I’m a historian of science. This category is for posts covering material in this subject area.
Survey of the Animal Kingdom exhibit in the Natural History Gallery in Horniman Museum aims to present representative examples from all major groups of animals. In essence, this is an object-based textbook of zoological classification. […]
The Evidences of Evolution exhibit in the Natural History Gallery at Horniman Museum and Gardens presents British evolutionary studies as it stood in the early 1920s. The exhibit builds on an earlier Horniman display, “History of […]
George Gaylord Simpson was the undisputed American heavy-weight in macro-evolutionary theory prior to paleobiology’s disciplinary formation in the 1970s. Memory of Simpson’s intellectual influence on this next generation of thinkers is tied intimately to aggressive […]
Historians of the synthesis period in evolutionary studies, aka evolutionary synthesis, are deeply familiar with the Columbia Biological Series. This monograph series included key texts for the American evolutionist community, including Theodosius Dobzhansky’s (1937) Genetics […]
In 2003, I co-authored publication of a transcription of Leslie Clarence Dunn‘s 1927 report on genetics research facilities in Russia. This appeared in the Mendel Newsletter, published by the American Philosophical Society Library as Joe Cain […]
Sergeĭ Sergeevich Chetverikov (=Tschetwerikoff) was a Russian entomologist, an expert on butterflies, and a pioneer of population geneticists. Born into a well-educated, professional family, Chetverikov entered the University of Moscow in 1900, graduating six years […]
The statue from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the British Museum is a beautiful, captivating object. It is a “moai”. Its name is Hoa Hakananai’a (loosely translated to “Stolen Friend”, sometimes spelled Hoa Haka Nanai’a). […]
During research concerning Charles and Emma Darwin’s life at number 12 Upper Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London, I identified several errors and vagaries in biographical material found in standard reference works. This note communicates corrections and […]
Professor W. Cross was a phrenologist who gave popular public performances at London’s Royal Aquarium in the 1880s and 1890s. Phrenology was the quack medical practice of studying bumps on the head under the false pretence of […]
Cumberland Clarke’s Shakespeare and Science is a monumental compilation of the William Shakespeare’s many references to natural and celestial phenomena, including a careful study of the Bard’s interest in, and dramatic use of, natural phenomena. […]
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