‘Scientist’ Coined

photo credits: www.india.com, www.tastebells.com , www.creative-biolabs.com & www.funsizephysics.com
Memory tags: the evolution of the term scientist.

The word scientist is so deeply embedded in our vocabulary and consciousness, that the fact it only found acceptance in common usage about a 150 years ago comes as a surprise. After all we have been taught that Newton, Copernicus and their kind were all scientists . What we were not told is that we called them scientists from our retrospective point of view. As the science mad 19th century progressed, the prevalent term of natural philosopher seemed inadequate for the growing breed of new cultivators of science and the simultaneous proliferation of the subjects. We believe this issue was brought up at the 1833 meeting of British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet- philosopher objecting to the fact that the members of the newly formed British Association for the Advancement of Science should be called philosophers. Then the term savants was suggests but turned down on account of it being rather presumptuous and too French! Finaly the President of British Association for the Advancement of Science William Whewell in a quick and reasoned rebuttal told the gathering if practitioners of art were artists , practitioners of science should be scientists. Thus the person, occasion, place and date which lead to the term being coined, is known to us. Of course, this does not exclude any other earlier or subsequent event but does seem to be the more definitive and better known coinage.The opening chapter of Laura J Synder’s book The Philosophical Breakfast Club captures the spirit perfectly by calling the chapter, ”Inventing The Scientist”! It makes one question whether Coleridge thought they did not deserve the appellation or was the time ripe for a new identity? History of science points towards the latter.

The basic frame work of science and its practitioners underwent a sea change in the 1800s. If it became more institutionalised, it also became more independent and specialised. The space within which a scientist worked changed as his discipline and methodology changed. He would need a scientific institution to work in where the amateur was being replaced by the institutionally supported professional. Increasingly, scientific output had a commercial value post industrial revolution. Science talks, publications, exhibitions, debates acquired higher visibility than ever before driven by the publish or perish dictum. The scientist was taking which to my mind paralleled that of Sherlock Holmes, invented in the same century.

One of the first books I read from the collection at home was a beautiful Folio Society edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. One was simply swept up by the sheer ingenuity of his powers of detection. Brougham rides through London, from 221B Baker’s Street, to confirm or disprove theories built up from tiny clues like cigar ash, mud on shoes and a hundred other leads. Deductions (as Holmes called them) were data based and helped to resolve the irresolvable. This meshed well with the inductive theory of Francis Bacon that was becoming normative for practice of science in the 19th century. Fact and fiction seemed to draw from each other. Holmes the brilliant, the single minded in pursuit, the idiosyncratic, the institution within an institution, with the magician like ability to say,” Elementary ,my dear Watson” leaving the population at large wondering why they had not thought of it before! An image that fits in well with what is expected from practioners of science and one that any scientist worth his salt would be glad to have or at least cultivate. Remove the bowler hat, perhaps put on a white lab coat, add spectacles keep the magnifying glass and attitude intact, maybe grow a beard and you have the all the markers that would become the portrait of a “scientist” at work! Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1868 photograph of Charles Darwin is a perfect example of the bearded visage carefully dressed and postured for public consumption and posterity. Beards reigned supreme (in a largely masculine world) till Einstein’s perennially ruffled hair became the fashion icon for scientists and the beard lost out.

Main resources:

1. Laura J Snyder, “ The Philosophical Breakfast Club”. Published by Broadway Books, USA, 2011.ISBN978-07679-3049-9
2. www.eoht.info/page/Whewell-Coleridge-debate
3. All the Sherlock Holmes stories one has read ad libitum.
4. The author’s unpublished manuscript.