Comments on: Lightning, the Mind, and a World Before Scientists

By: CHC

CHC — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:09:29 +0000

God is not only a matter of believing, but of “knowing” in a personal sense as one knows a doctor or a father or a friend, and of having mind-blowing tangible daily evidence of his existence that cannot be explained away even by the most cynical. There comes a point where reason becomes insignificant.

By: HPC

HPC — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 11:41:17 +0000

Thank you! Since you gave a reference to this experiment in your paper,

In a press release, the Royal Society pointed to some particularly neat papers, such as Ben Franklin’s 1752 description of flying a kite in a thunderstorm.

but the reference was to a different paper of Franklin’s on electricity (also interesting) I was at a loss how to proceed.

Thank you again for your help.

HPC

By: Owlmirror

Owlmirror — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 22:01:14 +0000

You mention "neat papers, such as Ben Franklin's 1752 description of flying a kite in a thunderstorm." Is there such a paper?

There most certainly is. The archive is searchable, after all. You just need to search. A Letter of Benjamin Franklin, Esq; to Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. concerning an Electrical Kite Philadelphia, Oct 1, 1752; Read: Dec 21, 1752

By: H. P.

H. P. — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:46:39 +0000

In your piece Lighting, the mind, and a World before Scientists, You mention “neat papers, such as Ben Franklin’s 1752 description of flying a kite in a thunderstorm.” Is there such a paper?

The reference you give is to a description of several of Franklin’s experiments on electricity, including one on how to kill a turkey with a charge from a Leyden jar, but no kite experiment.

If you know of a reference, and/or how this experiment was actually done, I would love to hear it.

thank you. hp

By: Carlie

Carlie — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 21:37:50 +0000

I had trouble finding it too – it depends on which part exactly you click on. Not the black links at the top, not the red journal package links at the bottom, but the red “Journals digital archive” about a quarter of the way down the first page.
Lots of good paleo stuff in there, and I’m having fun reading Leeuwenhoek’s stuff too. It’s all so excited and fun – “I saw little things!”

By: Owlmirror

Owlmirror — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 19:12:47 +0000

Okay, I'm looking at the site but I don't see how to access the archives for free, everything appears to be something that you have to pay (thousands of dollars) to get. Where do you go to actually browse the open collection?

Hm. I can get the free access just fine. For example: Experiments to Determine the Density of the Earth. By Henry Cavendish, Esq. F. R. S. and A. S. - 1798 When you click on the link: http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/archive Do you not see the paragraph that says this:

For the first time the Archive provides online access to all journal content, from Volume One, Issue One in March 1665 until the latest modern research published today ahead of print. And until December the archive is freely available to anyone on the internet to explore.

By: Chad Okere

Chad Okere — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:47:00 +0000

Okay, I’m looking at the site but I don’t see how to access the archives for free, everything appears to be something that you have to pay (thousands of dollars) to get. Where do you go to actually browse the open collection?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:31:53 +0000

So a ‘natural philosopher” isn’t just someone who comes by philosophy easily?, like a ‘natural baseball player’…

By: Old Hippy

Old Hippy — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:36:51 +0000

“Science did not emerge suddenly in a sudden onslaught of Modern Reason crushing Old Ignorance.”
I would think not, with 50% of Americans still not understanding evolution, and preferring instead to believe in a fairy tale.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:54:05 +0000

In the later years of the nineteenth century T.H. Huxley built upon the defintion of a scientist by legitimizing it as a professional occupation. Through education and practical experience scientists were trained for employment in both private industry and governmental surveys. Science was no longer the preserve of the independently wealthy.

By: marcel

marcel — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:50:46 +0000

You wrote:

The bolt had thrown its victim, an Oxford scholar, out of the boat he had been rowing. When the scholar’s body was brought back to town, Thomas Willis came to see it along with his assistant Richard Lower and the mathematician John Wallis, who later wrote the . They

How did you intend to conclude the sentence above?

By: Natasha

Natasha — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 12:24:46 +0000

Just the Doctor of Philosophy part Ian? Or the philosophical attitude one earns during the several years that it takes to get one?

Gould writes a very nice account of the shift from ‘natural philosophy’ to a more empirical attitude to science, at least in biology, in ‘The Hedgeghog, the fox and the Magisters pox’.

The other word Whewell coined was consilience. Gould talks a lot about this view Whewells, of how the sciences work at their best, (ie when we get lucky) when consilience occurs, when knowledge ‘jumps’ together.