03.14.08

Strange world, that has such people in it

Posted in Politics, Turtles all the way down at 4:03 pm by CMonster

From the Chronicle of Higher Education comes one of the strangest true-crime stories I’ve heard yet:

What’s Up, Doc? German Law Bars American Ph.D.’s From Calling Themselves ‘Doctor’

Apparently, a nazi-era law prohibits the use of the honorific unless your degree was awarded in Germany. (Or possibly the EU; media coverage varies) Fortunately, several of the scientists charged happen to be directors at a highly prestigious research institute there; as a result of political pressure and an enlightened modern perspective,

…state education ministers met last week and decided to allow holders of degrees from designated American universities to call themselves “Doctor.”

I’m told that our system of university education has its roots in Germany, and I realize that nationalism has an amazing way of making idiots of people. Still, isn’t this taking pride just a bit far?

03.03.08

Scientific role models

Posted in Biology at 10:06 pm by CMonster

Today, I came across an NIH project worth visiting- it seems they’ve been scanning in some of the early classics in medicine and natural history, and putting them online in a really snazzy page-turning format.

It’s pretty interesting to see how the state of human knowledge has changed over the years- for example, consider this description:

Conrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium (Studies on Animals) is considered to be the first modern zoological work. This first attempt to describe many of the animals accurately is illustrated with hand-colored woodcuts drawn from personal observations by Gesner and his colleagues.

Then take a look at one of the animals they observed.

But all snark aside, some of these books are truly classics. Reading them also motivated me to track down work by my scientific heroes- Project Gutenberg is wonderful for that, even if the presentation is less pretty. (Compare Leeuwenhoek to the NIH copy of Hooke).

Although often asked, I don’t actually care that much for Newton- in spite of his famous name, he was reputed to be very vicious when crossed. On the other hand, Project Gutenberg does have a lovely copy of The Chemical History of a Candle, by one of my actual scientific heroes, Michael Faraday. This is a really creative example of his approach to service and science education, stemming from a series of public lectures that he initiated. (The Christmas Lectures continue to this very day)

Anyone want to share their own favorite historical work? Who’s your scientific hero?