I'd like you to come back with me for a moment to the 19th century, specifically to June 24, 1833. The British Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its third meeting at the University of Cambridge. It's the first night of the meeting, and a confrontation is about to take place that will change science forever.
Željela bih da se za trenutak sa mnom vratite u 19. stoljeće, točnije u 24. lipnja 1833. Britanska udruga za promicanje znanosti, održava svoj treći sastanak na Sveučilištu Cambridge. Prva je večer sastanka, i uskoro će započeti sraz koji će zauvijek izmijeniti znanost.
An elderly, white-haired man stands up. The members of the Association are shocked to realize that it's the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who hadn't even left his house in years until that day. They're even more shocked by what he says.
Postariji, sijedi čovjek ustaje... Članovi Udruge zatečeni su, jer uviđaju da je to pjesnik, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, koji do toga dana godinama nije napustio svoju kuću. Još više su zatečeni njegovim riječima:
"You must stop calling yourselves natural philosophers."
"Morate prestati sebe nazivati prirodoslovnim filozofima!"
Coleridge felt that true philosophers like himself pondered the cosmos from their armchairs. They were not mucking around in the fossil pits or conducting messy experiments with electrical piles like the members of the British Association.
Coleridge je smatrao da pravi filozofi, poput njega, proučavaju svemir iz svojih naslonjača. Oni ne gube vrijeme tražeći okamine po jamama, niti provode zbrkane pokuse s elektrokemijskim baterijama, kao što to čine članovi Britanske udruge.
The crowd grew angry and began to complain loudly. A young Cambridge scholar named William Whewell stood up and quieted the audience. He politely agreed that an appropriate name for the members of the association did not exist.
Publika se razljutila, glasno negodujući. Mladi učenjak s Cambridgea, William Whewell, ustao je i utišao publiku. Uljudno se složio da prikladno ime za članove Udruge - nije postojalo.
"If 'philosophers' is taken to be too wide and lofty a term," he said, "then, by analogy with 'artist,' we may form 'scientist.'" This was the first time the word scientist was uttered in public, only 179 years ago.
"Ako je 'filozof' suviše širok i uzvišen termin," rekao je, "onda, analogno 'umjetniku', možemo stvoriti - 'znanstvenika'." Bio je to prvi put da je riječ 'znanstvenik' izgovorena u javnosti; prije samo 179 godina.
I first found out about this confrontation when I was in graduate school, and it kind of blew me away. I mean, how could the word scientist not have existed until 1833? What were scientists called before? What had changed to make a new name necessary precisely at that moment? Prior to this meeting, those who studied the natural world were talented amateurs. Think of the country clergyman or squire collecting his beetles or fossils, like Charles Darwin, for example, or, the hired help of a nobleman, like Joseph Priestley, who was the literary companion to the Marquis of Lansdowne when he discovered oxygen. After this, they were scientists, professionals with a particular scientific method, goals, societies and funding.
Prvi sam put saznala za ovu raspravu dok sam bila u srednjoj školi, i silno me se dojmila. Hoću reći, kako to da riječ 'znanstvenik' nije do 1833. uopće postojala?! Kako su znanstvenike nazivali prije toga? Što se promijenilo da je novo ime bilo potrebno upravo u tom trenutku? Do toga sastanka, ljudi koji su proučavali prirodu bili su daroviti amateri. Zamislite seoskog župnika ili zemljoposjednika kako prikuplja kukce ili fosile... Poput Charlesa Darwina, primjerice! Ili unajmljenu pomoć aristokrata, poput Josepha Priestleya koji je bio literarni suputnik markiza od Lansdownea u doba kad je otkrio kisik. Nakon sastanka, oni su bili 'znanstvenici', stručnjaci koji raspolažu određenom znanstvenom metodom, ciljevima, društvima i izvorima financiranja.
