5 ms·

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 Re

by 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?

by disown 6y ago

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?