14 ms·

Mary Somerville, the woman for whom the word “scientist” was coined (2016)

95 points by Hooke 6y ago

dang 6y ago
Etymonline supports the attribution: https://www.etymonline.com/word/scientist#etymonline_v_22921 https://www.etymonline.com/word/scientist#etymonline_v_22921
- disown 6y ago
  I don't see any attribution supporting the claim that "scientist" was coined for somerville. "1834, a hybrid coined from Latin scientia (see science) by the Rev. William Whewell, English polymath, by analogy with artist, in the same paragraph in which he coined physicist" Edit: I'm going to pretend you're being sincere dang ( even though you rate limited me ). No. Scientist was not coined for somerville. First 3 minutes, professor laura snyder explains where the word scientist came from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g Second, your comment about "attribution" was rather misleading ( intentional or not ). Thirdly, the only sources so far of whewell using the word scientist in a review of her book : "An English man of science who called himself a philosopher now did so rather self-consciously..." He's complaining about "english man" of science having to be careful about how he refers to himself because philosophers don't like people like him claiming to be philosophers. Last I checked, somerville wasn't an "english man". But regardless, the review of her book comes after he coined the term scientist. Edit2: Nobody is questioning the attribution of scientist to whewell dang. Most everyone agrees. The question is whether whewell coined the term after somerville. I've provided sources that he didn't. And nowhere in your pg 59 is there a mention of somerville. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here but your comment seems very misleading for some reason.
  - dang 6y ago
    I mean the attribution to Whewell. Turns out he coined many other words too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whewell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whewell Since the coinage of "scientist" was in a review of Mary Somerville's work, that claim doesn't seem far-fetched. It's true that the OP should have quoted Whewell, though, and not only secondary sources with current agendas. Surely the original text is out there somewhere? Edit: ah here it is https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_1834_scientist.pdf https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_... - thanks to cbkeller (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863646). The relevant part is on p. 59. Edit 2: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uWsJAAAAQAAJ/page/n67/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uWsJAAAAQAAJ/page/n67/mod... is clearer, plus you can zoom. Thanks to bitdizzy (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863611).
    - ska 6y ago
      In my reading of that text I note two things 1) Whewell is not coining the term, but claiming it was proposed by "some ingenious gentleman" during previous (1833 meeting?) discussion - was this perhaps sarcastic self-reference? More importantly he suggests it was discarded at the time. 2) More broadly while this comes up in the discussion of what exactly they should call what we now refer to as scientists, it is as an aside in discussion of Mary Somerville's work. It seems then that the term was neither coined by Whewell, nor was it coined directly after Mary Somerville. Rather it was (first?) recorded in use here by Whewell, picked up again in explict discussion of Somerville as an exemplar. If correct I guess this makes most arguments here sort-of right, unless there is an earlier written source?
      - Arnavion 6y ago
        The source that Wikipedia uses for the anonymous writer being Whewell is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00033796200202722 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0003379620020272... , which says: >From Todhunter's biography [9] we learn that the reviewer was William Whewell, F.R.S. [9] in turn is: >9 I. Todhunter, "William Whewell, an account of his writings, with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence", London, 1876, vol. i., p. 92. The editor of the Quarterly Review, J. G. Loekhart, had prescribed 'a lightish paper' for the review of Mrs Somerville's book, and he commended Whewell for his 'spirited' contribution. This book is https://archive.org/details/williamwhewelld01whewgoog https://archive.org/details/williamwhewelld01whewgoog but archive.org's search doesn't find any mention of "scientist" in it, and it's 900 pages long so I have no idea if it's in there. "artist", and "philosopher" and "Coleridge" have 35 search results between them, but none of them appear to be relevant.
        ska 6y ago
        I'm confused as to what you are responding to. The reference we are talking about is above, and it is Whewell's review of Somerville's book (i.e. it is a scan of the text of the 1834 quarterly review you mention). So that attribution isn't in question. It does contain "scientist" (the text is searchable directly) but refers to someone else as having coined the term. Unless I've misread something?
gnufx 6y ago
Her name might be best known from the eponymous college, perhaps without knowing the connexion: https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/history/ https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/history/ Its alumna Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin is particularly relevant in the context. (I recall when she died the obituary was quickly pushed off BBC news by the death of some actor/actress; sigh.) "... live simply and do serious things." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin
- mgreenleaf 6y ago
  I really like that quote "... live simply and do serious things.", what's the source on that? Thanks!
  - jfengel 6y ago
    There doesn't appear to be a completely authentic source. It's cited to be part of a 1988 graduation speech at Bristol University, and appears to be more correctly "live modestly and do serious things". As far as I can tell, no printed copy of that speech exists, so it's all hearsay. The closest I can get to an authentic citation is a quote of it by a colleague in an obituary published by the Royal Society[1]. It rings authentic, in that it seems like something that would be said in the context of a graduation speech, and as such it may not have left a written record. [1] https://vdocuments.site/dorothy-mary-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-12-may-1910-29-july-1994.html https://vdocuments.site/dorothy-mary-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-12-...
