TEDGlobal 2012
Laura Snyder: The Philosophical Breakfast Club
Filmed:
Readability: 5.8
1,290,328 views
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.
Laura Snyder - Science historian
Laura Snyder weaves tales of Victorian-era scientists that have been described as “fit for Masterpiece Theater.” Full bio
Laura Snyder weaves tales of Victorian-era scientists that have been described as “fit for Masterpiece Theater.” Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I'd like you to come back with me for a moment
0
797
2654
00:15
to the 19th century,
1
3451
2024
00:17
specifically to June 24, 1833.
2
5475
4448
00:21
The British Association for the Advancement of Science
3
9923
3055
00:24
is holding its third meeting at the University of Cambridge.
4
12978
3791
00:28
It's the first night of the meeting,
5
16769
2211
00:30
and a confrontation is about to take place
6
18980
2863
00:33
that will change science forever.
7
21843
3608
00:37
An elderly, white-haired man stands up.
8
25451
2977
00:40
The members of the Association are shocked to realize
9
28428
3462
00:43
that it's the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
10
31890
3024
00:46
who hadn't even left his house in years until that day.
11
34914
4960
00:51
They're even more shocked by what he says.
12
39874
2896
00:54
"You must stop calling yourselves natural philosophers."
13
42770
5436
01:00
Coleridge felt that true philosophers like himself
14
48206
3044
01:03
pondered the cosmos from their armchairs.
15
51250
3048
01:06
They were not mucking around in the fossil pits
16
54298
2456
01:08
or conducting messy experiments with electrical piles
17
56754
3364
01:12
like the members of the British Association.
18
60118
2972
01:15
The crowd grew angry and began to complain loudly.
19
63090
4587
01:19
A young Cambridge scholar named William Whewell stood up
20
67677
3378
01:23
and quieted the audience.
21
71055
2216
01:25
He politely agreed that an appropriate name
22
73271
2827
01:28
for the members of the association did not exist.
23
76098
3816
01:31
"If 'philosophers' is taken to be too wide and lofty a term,"
24
79914
5544
01:37
he said, "then, by analogy with 'artist,'
25
85458
4816
01:42
we may form 'scientist.'"
26
90274
3940
01:46
This was the first time the word scientist
27
94214
2629
01:48
was uttered in public,
28
96843
1854
01:50
only 179 years ago.
29
98697
3596
01:54
I first found out about this confrontation when I was in graduate school,
30
102293
3145
01:57
and it kind of blew me away.
31
105438
2044
01:59
I mean, how could the word scientist
32
107482
2184
02:01
not have existed until 1833?
33
109666
3489
02:05
What were scientists called before?
34
113155
2191
02:07
What had changed to make a new name necessary
35
115346
3325
02:10
precisely at that moment?
36
118671
3130
02:13
Prior to this meeting, those who studied the natural world
37
121801
3094
02:16
were talented amateurs.
38
124895
2172
02:19
Think of the country clergyman or squire
39
127067
2288
02:21
collecting his beetles or fossils,
40
129355
2513
02:23
like Charles Darwin, for example,
41
131868
2295
02:26
or, the hired help of a nobleman, like Joseph Priestley,
42
134163
4176
02:30
who was the literary companion
43
138339
2356
02:32
to the Marquis of Lansdowne
44
140695
2160
02:34
when he discovered oxygen.
45
142855
2872
02:37
After this, they were scientists,
46
145727
2800
02:40
professionals with a particular scientific method,
47
148527
3834
02:44
goals, societies and funding.
48
152361
3735
02:48
Much of this revolution can be traced to four men
49
156096
3276
02:51
who met at Cambridge University in 1812:
50
159372
3259
02:54
Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell.
51
162631
4555
02:59
These were brilliant, driven men
52
167186
2477
03:01
who accomplished amazing things.
53
169663
3272
03:04
Charles Babbage, I think known to most TEDsters,
54
172935
2999
03:07
invented the first mechanical calculator
55
175934
2795
03:10
and the first prototype of a modern computer.
56
178729
4023
03:14
John Herschel mapped the stars of the southern hemisphere,
57
182752
4060
03:18
and, in his spare time, co-invented photography.