Much of this revolution can be traced to four men who met at Cambridge University in 1812: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. These were brilliant, driven men who accomplished amazing things. Charles Babbage, I think known to most TEDsters, invented the first mechanical calculator and the first prototype of a modern computer. John Herschel mapped the stars of the southern hemisphere, and, in his spare time, co-invented photography. I'm sure we could all be that productive without Facebook or Twitter to take up our time. Richard Jones became an important economist who later influenced Karl Marx. And Whewell not only coined the term scientist, as well as the words anode, cathode and ion, but spearheaded international big science with his global research on the tides. In the Cambridge winter of 1812 and 1813, the four met for what they called philosophical breakfasts. They talked about science and the need for a new scientific revolution. They felt science had stagnated since the days of the scientific revolution that had happened in the 17th century. It was time for a new revolution, which they pledged to bring about, and what's so amazing about these guys is, not only did they have these grandiose undergraduate dreams, but they actually carried them out, even beyond their wildest dreams. And I'm going to tell you today about four major changes to science these men made.
Veći dio ove revolucije može se pripisati četvorici muškaraca koji su se susrelii na Sveučilištu Cambridge 1812.: Charlesu Babbageu, Johnu Herschelu, Richardu Jonesu i Williamu Whewellu. Bili su to sjajni, ambiciozni ljudi koji su postigli čudesne stvari. Charles Babbage, vjerujem, poznat većini TED-ovaca, izumio je prvi mehanički kalkulator i prvi prototip modernog računala. John Herschel je prvi prikazao zviježđa južne hemisfere i, u slobodno vrijeme, sudjelovao u izumu fotografije. Sigurna sam da bismo svi mogli biti tako produktivni bez Facebooka ili Twittera, koji nam oduzimaju vrijeme. Richard Jones je postao značajan ekonomist koji je kasnije utjecao na Karla Marxa. A Whewell nije samo skovao termin znanstvenik kao i riječi anoda,katoda ili ion već je i predvodio svjetsku znanost svojim globalnim istraživanjem morskih mijena. Zimi 1812. i 1813., u Cambridgeu, ova četvorica su se susrela na tzv. filozofskim doručcima. Razgovarali su o znanosti i o potrebi za novom znanstvenom revolucijom. Smatrali su da znanost stagnira još od vremena znanstvene revolucije koja se zbila u 17. stoljeću. Bilo je vrijeme za novu revoluciju koju su se oni zavjetovali pokrenuti. Zadivljujuće je da oni nisu ostali samo na ovim grandioznim dodiplomskim snovima, već su ih i proveli, čak i više no što su mogli i zamisliti. Danas ću vam govoriti o četiri najznačajnije promjene koje su ovi ljudi unijeli u znanost...
About 200 years before, Francis Bacon and then, later, Isaac Newton, had proposed an inductive scientific method. Now that's a method that starts from observations and experiments and moves to generalizations about nature called natural laws, which are always subject to revision or rejection should new evidence arise. However, in 1809, David Ricardo muddied the waters by arguing that the science of economics should use a different, deductive method. The problem was that an influential group at Oxford began arguing that because it worked so well in economics, this deductive method ought to be applied to the natural sciences too. The members of the philosophical breakfast club disagreed. They wrote books and articles promoting inductive method in all the sciences that were widely read by natural philosophers, university students and members of the public. Reading one of Herschel's books was such a watershed moment for Charles Darwin that he would later say, "Scarcely anything in my life made so deep an impression on me. It made me wish to add my might to the accumulated store of natural knowledge." It also shaped Darwin's scientific method, as well as that used by his peers. [Science for the public good]
