The Philosophical Breakfast Club
-
0:01 - 0:03I'd like you to come back with me for a moment
-
0:03 - 0:05to the 19th century,
-
0:05 - 0:10specifically to June 24, 1833.
-
0:10 - 0:13The British Association for the Advancement of Science
-
0:13 - 0:17is holding its third meeting at the University of Cambridge.
-
0:17 - 0:19It's the first night of the meeting,
-
0:19 - 0:22and a confrontation is about to take place
-
0:22 - 0:25that will change science forever.
-
0:25 - 0:28An elderly, white-haired man stands up.
-
0:28 - 0:32The members of the Association are shocked to realize
-
0:32 - 0:35that it's the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
-
0:35 - 0:40who hadn't even left his house in years until that day.
-
0:40 - 0:43They're even more shocked by what he says.
-
0:43 - 0:48"You must stop calling yourselves natural philosophers."
-
0:48 - 0:51Coleridge felt that true philosophers like himself
-
0:51 - 0:54pondered the cosmos from their armchairs.
-
0:54 - 0:57They were not mucking around in the fossil pits
-
0:57 - 1:00or conducting messy experiments with electrical piles
-
1:00 - 1:03like the members of the British Association.
-
1:03 - 1:08The crowd grew angry and began to complain loudly.
-
1:08 - 1:11A young Cambridge scholar named William Whewell stood up
-
1:11 - 1:13and quieted the audience.
-
1:13 - 1:16He politely agreed that an appropriate name
-
1:16 - 1:20for the members of the association did not exist.
-
1:20 - 1:25"If 'philosophers' is taken to be too wide and lofty a term,"
-
1:25 - 1:30he said, "then, by analogy with 'artist,'
-
1:30 - 1:34we may form 'scientist.'"
-
1:34 - 1:37This was the first time the word scientist
-
1:37 - 1:39was uttered in public,
-
1:39 - 1:42only 179 years ago.
-
1:42 - 1:45I first found out about this confrontation when I was in graduate school,
-
1:45 - 1:47and it kind of blew me away.
-
1:47 - 1:50I mean, how could the word scientist
-
1:50 - 1:53not have existed until 1833?
-
1:53 - 1:55What were scientists called before?
-
1:55 - 1:59What had changed to make a new name necessary
-
1:59 - 2:02precisely at that moment?
-
2:02 - 2:05Prior to this meeting, those who studied the natural world
-
2:05 - 2:07were talented amateurs.
-
2:07 - 2:09Think of the country clergyman or squire
-
2:09 - 2:12collecting his beetles or fossils,
-
2:12 - 2:14like Charles Darwin, for example,
-
2:14 - 2:18or, the hired help of a nobleman, like Joseph Priestley,
-
2:18 - 2:21who was the literary companion
-
2:21 - 2:23to the Marquis of Lansdowne
-
2:23 - 2:26when he discovered oxygen.
-
2:26 - 2:29After this, they were scientists,
-
2:29 - 2:32professionals with a particular scientific method,
-
2:32 - 2:36goals, societies and funding.
-
2:36 - 2:39Much of this revolution can be traced to four men
-
2:39 - 2:43who met at Cambridge University in 1812:
-
2:43 - 2:47Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell.
-
2:47 - 2:50These were brilliant, driven men
-
2:50 - 2:53who accomplished amazing things.
-
2:53 - 2:56Charles Babbage, I think known to most TEDsters,
-
2:56 - 2:59invented the first mechanical calculator
-
2:59 - 3:03and the first prototype of a modern computer.
-
3:03 - 3:07John Herschel mapped the stars of the southern hemisphere,
-
3:07 - 3:11and, in his spare time, co-invented photography.
-
3:11 - 3:13I'm sure we could all be that productive
-
3:13 - 3:16without Facebook or Twitter to take up our time.
-
3:16 - 3:19Richard Jones became an important economist
-
3:19 - 3:22who later influenced Karl Marx.
-
3:22 - 3:25And Whewell not only coined the term scientist,
-
3:25 - 3:29as well as the words anode, cathode and ion,
-
3:29 - 3:32but spearheaded international big science
-
3:32 - 3:36with his global research on the tides.
-
3:36 - 3:39In the Cambridge winter of 1812 and 1813,
-
3:39 - 3:43the four met for what they called philosophical breakfasts.
-
3:43 - 3:45They talked about science
-
3:45 - 3:48and the need for a new scientific revolution.
-
3:48 - 3:50They felt science had stagnated
-
3:50 - 3:53since the days of the scientific revolution that had happened
-
3:53 - 3:55in the 17th century.
-
3:55 - 3:57It was time for a new revolution,
-
3:57 - 4:00which they pledged to bring about,
-
4:00 - 4:02and what's so amazing about these guys is,
-
4:02 - 4:04not only did they have these
-
4:04 - 4:07grandiose undergraduate dreams,
-
4:07 - 4:09but they actually carried them out,
-
4:09 - 4:12even beyond their wildest dreams.
-
4:12 - 4:13And I'm going to tell you today
-
4:13 - 4:18about four major changes to science these men made.
