Darin Hayton
The history of science provides a set of tools and methods for investigating the creation of scientific knowledge. The history of science seeks to understand: Why people have bothered to investigate the natural world. How they have conducted that investigation. What they have learned through that investigation. And to what use they have put this newly created knowledge. My own research examines this nexus of questions in the context of Early Modern Europe, Central Europe, and the late Byzantine Empire. I study the concrete social practices by which certain systems of knowledge about the natural world become authoritative and scientific...
Categories used most frequently by the blogger:
History Press and Public Understanding of Science Academia Historical Expertise Byzantine Science HoS Advent Astrology Manuscripts HistorySTM March Madness Press and Pop Culture March Madness Haverford College Museums Ptolemy Isaac Newton Flat earth Astrolabe Nicolaus Copernicus Teaching Historiography
10 November 2021
Since at least Aristotle scholars have sought to discover the connections between earthquakes and planetary motions. Aristotle noted in Book 2 of his Meteorology that there seemed to...
4 October 2021
In June I ordered copies of textbooks I wanted to use in my seminar this fall. At the same time, I order “instructor” or “desk” copies for me so that I could design the syllabus...
What’s Astrology got to do with it?
23 September 2021
George Monbiot wrote an opinion column that draws attention to how conspiracy theories are appealing to people on both ends of the political spectrum. It is a useful reminder that there...
17 September 2021
In 1976 the NSF had to justify the money it had spent on educational projects during its first 20 years in existence. The previous year the U.S. congress had cut the funding for the...