British Journal for the History of Science最新文献

A tradition from the ancestors.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-28 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000214

James A Secord

引用次数: 0

Experimental bioclimatology and prospects of agricultural modernization at the CNRS phytotron, France, 1953-1988.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-26 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087424001535

Lucie Gerber

{"title":"Experimental bioclimatology and prospects of agricultural modernization at the CNRS phytotron, France, 1953-1988.","authors":"Lucie Gerber","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424001535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087424001535","url":null,"abstract":"Built in Gif-sur-Yvette in the 1950s, the phytotron of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique provided plant physiologists with a set of enclosed growth rooms in which several climatic constituents of the environment could be simultaneously and separately controlled. This article examines the polyvalence of the French phytotron to explore the economic and political entanglements of experimental reasoning in mid-twentieth-century plant physiology. As Gif scientists embraced phytotrons as a means for developing an 'experimental bioclimatology', not only did they introduce into the laboratory an understanding of climate as a complex of agents likely to affect plant life, but also they sought to map scientific findings on productive pursuits during a period of intense agricultural modernization. The horticultural and agronomic applications envisaged were aimed at the timing of climate-sensitive biological events, but also at the expansion of productive areas within and outside metropolitan France, particularly in the context of late colonial and international dry-land development agendas. This case study of phytotronists' agricultural imagination highlights a techno-scientific conception of climate steeped in biology, tied to the limits and potential of plant life in time and space, and regarded as either a deficiency to be corrected or a resource to be harnessed.","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143711568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Commerce and modern reproduction.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-25 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000019

Salim Al-Gailani

引用次数: 0

The rise and fall of applied science in Britain.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-24 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000172

Paul Lucier

引用次数: 0

Picturing evolution.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-21 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000196

Jim Endersby

引用次数: 0

Johann Christoph Sturm's eclectic scientific method and his indebtedness to Francis Bacon.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-19 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000160

Christian Henkel

引用次数: 0

Humus gnosis: soil fertility, research and funding in the life of Sir Albert Howard.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-13 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087424001468

Tad Brown

{"title":"Humus gnosis: soil fertility, research and funding in the life of Sir Albert Howard.","authors":"Tad Brown","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424001468","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424001468","url":null,"abstract":"Sir Albert Howard helped popularize the idea of translating 'Eastern' practice into 'Western' science in the field of agriculture. His approach to composting has been foundational to organic farming and counterposed with the field of agricultural chemistry. This depiction of feuding ideologies - organic versus chemical - is based largely on Howard's opposition to the fragmentation of scientific knowledge and its products, especially artificial fertilizer. One underexplored aspect of Howard's contest with the agricultural research establishment is the role played by intellectual property. This article contributes to Howard's historiography by examining three topics related to his life's work that concern money and patents: (1) the financial support for the Institute of Plant Industry at Indore, (2) an artificial manure patented by employees at Rothamsted Experimental Station and (3) a rival method in British municipal composting. I argue that Howard's ideological difference with agricultural chemists was not reducible to generating soil fertility with compost. Rather, the feud consisted of a larger debate about innovation, ownership and the societal benefits of scientific research.","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"1-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7617516/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143617301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Is astrology universal? Early modern globalization and the disruption of traditional knowledge. 占星术是世界性的吗？早期现代全球化与传统知识的中断。

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-07 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000159

Luís Campos Ribeiro

{"title":"Is astrology universal? Early modern globalization and the disruption of traditional knowledge.","authors":"Luís Campos Ribeiro","doi":"10.1017/S0007087425000159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087425000159","url":null,"abstract":"The maritime expansion of the early modern period and the discovery of new continents necessitated a profound revision in traditional cosmology, bringing into question the millennia-old practices that were framed around that cosmology. Among these practices was astrology, which in the early modern period reached an unprecedented level of popularity through the development of the printing press. The application of the astrological corpus in tropical and southern latitudes questioned many of the foundational Ptolemaic concepts. At the core of this problem was the reversal of the seasons in the southern hemisphere. Since Ptolemy had firmly grounded the natural explanation of astrological attributes of the zodiac and the planets on the seasonal qualities, their reversal would imply a complete change in the zodiacal and planetary properties. Authors such as Girolamo Cardano, Tommaso Campanella and Athanasius Kircher addressed this matter, but it never became a central point of debate in the astrological literature of the period. However, practitioners in the New World, whose empirical view was very different to that of European authors, reached different conclusions. This problem offers an example of the difficulty in reconciling traditional authority with new knowledge. At the same time, it exposes the sharp contrast between the theoretical perspective of Europe-based authors and the actual experience of astrologers practising in the New World.","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"1-21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143573996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Darwin's scientific gardener: John Scott, the 'physiological test' and the importance of character in Victorian science.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-03-06 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087425000226

Ian Hesketh

{"title":"Darwin's scientific gardener: John Scott, the 'physiological test' and the importance of character in Victorian science.","authors":"Ian Hesketh","doi":"10.1017/S0007087425000226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087425000226","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the working relationship between Charles Darwin and the Edinburgh gardener John Scott that developed in the wake of the publishing of the Origin of Species (1859). As the essay shows, Darwin sought to utilize Scott's horticultural knowledge and experimental expertise in order to provide some of the specialized botanical evidence that the Origin was not intended to provide. Scott, meanwhile, sought to use Darwin's patronage and tutelage in order to overcome his modest status as a gardener while making contributions to scientific knowledge. And for an intense two-year period (1862-4), Darwin and Scott's relationship was productive and mutually beneficial: not only did Scott's work supplement Darwin's ongoing botanical research on sexual development and fertility, but also his Primula experiments appeared to provide 'physiological' evidence of speciation via selective breeding. What the essay argues, however, is that there were limits to what Scott was able to achieve due in part to his social standing and perceived character that ultimately cast a shadow over his findings.","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143567605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Meteorology, weather and war in South East Asia: Malaya c.1940-1960.

IF 0.7 1区哲学

British Journal for the History of Science Pub Date : 2025-02-28 DOI: 10.1017/S0007087424001523

Fiona Williamson

引用次数: 0