scholarly journals The Most Select and the Most Democratic: A Century of Science in the Royal Society of Canada

Author(s):  
Trevor H. Levere

ABSTRACT This paper is a history of the Science Academy of the Royal Society of Canada, from its foundation in 1882 until the early 1990s. The RSC has always had an honorific role, but it has sought a more substantive one in science, in advising government, in scientific publication (a role that it has largely lost to the National Research Council and to other scientific societies and journals), in educating the public, in representing Canada internationally, and in undertaking scientific inquiries of public import, for example in assessing the risks associated with nuclear winter, or in the Canadian Global Change Program. Often, Fellows of the RSC have individually achieved more in science than the Society has achieved institutionally; but as this narrative shows, the dynamic between science, government, the RSC, and the Canadian public, has been important in Canadian science and in Canadian history.

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 232-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Clemente

This paper suggests to reflect on the waterfront in a nontraditional way, referring to theoretical and methodological assumptions, developed in recent years about “Cities from the Sea” by our research group in the National Research Council of Italy. So the first step is to move from cognitive analysis to proposals and projects. We can refer to the positive experience of New York that is a best practice in approach, strategies and results. The key of this success is a synthesis of the metropolitan vision favored by the public government, the activation of stakeholders to get results of common interest, the involvement of local communities. People was informed and motivated to put a position, they were encouraged to participate and to give a significant contribute to the achievement of results.


1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
J. V. FIELD ◽  
FRANK A. J. L. JAMES

Art and science are both terms whose meanings have been subject to change over time. At the end of the twentieth century, the terms tend to be used antithetically. Current views of the relationship between the spheres of activity that they connote range from a sweeping dismissal of any connection to an opposing but less extreme conviction that scientists and artists have something in common. The latter belief apparently at least partly stems from an underlying feeling that at any one time both activities are, after all, products of a single culture. The woolly shade of C. P. Snow's idea of there being ‘two cultures’ in the Britain of the 1950s at once rises to view if one attempts to pursue analysis along these lines.In setting up a conference called ‘The Visual Culture of Art and Science from the Renaissance to the Present’ the organizing committee was not attempting to resolve any kind of debate that may be perceived to exist in regard to the separation or otherwise of the domains of art and science. Rather, we wished to bring together historians of science working on areas that are of interest to historians of art, and historians of art working on areas that are of interest to historians of science, as well as practising artists and scientists of the present time who show an interest in each others' fields. We were, of course, aware that this agenda raised questions in regard to present-day relationships between art and science, but we hoped that, as we were dealing with a range of historical periods, any light that was shed would be moderately illuminating rather than blindingly lurid. The meeting, which took place on 12–14 July 1995, mainly at the Royal Society in London, was organized jointly by the British Society for the History of Science, the Association of Art Historians and the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) – a joint committee of the Royal Institution, British Association and the Royal Society. The historical examples presented at the conference showed a wide variety of interactions between art and science. The success of the conference (it attracted an audience of about 200) suggested very strongly that art, which has a large public following, can be used to encourage an interest in science, whose public following, according to scientists, could be better.


1970 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 57-62

The public life of Stanley Melbourne Bruce, Prime Minister of Australia, a Viscount of the United Kingdom, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was one of the most paradoxical in the history of his native country. Bruce was born in Melbourne on 15 April 1883, of a well-to-do mercantile family. 1893 saw the collapse of a great land boom, the failure of some banks and an acute general depression. The family business, Paterson, Laing and Bruce, was in difficulties. Stanley Bruce’s father sold his mansion in the fashionable suburb of Toorak. Stanley himself had to leave his preparatory school—the fees were not available. His father, who appears to have been a singularly determined man, then proceeded to restore the fortunes of the business. In 1896 the young Stanley went to the well-known Melbourne Grammar School, where he was a most successful all-round student. It has been given to few boys at a great school to be not only captain of football, of cricket, of athletics, and of rowing, but also Senior Prefect (i.e. Captain) of the School.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renee M. Clary ◽  
James H. Wandersee

In many science classes, students encounter ‘final form’ science (Duschl 1990, 1994) in which scientific knowledge is presented as a rhetoric of conclusions (Schwab 1962). Incorporation of the history of science in modern science classrooms combats this false image of linear science progression. History of science can facilitate student understanding of the nature of science, pique student interest, and expose the cultural and societal constraints in which a science developed, revealing science's ‘human side’ (Matthews 1994). Carefully selected and researched episodes from the history of science illustrate that scientists sometimes chose incorrect hypotheses, misinterpreted data, and argued about data analysis. Our research documented that historical vignettes can hook students' attention, and past controversies can be used to develop students' analysis and argumentation skills before turning class attention to modern controversial issues. Historical graphics also have educational potential, as they reveal the progression of a science and offer alternative vehicles for data interpretation. In the United States, the National Science Education Standards (United States National Research Council 1996) acknowledged the importance of the History and Nature of Science by designating it as one of eight science content strands. However, the new United States Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve 2013) no longer include this strand, although the importance of the nature of science is still emphasized in the science framework (United States National Research Council 2012). Therefore, it is crucial that science education researchers continue to research and implement the history of science via interdisciplinary approaches to ensure its inclusion in United States science classrooms for better student understanding of the nature of science.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (32) ◽  
pp. 333-353
Author(s):  
Jonatan Vinkler

