Learning humility from a Nobel prizewinner

Abstract Charles Darwin’s theories were already introduced in Scandinavia in the early 1860s, whereas his two major works, On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), were translated by Danish writer J.P. Jacobsen in the 1870s. Jacobsen acts as an important intermediary both as a scientist and, probably, the first Danish writer whose work is influenced by Darwin’s thoughts. But also in the writings of other authors of the time, e.g. Herman Bang, at least the name “Darwin” infrequently occurs as is also the case with the symbolist writers of the 1890s, e.g. Viggo Stuckenberg and Sophus Claussen. However, not until after 1900 does Darwin serve as an artistic inspiration and a positive role model. This happens in an overpowering manner in the fictional and essayist works of the Danish Nobel Prizewinner Johannes V. Jensen. Jensen’s Darwinism was not countered until the so-called “livsanskuelsesdebat” - a philosophical debate - during the 1920s with the eloquent poet and dramatist Helge Rode as his acute opponent. Hereafter, Darwin’s role in Danish literature decreases significantly unless one wishes to see Peter Høeg’s novel from 1996, Kvinden og aben (The Man and the Ape) as the last example of a Darwin-influence on a literary text.

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Ferdinand Braun: A Life of the Nobel Prizewinner and Inventor of the Cathode-Ray Oscilloscope

Technology and Culture ◽

10.2307/3104677 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 116

Author(s):

W. Bernard Carlson ◽

Friedrich Kurylo ◽

Charles Susskind

Keyword(s):

Nobel Prizewinner

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NOBEL PRIZEWINNER

The Lancet ◽

10.1016/s0140-6736(61)90810-8 ◽

1961 ◽

Vol 278 (7209) ◽

pp. 973

Keyword(s):

Nobel Prizewinner

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Sir Owen Richardson, F.R.S.: Nobel prizewinner in physics 1928

Radio and Electronic Engineer ◽

10.1049/ree.1974.0106 ◽

1974 ◽

Vol 44 (8) ◽

pp. 400

Author(s):

W.A. Gambling

Keyword(s):

Nobel Prizewinner

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THE IMPROVEMENT AND UTILIZATION OF TUSSOCK GRASSLANDS: A SCIENTIST'S VIEWPOINT

Proceedings of the New Zealand Grassland Association ◽

10.33584/jnzg.1966.28.1225 ◽

1966 ◽

pp. 59-78

Author(s):

K.F. O'Connor

Keyword(s):

Explanatory Power ◽

John Stuart Mill ◽

Anglo Saxon ◽

Rigorous Testing ◽

Tussock Grassland ◽

Nobel Prizewinner ◽

Traditional Assumption ◽

The Mind

THERE has been a large increase in the volume of facts about tussock grassland improvement in the last few years. Although facts are important to the scientist, he is not merely a facts-gatherer. He also makes general statements. In the tradition of Anglo-Saxon logic formulated by John Stuart Mill, the scientist derives these general statements from the facts by the process called induction. Nobel Prizewinner for Medicine, Dr P. B. Medawar, questions this traditional assumption. He claims that "truth takes shape in the mind of the observer: it is his imaginative grasp of what might be true that provides the incentive for finding out, so far as he can what is true." If this imaginative idea of truth still fits the facts after rigorous testing, then it is a good idea and the facts themselves can be conveniently forgotten. Paradoxically, therefore, the factual burden of a science grows less as a science matures. As a science advances, "particular facts are comprehended within and therefore in a sense annihilated by general statements of steadily increasing explanatory power and compass".

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