-
4:18 - 4:20About 200 years before,
-
4:20 - 4:23Francis Bacon and then, later, Isaac Newton,
-
4:23 - 4:27had proposed an inductive scientific method.
-
4:27 - 4:29Now that's a method that starts from
-
4:29 - 4:32observations and experiments
-
4:32 - 4:35and moves to generalizations about nature called natural laws,
-
4:35 - 4:38which are always subject to revision or rejection
-
4:38 - 4:40should new evidence arise.
-
4:40 - 4:46However, in 1809, David Ricardo muddied the waters
-
4:46 - 4:49by arguing that the science of economics
-
4:49 - 4:52should use a different, deductive method.
-
4:52 - 4:55The problem was that an influential group at Oxford
-
4:55 - 5:00began arguing that because it worked so well in economics,
-
5:00 - 5:02this deductive method ought to be applied
-
5:02 - 5:05to the natural sciences too.
-
5:05 - 5:09The members of the philosophical breakfast club disagreed.
-
5:09 - 5:12They wrote books and articles promoting inductive method
-
5:12 - 5:13in all the sciences
-
5:13 - 5:16that were widely read by natural philosophers,
-
5:16 - 5:20university students and members of the public.
-
5:20 - 5:21Reading one of Herschel's books
-
5:21 - 5:24was such a watershed moment for Charles Darwin
-
5:24 - 5:28that he would later say, "Scarcely anything in my life
-
5:28 - 5:31made so deep an impression on me.
-
5:31 - 5:33It made me wish to add my might
-
5:33 - 5:37to the accumulated store of natural knowledge."
-
5:37 - 5:40It also shaped Darwin's scientific method,
-
5:40 - 5:44as well as that used by his peers.
-
5:44 - 5:46[Science for the public good]
-
5:46 - 5:48Previously, it was believed that scientific knowledge
-
5:48 - 5:51ought to be used for the good of the king or queen,
-
5:51 - 5:54or for one's own personal gain.
-
5:54 - 5:56For example, ship captains needed to know
-
5:56 - 6:01information about the tides in order to safely dock at ports.
-
6:01 - 6:03Harbormasters would gather this knowledge
-
6:03 - 6:06and sell it to the ship captains.
-
6:06 - 6:08The philosophical breakfast club changed that,
-
6:08 - 6:10working together.
-
6:10 - 6:12Whewell's worldwide study of the tides
-
6:12 - 6:15resulted in public tide tables and tidal maps
-
6:15 - 6:18that freely provided the harbormasters' knowledge
-
6:18 - 6:20to all ship captains.
-
6:20 - 6:23Herschel helped by making tidal observations
-
6:23 - 6:25off the coast of South Africa,
-
6:25 - 6:27and, as he complained to Whewell,
-
6:27 - 6:32he was knocked off the docks during a violent high tide for his trouble.
-
6:32 - 6:35The four men really helped each other in every way.
-
6:35 - 6:38They also relentlessly lobbied the British government
-
6:38 - 6:41for the money to build Babbage's engines
-
6:41 - 6:43because they believed these engines
-
6:43 - 6:47would have a huge practical impact on society.
-
6:47 - 6:49In the days before pocket calculators,
-
6:49 - 6:53the numbers that most professionals needed --
-
6:53 - 6:56bankers, insurance agents, ship captains, engineers —
-
6:56 - 6:59were to be found in lookup books like this,
-
6:59 - 7:02filled with tables of figures.
-
7:02 - 7:04These tables were calculated
-
7:04 - 7:07using a fixed procedure over and over
-
7:07 - 7:12by part-time workers known as -- and this is amazing -- computers,
-
7:12 - 7:15but these calculations were really difficult.
-
7:15 - 7:17I mean, this nautical almanac
-
7:17 - 7:21published the lunar differences for every month of the year.
-
7:21 - 7:26Each month required 1,365 calculations,
-
7:26 - 7:29so these tables were filled with mistakes.
-
7:29 - 7:33Babbage's difference engine was the first mechanical calculator
-
7:33 - 7:37devised to accurately compute any of these tables.
-
7:37 - 7:40Two models of his engine were built in the last 20 years
-
7:40 - 7:43by a team from the Science Museum of London
-
7:43 - 7:45using his own plans.
-
7:45 - 7:49This is the one now at the Computer History Museum in California,
-
7:49 - 7:52and it calculates accurately. It actually works.
-
7:52 - 7:55Later, Babbage's analytical engine
-
7:55 - 7:59was the first mechanical computer in the modern sense.
-
7:59 - 8:02It had a separate memory and central processor.
-
8:02 - 8:06It was capable of iteration, conditional branching
-
8:06 - 8:07and parallel processing,
-
8:07 - 8:10and it was programmable using punched cards,
-
8:10 - 8:14an idea Babbage took from Jacquard's loom.
-
8:14 - 8:18Tragically, Babbage's engines never were built in his day
-
8:18 - 8:20because most people thought that
-
8:20 - 8:23non-human computers would have no usefulness
-
8:23 - 8:25for the public.