    - gnufx 6y ago
      Hmm, yes, thanks. I know it as basically crystallographic lore from long ago, as in email sigs, but the only source I could find now is http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dorothy-Hodgkin-booklet.pdf http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dorothy-... I now find another familiar name from the past quoting the "modestly" version which I should use in future: https://sites.google.com/site/oxfordawisehome/elspeth-garman https://sites.google.com/site/oxfordawisehome/elspeth-garman
Angostura 6y ago
Just read her Wikipedia page. Wow, what a person.
cbkeller 6y ago
Her most famous book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, which is mentioned in the article, is available in full on Archive.org and looks to be a rather interesting read [1]. [1] https://archive.org/details/onconnexionphys01somegoog https://archive.org/details/onconnexionphys01somegoog
- cbkeller 6y ago
  Here is the full text [1] of Whewell's review of this book, by the way, in which the term scientist appears to have first appeared in print [2,3] [1] https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_1834_scientist.pdf https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_... [2] https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/2015/04/09/whewell-and-the-coining-of-scientist-in-the-quarterly-review/ https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/2015/04/09/whewell-and... [3] https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172698 https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172698 (note: paywall, but generally the authoritative source)
disown 6y ago
According to philosopher/historian Laura Snyder, this claim is not true. The word scientist was coined over a debate on whether "natural philosophers" was accurate/narrow enough of a term to describe what they were doing. In answer to a challenge by poet coleridge, Whewell came up with the term scientist - 'If philosophers is too wide and lofty a term then, by analogy with artist, we may form scientist. In other words, snobbish philosophers who worked with their minds looked down on these "scientists" who worked with their hands and wanted to differentiate themselves from scientists. Here is her wonderful TED talk describing the history of 'scientist'. It's interesting how since then, the reputation of scientist has risen and philosophers have dropped. Now philosophers and everyone else from economists and political 'scientists' want to be called scientists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g We are told that in war, truth is the first casualty. Sadly this is true for the culture war as almost everything peddle during this war is half-truths or outright lies. The worrisome part is that so much of media and tech is involved in the disinformation. For anything remotely cultural, I know if it's in wikipedia, the nytimes or posted here, it's most likely bullshit. But nevertheless the bullshit must flow. [from the article] "That women should face such an Everestine climb toward inclusion and equality is a piece of curious and rather cruel cultural irony, for the very word “scientist” didn’t always have the overwhelmingly male connotations it has had in recent history. In fact, it was a coined for a woman — the Victorian polymath Mary Somerville" The above is pretty much all cultural propaganda. 1. Women didn't face everestine climb. Especially privileged wealthy white women like somerville. Sure she had some hurdles, but nothing her privilege couldn't overcome. Somerville had it easier than 90% of men and 95% of women. 2. Scientist always had an overwhelmingly male connotation because scientists are/were overwhelmingly male. Not saying it should be this way or not, but just stating reality. 3. It was indeed not fact, that the term scientist, was coined for a woman. I doubt the author or the site will correct their lies. I doubt wikipedia will fix their site. And I doubt this is the last we'll see of this here. Edit: Of course these "warriors" are now distracting with straw man comments. The first 3 minutes of Laura Synder's ted talk explains the origins of scientist. It's not that long of a watch. If you think she's lying or mistaken, then feel free to comment on that. But I see no reason why she would lie and all the evidence, including the one's the naysayers are posting seems to show she is right.
- 6y ago
timthorn 6y ago
The Cambridge Philosophical Society is actually a general science society, but being over 200 years old took its name from the era before "scientist" was an established term: https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/our-society/about-us https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/our-society/ab...
globular-toast 6y ago
Here we go again. First programmer. Woman. First scientist. Woman. We get it. Equality means women are superior to men. If you don't believe this you are flaming. Wouldn't you prefer to shit on the accomplishments of men instead? Now excuse me. There's work to do.
- jrootabega 6y ago
  This is probably one of the few communities where you could actually have a somewhat objective discussion of this.
- dang 6y ago
  In this comment and also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24867774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24867774, you're misinterpreting HN moderation. If you look more closely you will see that it is different than you're imagining. For example, it's neither saying nor implying the things you're mentioning here. (I'm not saying this to defend anything—I just thought you might be curious.) In the current discourse there are only a few (if not merely two) squares that people are supposed to occupy, and the prevailing feeling is "you're either in my square or the enemy". But operating a community like HN requires not functioning that way, and we don't function that way. The goal is to open up space for something more interesting and complex than angry bashing. That's not so easy. This thread actually did a pretty good job of it, except where it got sucked into angry bashing.

