By Gary Lynn Comstock (NHC Fellow, 2007–08; 2008–09) This second edition of Life Science Ethics includes four essays not found in the first edition: · Richard Haynes on “Animals in Research” · Stephen M. Gardiner on “Climate Change” · Christopher Kelty on “Nanotechnology” · Gary Comstock on “Genetically Modified Foods” and a revised and expanded version … Continued
By Harriet Ritvo (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1989–90; 2002–03) “Cats is ‘dogs,’ and rabbits is ‘dogs,’ and so’s parrots; but this ’ere ‘tortis’ is a insect,” a porter explains to an astonished traveler in a nineteenth-century Punch cartoon. Railways were not the only British institution to schematize the world. This enormously entertaining book captures the fervor of the … Continued
By William R. Newman (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) When Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment rationality, the legendary physicist suddenly became “the last of the magicians.” Newton the Alchemist unlocks the secrets of Newton’s alchemical quest, providing … Continued
By Robert W. Smith (NHC Fellow, 1992–93), Robert H. Kargon, and Joseph N. Tatarewicz Robert Smith's The Space Telescope sets the fascinating and disturbing history of this massive venture within the context of 'Big Science'. Launched at a cost of no more than $2 billion, the Space Telescope turned out to be seriously flawed by … Continued
By Jutta Schickore (NHC Fellow, 2011–12)
By Alexander Rosenberg (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) Is life a purely physical process? What is human nature? Which of our traits is essential to us? In this volume, Daniel McShea and Alex Rosenberg – a biologist and a philosopher, respectively – join forces to create a new gateway to the philosophy of biology; making the major … Continued
By Miguel SabucoEdited and translated by Gianna Pomata (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) With unprecedented clarity and care, Gianna Pomata brings an important text in the history of scientific authorship to the attention of modern-day readers. Published in Spain in 1587 under the name of Oliva Sabuco, True Philosophy of Human Nature, of which The True Medicine is part, was soon … Continued
By Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) A lecture sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries in conjunction with the Washington Collegium for the Humanities Lecture Series: Death and the Afterlife in Art and Literature. Presented at the Smithsonian Institution, February 16, 1988.
By William C. Wimsatt (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) Analytic philosophers once pantomimed physics: they tried to understand the world by breaking it down into the smallest possible bits. Thinkers from the Darwinian sciences now pose alternatives to this simplistic reductionism. In this intellectual tour—essays spanning thirty years—William C. Wimsatt argues that scientists seek to atomize phenomena only … Continued
By Mary Baine Campbell (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) During the early modern period, western Europe was transformed by the proliferation of new worlds—geographic worlds found in the voyages of discovery and conceptual and celestial worlds opened by natural philosophy, or science. The response to incredible overseas encounters and to the profound technological, religious, economic, and intellectual … Continued