Prije 200-tinjak godina, Francis Bacon, a kasnije i Isaac Newton, predložili su induktivnu znanstvenu metodu. Ta metoda započinje s opažanjima i pokusima, i nastavlja se poopćavanjima o prirodi, što nazivamo prirodnim zakonima, koji su uvijek podložni reviziji ili odbacivanju ako se pojavi nov dokaz. Međutim, 1809. je David Ricardo zamutio vodu tvrdeći da bi ekonomska znanost trebala koristiti drugačiju, deduktivnu metodu. Problem je bio u tome što je utjecajna skupina na Oxfordu tvrdila da, zbog dobrog djelovanja u ekonomiji, deduktivnu metodu treba primijeniti i u prirodoslovnim znanostima. Članovi Kluba filozofskog doručka nisu se s time složili. Pisali su knjige i članke promovirajući induktivnu metodu u svim znanostima, što su masovno čitali prirodoslovni filozofi, studenti i građani. Čitanje jedne od Herschelovih knjiga bilo je toliko prijelomno za Charlesa Darwina da je on kasnije rekao: "Rijetko je što u mom životu ostavilo toliko dubok dojam na mene. Poželio sam svoju moć pridodati svemu tom nagomilanom znanju o prirodi." Utjecalo je i na oblikovanje Darwinove znanstvene metode, kao i na metode koje su koristili njegovi kolege. [Znanost za opće dobro]
Previously, it was believed that scientific knowledge ought to be used for the good of the king or queen, or for one's own personal gain. For example, ship captains needed to know information about the tides in order to safely dock at ports. Harbormasters would gather this knowledge and sell it to the ship captains. The philosophical breakfast club changed that, working together. Whewell's worldwide study of the tides resulted in public tide tables and tidal maps that freely provided the harbormasters' knowledge to all ship captains. Herschel helped by making tidal observations off the coast of South Africa, and, as he complained to Whewell, he was knocked off the docks during a violent high tide for his trouble. The four men really helped each other in every way. They also relentlessly lobbied the British government for the money to build Babbage's engines because they believed these engines would have a huge practical impact on society. In the days before pocket calculators, the numbers that most professionals needed -- bankers, insurance agents, ship captains, engineers — were to be found in lookup books like this, filled with tables of figures. These tables were calculated using a fixed procedure over and over by part-time workers known as -- and this is amazing -- computers, but these calculations were really difficult. I mean, this nautical almanac published the lunar differences for every month of the year. Each month required 1,365 calculations, so these tables were filled with mistakes. Babbage's difference engine was the first mechanical calculator devised to accurately compute any of these tables. Two models of his engine were built in the last 20 years by a team from the Science Museum of London using his own plans. This is the one now at the Computer History Museum in California, and it calculates accurately. It actually works. Later, Babbage's analytical engine was the first mechanical computer in the modern sense. It had a separate memory and central processor. It was capable of iteration, conditional branching and parallel processing, and it was programmable using punched cards, an idea Babbage took from Jacquard's loom. Tragically, Babbage's engines never were built in his day because most people thought that non-human computers would have no usefulness for the public. [New scientific institutions]
Prije toga, vjerovalo se da se znanstvena spoznaja treba koristiti za dobrobit kralja ili kraljice, ili za vlastiti osobni probitak. Primjerice, brodski kapetani trebali su poznavati morske mijene kako bi se sigurno usidrili u lukama. Lučki piloti prikupljali bi ta znanja i prodavali ih kapetanima brodova. Klub filozofskog doručka to je promijenio, zajedničkim snagama. Whewellova svjetska studija morskih mijena rezultirala je javnim tablicama i kartama morskih mijena, na temelju kojih su znanja lučkih pilota postala dostupna kapetanima brodova. Herschel je pripomogao opažanjem morskih mijena s obale Južne Afrike i, kako se požalio Whewellu, za hvalu ga je silovita plima zbacila s doka. Četvorica su uistinu međusobno surađivali u svakom pogledu. Također, neumorno su lobirali kod britanske vlade radi novca kojim bi izradili Babbageove strojeve, jer su vjerovali da će ti strojevi imati golem praktičan utjecaj na društvo. U danima prije džepnih kalkulatora, brojevi