95 points by Hooke 6y ago

dang 6y ago

Etymonline supports the attribution: https://www.etymonline.com/word/scientist#etymonline_v_22921 https://www.etymonline.com/word/scientist#etymonline_v_22921

disown 6y ago
I don't see any attribution supporting the claim that "scientist" was coined for somerville. "1834, a hybrid coined from Latin scientia (see science) by the Rev. William Whewell, English polymath, by analogy with artist, in the same paragraph in which he coined physicist" Edit: I'm going to pretend you're being sincere dang ( even though you rate limited me ). No. Scientist was not coined for somerville. First 3 minutes, professor laura snyder explains where the word scientist came from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g Second, your comment about "attribution" was rather misleading ( intentional or not ). Thirdly, the only sources so far of whewell using the word scientist in a review of her book : "An English man of science who called himself a philosopher now did so rather self-consciously..." He's complaining about "english man" of science having to be careful about how he refers to himself because philosophers don't like people like him claiming to be philosophers. Last I checked, somerville wasn't an "english man". But regardless, the review of her book comes after he coined the term scientist. Edit2: Nobody is questioning the attribution of scientist to whewell dang. Most everyone agrees. The question is whether whewell coined the term after somerville. I've provided sources that he didn't. And nowhere in your pg 59 is there a mention of somerville. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here but your comment seems very misleading for some reason.
- dang 6y ago
  I mean the attribution to Whewell. Turns out he coined many other words too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whewell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whewell Since the coinage of "scientist" was in a review of Mary Somerville's work, that claim doesn't seem far-fetched. It's true that the OP should have quoted Whewell, though, and not only secondary sources with current agendas. Surely the original text is out there somewhere? Edit: ah here it is https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_1834_scientist.pdf https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_... - thanks to cbkeller (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863646). The relevant part is on p. 59. Edit 2: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uWsJAAAAQAAJ/page/n67/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uWsJAAAAQAAJ/page/n67/mod... is clearer, plus you can zoom. Thanks to bitdizzy (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24863611).
  - ska 6y ago
    In my reading of that text I note two things 1) Whewell is not coining the term, but claiming it was proposed by "some ingenious gentleman" during previous (1833 meeting?) discussion - was this perhaps sarcastic self-reference? More importantly he suggests it was discarded at the time. 2) More broadly while this comes up in the discussion of what exactly they should call what we now refer to as scientists, it is as an aside in discussion of Mary Somerville's work. It seems then that the term was neither coined by Whewell, nor was it coined directly after Mary Somerville. Rather it was (first?) recorded in use here by Whewell, picked up again in explict discussion of Somerville as an exemplar. If correct I guess this makes most arguments here sort-of right, unless there is an earlier written source?
    - Arnavion 6y ago
      The source that Wikipedia uses for the anonymous writer being Whewell is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00033796200202722 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0003379620020272... , which says: >From Todhunter's biography [9] we learn that the reviewer was William Whewell, F.R.S. [9] in turn is: >9 I. Todhunter, "William Whewell, an account of his writings, with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence", London, 1876, vol. i., p. 92. The editor of the Quarterly Review, J. G. Loekhart, had prescribed 'a lightish paper' for the review of Mrs Somerville's book, and he commended Whewell for his 'spirited' contribution. This book is https://archive.org/details/williamwhewelld01whewgoog https://archive.org/details/williamwhewelld01whewgoog but archive.org's search doesn't find any mention of "scientist" in it, and it's 900 pages long so I have no idea if it's in there. "artist", and "philosopher" and "Coleridge" have 35 search results between them, but none of them appear to be relevant.
      - ska 6y ago
        I'm confused as to what you are responding to. The reference we are talking about is above, and it is Whewell's review of Somerville's book (i.e. it is a scan of the text of the 1834 quarterly review you mention). So that attribution isn't in question. It does contain "scientist" (the text is searchable directly) but refers to someone else as having coined the term. Unless I've misread something?

gnufx 6y ago

Her name might be best known from the eponymous college, perhaps without knowing the connexion: https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/history/ https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/history/ Its alumna Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin is particularly relevant in the context. (I recall when she died the obituary was quickly pushed off BBC news by the death of some actor/actress; sigh.) "... live simply and do serious things." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin

mgreenleaf 6y ago
I really like that quote "... live simply and do serious things.", what's the source on that? Thanks!
- jfengel 6y ago
  There doesn't appear to be a completely authentic source. It's cited to be part of a 1988 graduation speech at Bristol University, and appears to be more correctly "live modestly and do serious things". As far as I can tell, no printed copy of that speech exists, so it's all hearsay. The closest I can get to an authentic citation is a quote of it by a colleague in an obituary published by the Royal Society[1]. It rings authentic, in that it seems like something that would be said in the context of a graduation speech, and as such it may not have left a written record. [1] https://vdocuments.site/dorothy-mary-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-12-may-1910-29-july-1994.html https://vdocuments.site/dorothy-mary-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-12-...
  - gnufx 6y ago
    Hmm, yes, thanks. I know it as basically crystallographic lore from long ago, as in email sigs, but the only source I could find now is http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dorothy-Hodgkin-booklet.pdf http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dorothy-... I now find another familiar name from the past quoting the "modestly" version which I should use in future: https://sites.google.com/site/oxfordawisehome/elspeth-garman https://sites.google.com/site/oxfordawisehome/elspeth-garman

