4 ms·

It's easy to forget today, but this was how academia began 350 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society

derrida 15y ago
What was there before the Royal Society? There were still universities, wasn't that 'Academia'? Or is there a specific meaning to the word 'academia' I don't know?
- akkartik 15y ago
  There was teaching, yes, but there wasn't modern, peer-reviewed research. Even Newton spent half his lifetime as an alchemist. It just wasn't that clear that science was the more fruitful endeavor. I'm not claiming the Royal Society 'invented' peer-reviewed science. It wasn't a dramatic moment of epiphany, just a gradually growing insight that spread through society. And the Royal Society was at its forefront.
- bootload 15y ago
  "... What was there before the Royal Society? ..." To get an idea of the formation of empirical science in Europe read Quicksilver by Neil Stephenson ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_%28novel%29 & a quick synopsis here ~ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/history.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/history.html
iradik 15y ago
It goes much farther back than that... Akademeia was literally the name of the grove where Plato started his Akademeia in 350 BC. Plato took these ideas of an ascetic brotherhood of ideas/mathematics from Pythagoras. No one knows exactly how Pythagoras came up with his ideas, but he did travel widely in his youth, at least as far as Egypt, seeking knowledge.
- akkartik 15y ago
  Plato's Akademeia was for teaching. The modern research-oriented connotation of the word only dates from 1880 or so. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=academia http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=academia Of course, I wasn't talking about the word, but the idea. That is a little bit older, but it's definitely a post-renaissance creation. (I also responded at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3615474 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3615474)

derrida 15y ago

What was there before the Royal Society? There were still universities, wasn't that 'Academia'? Or is there a specific meaning to the word 'academia' I don't know?

akkartik 15y ago
There was teaching, yes, but there wasn't modern, peer-reviewed research. Even Newton spent half his lifetime as an alchemist. It just wasn't that clear that science was the more fruitful endeavor. I'm not claiming the Royal Society 'invented' peer-reviewed science. It wasn't a dramatic moment of epiphany, just a gradually growing insight that spread through society. And the Royal Society was at its forefront.
bootload 15y ago
"... What was there before the Royal Society? ..." To get an idea of the formation of empirical science in Europe read Quicksilver by Neil Stephenson ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_%28novel%29 & a quick synopsis here ~ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/history.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/history.html

iradik 15y ago

It goes much farther back than that... Akademeia was literally the name of the grove where Plato started his Akademeia in 350 BC. Plato took these ideas of an ascetic brotherhood of ideas/mathematics from Pythagoras. No one knows exactly how Pythagoras came up with his ideas, but he did travel widely in his youth, at least as far as Egypt, seeking knowledge.

akkartik 15y ago
Plato's Akademeia was for teaching. The modern research-oriented connotation of the word only dates from 1880 or so. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=academia http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=academia Of course, I wasn't talking about the word, but the idea. That is a little bit older, but it's definitely a post-renaissance creation. (I also responded at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3615474 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3615474)