-
8:25 - 8:27[New scientific institutions]
-
8:27 - 8:30Founded in Bacon's time, the Royal Society of London
-
8:30 - 8:33was the foremost scientific society in England
-
8:33 - 8:35and even in the rest of the world.
-
8:35 - 8:38By the 19th century, it had become
-
8:38 - 8:40a kind of gentleman's club
-
8:40 - 8:45populated mainly by antiquarians, literary men and the nobility.
-
8:45 - 8:47The members of the philosophical breakfast club
-
8:47 - 8:50helped form a number of new scientific societies,
-
8:50 - 8:52including the British Association.
-
8:52 - 8:55These new societies required
-
8:55 - 8:58that members be active researchers publishing their results.
-
8:58 - 9:01They reinstated the tradition of the Q&A
-
9:01 - 9:03after scientific papers were read,
-
9:03 - 9:06which had been discontinued by the Royal Society
-
9:06 - 9:08as being ungentlemanly.
-
9:08 - 9:13And for the first time, they gave women a foot in the door of science.
-
9:13 - 9:16Members were encouraged to bring their wives,
-
9:16 - 9:20daughters and sisters to the meetings of the British Association,
-
9:20 - 9:23and while the women were expected to attend
-
9:23 - 9:27only the public lectures and the social events like this one,
-
9:27 - 9:31they began to infiltrate the scientific sessions as well.
-
9:31 - 9:34The British Association would later be the first
-
9:34 - 9:37of the major national science organizations in the world
-
9:37 - 9:40to admit women as full members.
-
9:40 - 9:41[External funding for science]
-
9:41 - 9:43Up to the 19th century,
-
9:43 - 9:45natural philosophers were expected to pay
-
9:45 - 9:47for their own equipment and supplies.
-
9:47 - 9:50Occasionally, there were prizes,
-
9:50 - 9:53such as that given to John Harrison in the 18th century,
-
9:53 - 9:56for solving the so-called longitude problem,
-
9:56 - 9:59but prizes were only given after the fact,
-
9:59 - 10:01when they were given at all.
-
10:01 - 10:04On the advice of the philosophical breakfast club,
-
10:04 - 10:07the British Association began to use the extra money
-
10:07 - 10:10generated by its meetings to give grants
-
10:10 - 10:13for research in astronomy, the tides, fossil fish,
-
10:13 - 10:16shipbuilding, and many other areas.
-
10:16 - 10:18These grants not only allowed
-
10:18 - 10:20less wealthy men to conduct research,
-
10:20 - 10:23but they also encouraged thinking outside the box,
-
10:23 - 10:27rather than just trying to solve one pre-set question.
-
10:27 - 10:29Eventually, the Royal Society
-
10:29 - 10:33and the scientific societies of other countries followed suit,
-
10:33 - 10:36and this has become -- fortunately it's become --
-
10:36 - 10:40a major part of the scientific landscape today.
-
10:40 - 10:43So the philosophical breakfast club
-
10:43 - 10:46helped invent the modern scientist.
-
10:46 - 10:50That's the heroic part of their story.
-
10:50 - 10:53There's a flip side as well.
-
10:53 - 10:56They did not foresee at least one consequence
-
10:56 - 10:58of their revolution.
-
10:58 - 11:01They would have been deeply dismayed
-
11:01 - 11:05by today's disjunction between science and the rest of culture.
-
11:05 - 11:08It's shocking to realize
-
11:08 - 11:11that only 28 percent of American adults
-
11:11 - 11:15have even a very basic level of science literacy,
-
11:15 - 11:18and this was tested by asking simple questions like,
-
11:18 - 11:21"Did humans and dinosaurs inhabit the Earth at the same time?"
-
11:21 - 11:26and "What proportion of the Earth is covered in water?"
-
11:26 - 11:30Once scientists became members of a professional group,
-
11:30 - 11:34they were slowly walled off from the rest of us.
-
11:34 - 11:38This is the unintended consequence of the revolution
-
11:38 - 11:41that started with our four friends.
-
11:41 - 11:42Charles Darwin said,
-
11:42 - 11:46"I sometimes think that general and popular treatises
-
11:46 - 11:49are almost as important for the progress of science
-
11:49 - 11:51as original work."
-
11:51 - 11:54In fact, "Origin of Species" was written
-
11:54 - 11:56for a general and popular audience,
-
11:56 - 12:00and was widely read when it first appeared.
-
12:00 - 12:04Darwin knew what we seem to have forgotten,
-
12:04 - 12:08that science is not only for scientists.
-
12:08 - 12:10Thank you.
-
12:10 - 12:15(Applause)
- Title:
- The Philosophical Breakfast Club
- Speaker:
- Laura Snyder
- Description:
-
In 1812, four men at Cambridge University met for breakfast. What began as an impassioned meal grew into a new scientific revolution, in which these men -- who called themselves “natural philosophers” until they later coined “scientist” -- introduced four major principles into scientific inquiry. Historian and philosopher Laura Snyder tells their intriguing story.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 12:34
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The Philosophical Breakfast Club |