science seem to have a difficult time writing popular history of science, an affliction particularly pronounced in the history of science—historians don’t seem to have much difficulty in writing popular history books or articles. Perhaps the dearth of historians of science among the producers of popular history of science can be traced back to historians of science being paranoid of “triumphalist narratives,” such that they see them everywhere, or being insecure in the value of their own scholarship, such that they insulate their work from attack through acute self-absorption.3 While some historians of science successfully produce popular histories of science, tellingly they have often “left the academy.”4
How does this post relate to PACHS or this blog? It might serve as a reminder that we need to promote ourselves and what we do. Along with telling interesting stories, we need to tell people why they are interesting. We need to “build bridges” not only to scholars in the history of science and related disciplines but also to people beyond the history of science, to the public. This will entail simplifying our stories, showing how somebody in the past got it right (or got it wrong), and even forging the links between events in the past and contemporary issues. There is a reason books on the Islamic contribution to the development of science are so popular today, a reason that has little to do with Ibn al-Haytham’s intromission theory of vision or Ibn al-Nafis’s early theory of pulmonary circulation of blood.
While promoting the public understanding of history of science, PACHS should not lose sight of the logically prior goal of generating interest in history of science. Sadly, we don’t live in a Field of Dreams. Just because we build it doesn’t mean anybody will come.
Notes—
1Evidence for the public’s interest in history of science et al. is readily available in the many popular books (I use the term “popular” here to denote non-academic monographs, widely available at national chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders), articles (in everything from daily newspapers to monthly periodicals), and television shows (think of the many shows on the History Channel, which devotes an entire section of its webpage to science and technology) that treat history of science.⇑
2From this point on I will used “history of science” as shorthand for “history of science, technology and medicine.”⇑
3A few years back Stephen Shapin argued that self-absorption was a key problem in the hyperprofessionalism that afflicts the history of science. See his “Hyperprofessionalism and the Crisis of Readership in the History of Science” Isis 96(2005): 238–43.⇑
4For example, Steve Ruskin has a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science, has written a scholarly monograph on John Herschel, and has left academia. He now writes popular history of science articles, most recently “Darwinians in the Rockies” Colorado Heritage (July/August 2009): 24–31.⇑