58
186812
4230
03:23
I'm sure we could all be that productive
59
191042
2148
03:25
without Facebook or Twitter to take up our time.
60
193190
2884
03:28
Richard Jones became an important economist
61
196074
3290
03:31
who later influenced Karl Marx.
62
199364
2527
03:33
And Whewell not only coined the term scientist,
63
201891
3522
03:37
as well as the words anode, cathode and ion,
64
205413
4035
03:41
but spearheaded international big science
65
209448
3036
03:44
with his global research on the tides.
66
212484
3096
03:47
In the Cambridge winter of 1812 and 1813,
67
215580
3712
03:51
the four met for what they called philosophical breakfasts.
68
219292
3763
03:55
They talked about science
69
223055
1760
03:56
and the need for a new scientific revolution.
70
224815
3122
03:59
They felt science had stagnated
71
227937
1891
04:01
since the days of the scientific revolution that had happened
72
229828
3252
04:05
in the 17th century.
73
233080
2238
04:07
It was time for a new revolution,
74
235318
2066
04:09
which they pledged to bring about,
75
237384
2124
04:11
and what's so amazing about these guys is,
76
239508
2721
04:14
not only did they have these
77
242229
1783
04:16
grandiose undergraduate dreams,
78
244012
2593
04:18
but they actually carried them out,
79
246605
2240
04:20
even beyond their wildest dreams.
80
248845
3048
04:23
And I'm going to tell you today
81
251893
1092
04:24
about four major changes to science these men made.
82
252985
4957
04:29
About 200 years before,
83
257942
2423
04:32
Francis Bacon and then, later, Isaac Newton,
84
260365
2728
04:35
had proposed an inductive scientific method.
85
263093
3712
04:38
Now that's a method that starts from
86
266805
2537
04:41
observations and experiments
87
269342
2455
04:43
and moves to generalizations about nature called natural laws,
88
271797
3472
04:47
which are always subject to revision or rejection
89
275269
2484
04:49
should new evidence arise.
90
277753
2545
04:52
However, in 1809, David Ricardo muddied the waters
91
280298
5383
04:57
by arguing that the science of economics
92
285681
2949
05:00
should use a different, deductive method.
93
288630
3149
05:03
The problem was that an influential group at Oxford
94
291779
3679
05:07
began arguing that because it worked so well in economics,
95
295458
4081
05:11
this deductive method ought to be applied
96
299539
2670
05:14
to the natural sciences too.
97
302209
2674
05:16
The members of the philosophical breakfast club disagreed.
98
304883
3656
05:20
They wrote books and articles promoting inductive method
99
308539
3282
05:23
in all the sciences
100
311821
1632
05:25
that were widely read by natural philosophers,
101
313453
2858
05:28
university students and members of the public.
102
316311
3422
05:31
Reading one of Herschel's books
103
319733
1756
05:33
was such a watershed moment for Charles Darwin
104
321489
2790
05:36
that he would later say, "Scarcely anything in my life
105
324279
3797
05:40
made so deep an impression on me.
106
328076
2587
05:42
It made me wish to add my might
107
330663
2608
05:45
to the accumulated store of natural knowledge."
108
333271
3528
05:48
It also shaped Darwin's scientific method,
109
336799
3112
05:51
as well as that used by his peers.
110
339911
3859
05:55
[Science for the public good]
111
343770
1778
05:57
Previously, it was believed that scientific knowledge
112
345548
2594
06:00
ought to be used for the good of the king or queen,
113
348142
2633
06:02
or for one's own personal gain.
114
350775
2913
06:05
For example, ship captains needed to know
115
353688
2703
06:08
information about the tides in order to safely dock at ports.
116
356391
4187
06:12
Harbormasters would gather this knowledge
117
360578
2193
06:14
and sell it to the ship captains.
118
362771
3016
06:17
The philosophical breakfast club changed that,
119
365787
2608
06:20
working together.
120
368395
1350
06:21
Whewell's worldwide study of the tides
121
369745
2080
06:23
resulted in public tide tables and tidal maps
122
371825
3138
06:26
that freely provided the harbormasters' knowledge
123
374963
2987
06:29
to all ship captains.