Komenský and “Age of Extremes” among Slovenes 1: Didactica magna (The Great Didactic) and Komenský in its latest Edition The discussion presents a semantic, rhetorical, historiographical, methodological and editorial analysis of the only edition of Jan Amos Komenský’s fundamental work in the modern Slovene language—Didactica magna or The Great Didactic (Sl. Velika didaktika, Novo mesto, 1995)—that was met with reception (i.e., was accessible to the public). The analysis suggests that this edition—for reasons unexplained—lacks the basic determinants of scientific work and thus cannot be a valid ground for the reception of Jan Amos Komenský, either for the reader-expert or for the general reader. From the editorial point of view, the edition does not provide clear information about the original text, and there is no editorial report or comment on individual passages of the original / translation, e.g. unravelling citations in the original—all of which have been the standard knowledge repertoire of scientific editions of sources, even scholarly critical editions of translations since the early 19th century. The edition is not based on the scientific publication Dílo Jana Amose Komenského 15/1 (Academia: Praha, 1986), which since its publication has been the primary textual base for every reader-expert’s understanding of The Great Didactic and a mandatory textual starting point for re-creative reception in the form of translation. The analysed edition does not include comments, and since it only provides translation without any additional knowledge apparatus, it cannot be considered as popularizing either. The current situation impedes a full reception of Komenský and indicates the need to prepare a new critical translated edition of his selected didactic writings, where optimal results could be achieved by collaboration of experts from various disciplines (different branches of historiography, didactics, pedagogy, history of science). The edition should be 1) written in modern literary language and based on the historical-critical edition of Dílo Jana Amosa Komenského. 2) It should include selected fundamental didactic writings of Komenský, 3) obligatory editorial and translation report, 4) explanatory comments and translations, and 5) European studies on Komenský in his time, as well as 6) discussions on the reception of Komenský in Slovenia. Keywords: Komenský (Comenius), Didactica magna (The Great Didactic), reception, editology, edition


Author(s):  
Isabel Rábano

Resumen Se presentan algunos aspectos de la biografía de María Teresa Rodríguez Mellado (1921-1985), una pionera desconocida en la historia de la Geología española. El matrimonio y la maternidad la retiraron de la ciencia tras una breve pero intensa actividad investigadora. Licenciada en Ciencias, Sección de Ciencias Naturales, por la Universidad Central en 1946, obtuvo una beca del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas en el Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid para realizar su tesis doctoral sobre el Devónico en España, dirigida por Francisco Hernández-Pacheco. Colaboró con Manuel Alía Medina en algunas cuestiones paleontológicas de las investigaciones geológico-mineras del Sáhara Occidental. Asimismo, se muestra la evolución de la enseñanza de las materias geológicas durante la primera mitad del siglo XX en España. Abstra ct This paper deals with some aspects of María Teresa Rodríguez Mellado´s biography (1921-1985), an unknown pioneer in the history of Spanish Geology. Marriage and motherhood removed her from science after a brief but intense research work. She graduated in Natural Sciences in 1946, and got a Spanish National Research Council scholarship to carry out her Ph.D. thesis on the Devonian of Spain, supervised by Francisco Hernández-Pacheco. She collaborated with Manuel Alía Medina on some paleontological issues of the geology of Western Sahara. Also, the evolution of the teaching of geological subjects during the first half of the 20th century in Spain is shown.


Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin

An often quoted passage of Arthur Conan Doyle's story "Silver Blaze" makes the point that the absence of data can be a datum. When the mystery of the purloined racehorse seems insoluble, Police Inspector Gregory asks Sherlock Holmes:… "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes…. The dog that does not bark attracts no attention to itself. It takes insight to recognize that a nonhappening can be an alarm. Herman Daly showed a Holmeslike insight when he called attention to the bark that was absent from a would-be authoritative study made by a group of economists reporting to the prestigious National Research Council in 1986 on population growth and economic development. In 108 pages of text there is not a single mention of carrying capacity, a concept that should be central to all discussions of population and environment. It is as though gravity were left out of a treatise on the dynamics of the solar system; or assets and liabilities were left out of a textbook on business accounting. If civilization survives another century, and if there are still economists, a history of what will then be called "modern economics" may well begin with a belittling account of the "premodern" economics of the twentieth century in which carrying capacity plays no role. Nothing shows so well the impermeability of the barriers between academic disciplines as the silence of economists about a concept that dominates discussions of game management, a discipline concerned with population and environment problems as they affect animals other than Homo sapiens. Economists, dealing only with human populations, probably unconsciously embrace the human exemptionist doctrine (Chapter 15), though their commitment is seldom no more than implicit in their statements (Box 20-1). Two serious criticisms can be leveled against most of the authors quoted in the box. First, it is obvious that they desperately yearn for a world without limits. This is particularly evident in the last quotation, by Gro Harlem Brundtland, who chaired the United Nations commission that issued this statement. One can praise the heart of the commission without agreeing with the head.


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