Angostura 6y ago

Just read her Wikipedia page. Wow, what a person.

cbkeller 6y ago

Her most famous book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, which is mentioned in the article, is available in full on Archive.org and looks to be a rather interesting read [1]. [1] https://archive.org/details/onconnexionphys01somegoog https://archive.org/details/onconnexionphys01somegoog

cbkeller 6y ago
Here is the full text [1] of Whewell's review of this book, by the way, in which the term scientist appears to have first appeared in print [2,3] [1] https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_1834_scientist.pdf https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2015/04/whewell_... [2] https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/2015/04/09/whewell-and-the-coining-of-scientist-in-the-quarterly-review/ https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/2015/04/09/whewell-and... [3] https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172698 https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172698 (note: paywall, but generally the authoritative source)

disown 6y ago

According to philosopher/historian Laura Snyder, this claim is not true. The word scientist was coined over a debate on whether "natural philosophers" was accurate/narrow enough of a term to describe what they were doing. In answer to a challenge by poet coleridge, Whewell came up with the term scientist - 'If philosophers is too wide and lofty a term then, by analogy with artist, we may form scientist. In other words, snobbish philosophers who worked with their minds looked down on these "scientists" who worked with their hands and wanted to differentiate themselves from scientists. Here is her wonderful TED talk describing the history of 'scientist'. It's interesting how since then, the reputation of scientist has risen and philosophers have dropped. Now philosophers and everyone else from economists and political 'scientists' want to be called scientists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_-Y9rDN2g We are told that in war, truth is the first casualty. Sadly this is true for the culture war as almost everything peddle during this war is half-truths or outright lies. The worrisome part is that so much of media and tech is involved in the disinformation. For anything remotely cultural, I know if it's in wikipedia, the nytimes or posted here, it's most likely bullshit. But nevertheless the bullshit must flow. [from the article] "That women should face such an Everestine climb toward inclusion and equality is a piece of curious and rather cruel cultural irony, for the very word “scientist” didn’t always have the overwhelmingly male connotations it has had in recent history. In fact, it was a coined for a woman — the Victorian polymath Mary Somerville" The above is pretty much all cultural propaganda. 1. Women didn't face everestine climb. Especially privileged wealthy white women like somerville. Sure she had some hurdles, but nothing her privilege couldn't overcome. Somerville had it easier than 90% of men and 95% of women. 2. Scientist always had an overwhelmingly male connotation because scientists are/were overwhelmingly male. Not saying it should be this way or not, but just stating reality. 3. It was indeed not fact, that the term scientist, was coined for a woman. I doubt the author or the site will correct their lies. I doubt wikipedia will fix their site. And I doubt this is the last we'll see of this here. Edit: Of course these "warriors" are now distracting with straw man comments. The first 3 minutes of Laura Synder's ted talk explains the origins of scientist. It's not that long of a watch. If you think she's lying or mistaken, then feel free to comment on that. But I see no reason why she would lie and all the evidence, including the one's the naysayers are posting seems to show she is right.

6y ago

timthorn 6y ago

The Cambridge Philosophical Society is actually a general science society, but being over 200 years old took its name from the era before "scientist" was an established term: https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/our-society/about-us https://www.cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/our-society/ab...

globular-toast 6y ago

Here we go again. First programmer. Woman. First scientist. Woman. We get it. Equality means women are superior to men. If you don't believe this you are flaming. Wouldn't you prefer to shit on the accomplishments of men instead? Now excuse me. There's work to do.

jrootabega 6y ago
This is probably one of the few communities where you could actually have a somewhat objective discussion of this.
dang 6y ago
In this comment and also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24867774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24867774, you're misinterpreting HN moderation. If you look more closely you will see that it is different than you're imagining. For example, it's neither saying nor implying the things you're mentioning here. (I'm not saying this to defend anything—I just thought you might be curious.) In the current discourse there are only a few (if not merely two) squares that people are supposed to occupy, and the prevailing feeling is "you're either in my square or the enemy". But operating a community like HN requires not functioning that way, and we don't function that way. The goal is to open up space for something more interesting and complex than angry bashing. That's not so easy. This thread actually did a pretty good job of it, except where it got sucked into angry bashing.