124
377950
2101
06:32
Herschel helped by making tidal observations
125
380051
2802
06:34
off the coast of South Africa,
126
382853
1968
06:36
and, as he complained to Whewell,
127
384821
2350
06:39
he was knocked off the docks during a violent high tide for his trouble.
128
387171
5152
06:44
The four men really helped each other in every way.
129
392323
2728
06:47
They also relentlessly lobbied the British government
130
395051
3312
06:50
for the money to build Babbage's engines
131
398363
2636
06:52
because they believed these engines
132
400999
1991
06:54
would have a huge practical impact on society.
133
402990
3834
06:58
In the days before pocket calculators,
134
406824
2620
07:01
the numbers that most professionals needed --
135
409444
3336
07:04
bankers, insurance agents, ship captains, engineers —
136
412780
3608
07:08
were to be found in lookup books like this,
137
416388
3084
07:11
filled with tables of figures.
138
419472
2396
07:13
These tables were calculated
139
421868
2408
07:16
using a fixed procedure over and over
140
424276
2919
07:19
by part-time workers known as -- and this is amazing -- computers,
141
427195
4669
07:23
but these calculations were really difficult.
142
431864
2879
07:26
I mean, this nautical almanac
143
434743
2248
07:28
published the lunar differences for every month of the year.
144
436991
3870
07:32
Each month required 1,365 calculations,
145
440861
4666
07:37
so these tables were filled with mistakes.
146
445527
2984
07:40
Babbage's difference engine was the first mechanical calculator
147
448511
4165
07:44
devised to accurately compute any of these tables.
148
452676
3979
07:48
Two models of his engine were built in the last 20 years
149
456655
3536
07:52
by a team from the Science Museum of London
150
460191
2760
07:54
using his own plans.
151
462951
1683
07:56
This is the one now at the Computer History Museum in California,
152
464634
4138
08:00
and it calculates accurately. It actually works.
153
468772
3707
08:04
Later, Babbage's analytical engine
154
472479
2615
08:07
was the first mechanical computer in the modern sense.
155
475094
4285
08:11
It had a separate memory and central processor.
156
479379
2954
08:14
It was capable of iteration, conditional branching
157
482333
3453
08:17
and parallel processing,
158
485786
1472
08:19
and it was programmable using punched cards,
159
487258
2972
08:22
an idea Babbage took from Jacquard's loom.
160
490230
3472
08:25
Tragically, Babbage's engines never were built in his day
161
493702
4236
08:29
because most people thought that
162
497938
2187
08:32
non-human computers would have no usefulness
163
500125
2895
08:35
for the public.
164
503020
1582
08:36
[New scientific institutions]
165
504602
2012
08:38
Founded in Bacon's time, the Royal Society of London
166
506614
3505
08:42
was the foremost scientific society in England
167
510119
2997
08:45
and even in the rest of the world.
168
513116
2241
08:47
By the 19th century, it had become
169
515357
2465
08:49
a kind of gentleman's club
170
517822
1833
08:51
populated mainly by antiquarians, literary men and the nobility.
171
519655
5007
08:56
The members of the philosophical breakfast club
172
524662
2153
08:58
helped form a number of new scientific societies,
173
526815
3014
09:01
including the British Association.
174
529829
2400
09:04
These new societies required
175
532229
2383
09:06
that members be active researchers publishing their results.
176
534612
3490
09:10
They reinstated the tradition of the Q&A
177
538102
2840
09:12
after scientific papers were read,
178
540942
2270
09:15
which had been discontinued by the Royal Society
179
543212
2320
09:17
as being ungentlemanly.
180
545532
2905
09:20
And for the first time, they gave women a foot in the door of science.
181
548437
4896
09:25
Members were encouraged to bring their wives,
182
553333
2660
09:27
daughters and sisters to the meetings of the British Association,
183
555993
3926
09:31
and while the women were expected to attend
184
559919
2770
09:34
only the public lectures and the social events like this one,
185
562689
3841
09:38
they began to infiltrate the scientific sessions as well.
186
566530
4109
09:42
The British Association would later be the first
187
570639
2884
09:45
of the major national science organizations in the world
188
573523
3644
09:49
to admit women as full members.
189
577167
2705
09:51
[External funding for science]
190
579872
1441
09:53
Up to the 19th century,
191
581313
1395
09:54
natural philosophers were expected to pay
192
582708
2312
09:57
for their own equipment and supplies.
193
585020
2313
09:59
Occasionally, there were prizes,
194
587333
2463
10:01
such as that given to John Harrison in the 18th century,
195
589796
3329
10:05
for solving the so-called longitude problem,
196
593125
3083
10:08
but prizes were only given after the fact,
197
596208
2845
10:11
when they were given at all.
198
599053
1784
10:12
On the advice of the philosophical breakfast club,
199
600837
2904
10:15
the British Association began to use the extra money
200
603741
3311
10:19
generated by its meetings to give grants
201
607052
2674
10:21
for research in astronomy, the tides, fossil fish,
202
609726
3222
10:24
shipbuilding, and many other areas.
203
612948
2827
10:27
These grants not only allowed
204
615775
1775
10:29
less wealthy men to conduct research,
205
617550
2343
10:31
but they also encouraged thinking outside the box,
206
619893
2936
10:34
rather than just trying to solve one pre-set question.
207
622829
4073
10:38
Eventually, the Royal Society
208
626902
2399
10:41
and the scientific societies of other countries followed suit,
209
629301
3409
10:44
and this has become -- fortunately it's become --
210
632710
2848
10:47
a major part of the scientific landscape today.
211
635574
4750
10:52
So the philosophical breakfast club
212
640324
3014
10:55
helped invent the modern scientist.
213
643338
3147
10:58
That's the heroic part of their story.
214
646485
3228
11:01
There's a flip side as well.
215
649713
2939
11:04
They did not foresee at least one consequence
216
652652
2984
11:07
of their revolution.
217
655636
2536
11:10
They would have been deeply dismayed
218
658172
2376
11:12
by today's disjunction between science and the rest of culture.
219
660548
4484
11:17
It's shocking to realize
220
665032
2657
11:19
that only 28 percent of American adults
221
667689
3340
11:23
have even a very basic level of science literacy,
222
671029
3551
11:26
and this was tested by asking simple questions like,
223
674580
3071
11:29
"Did humans and dinosaurs inhabit the Earth at the same time?"
224
677651
3809
11:33
and "What proportion of the Earth is covered in water?"
225
681460
4762
11:38
Once scientists became members of a professional group,
226
686222
3993
11:42
they were slowly walled off from the rest of us.
227
690215
3365
11:45
This is the unintended consequence of the revolution
228
693580
3927
11:49
that started with our four friends.
229
697507
3035
11:52
Charles Darwin said,
230
700542
1793
11:54
"I sometimes think that general and popular treatises
231
702335
4085
11:58
are almost as important for the progress of science
232
706420
2769
12:01
as original work."
233
709189
1587
12:02
In fact, "Origin of Species" was written
234
710776
3114
12:05
for a general and popular audience,
235
713890
2109
12:07
and was widely read when it first appeared.
236
715999
3893
12:11
Darwin knew what we seem to have forgotten,
237
719892
4011
12:15
that science is not only for scientists.
238
723903
4419
12:20
Thank you.
239
728322
1621
12:21
(Applause)
240
729943
5247
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Laura Snyder - Science historianLaura Snyder weaves tales of Victorian-era scientists that have been described as “fit for Masterpiece Theater.”
Why you should listen
A work of history should be more than a collection of happenings, at least from Laura Snyder’s perspective. The Fulbright Scholar, historian of science and professor of philosophy at St. John's University believes histories should aim not only to tell a story, but also to transport a reader through time.
Snyder’s work presents three-dimensional characters that readers connect with. Her most recent book, The Philosophical Breakfast Club, traces the friendship of four 19th-century scientists who met at Cambridge: Charles Babbage (mathematics and computing), William Whewell (math economics), John Herschel (astronomy and photography) and Richard Jones (economy). Inspired by Francis Bacon's ideas, they coined the word “scientist” and were central in transforming science from the province of the amateur (practitioners were until then called "natural philosophers") to a professional system.
Laura Snyder | Speaker | TED.com