potrebni većini stručnjaka - bankarima, agentima osiguranja, brodskim kapetanima, inženjerima - mogli su se naći u preglednim knjigama poput ove, ispunjenima tablicama s brojevima. Ove su tablice izrađene kroz standardni postupak, svaki put iznova, što su činili honorarni radnici poznati kao - ovo je nevjerojatno - računala, ali ti su izračuni bili doista zahtjevni. U ovom nautičkom godišnjaku objavljivane su lunarne razlike za svaki mjesec u godini. Za svaki je mjesec bilo potrebno 1365 izračuna, pa su te tablice bile prepune pogrešaka. Babbageov diferencijalni stroj bio je prvi mehanički kalkulator smišljen radi točnog izračunavanja bilo koje od tih tablica. U posljednjih 20 godina, tim iz Muzeja znanosti u Londonu izradio je dva modela ovog stroja, koristeći vlastite nacrte. Ovaj je danas u Muzeju računalne povijesti u Kaliforniji. I točno izračunava. Doista radi. Kasnije, Babbageov analitički stroj bio je prvo mehaničko računalo u suvremenom smislu. Imao je zasebnu memoriju i centralni procesor. Bio je sposoban provoditi iteracije, uvjetna grananja i istodobno procesiranje, a moglo ga se programirati pomoću bušenih kartica, zamisli koju je Babbage preuzeo od Jacquardovog tkalačkog stana. Nažalost, Babbageovi strojevi nisu izrađeni za njegova života, jer je većina ljudi mislila da ne-ljudska računala neće ni na koji način koristiti građanima. [Nove znanstvene institucije]
Founded in Bacon's time, the Royal Society of London was the foremost scientific society in England and even in the rest of the world. By the 19th century, it had become a kind of gentleman's club populated mainly by antiquarians, literary men and the nobility. The members of the philosophical breakfast club helped form a number of new scientific societies, including the British Association. These new societies required that members be active researchers publishing their results. They reinstated the tradition of the Q&A after scientific papers were read, which had been discontinued by the Royal Society as being ungentlemanly. And for the first time, they gave women a foot in the door of science. Members were encouraged to bring their wives, daughters and sisters to the meetings of the British Association, and while the women were expected to attend only the public lectures and the social events like this one, they began to infiltrate the scientific sessions as well. The British Association would later be the first of the major national science organizations in the world to admit women as full members. [External funding for science]
U Baconovo doba osnovano je Londonsko kraljevsko društvo, najistaknutije znanstveno društvo u Engleskoj, pa čak i u ostatku svijeta. Do 19. stoljeća ono je preraslo u svojevrsni gospodski klub, u kojemu su se uglavnom okupljali antikvari, učeni ljudi i plemstvo. Članovi Kluba filozofskog doručka pridonijeli su stvaranju novih znanstvenih društava, uključujući i Britansku udrugu. Ova nova društva zahtijevala su da članovi budu aktivni istraživači i objavljuju svoje rezultate. Oživjeli su tradiciju rasprava kroz pitanja i odgovore nakon što bi se pročitali znanstveni radovi, koju je Kraljevsko društvo bilo ukinulo kao nedžentlmensko. I po prvi put, otvorili su ženama vrata znanosti. Članove su poticali da dovode svoje žene, kćeri i sestre na sastanke Britanske udruge, i dok se od žena očekivalo da prisustvuju samo javnim predavanjima i događanjima poput ovoga, one su se počele uključivati i u znanstvene sjednice. Britanska će udruga kasnije biti prva među glavnim nacionalnim znanstvenim organizacijama u svijetu, koja će žene priznati kao punopravne članice. [Financiranje znanosti]
Up to the 19th century, natural philosophers were expected to pay for their own equipment and supplies. Occasionally, there were prizes, such as that given to John Harrison in the 18th century, for solving the so-called longitude problem, but prizes were only given after the fact, when they were given at all. On the advice of the philosophical breakfast club, the British Association began to use the extra money generated by its meetings to give grants for research in astronomy, the tides, fossil fish, shipbuilding, and many other areas. These grants not only allowed less wealthy men to conduct research, but they also encouraged thinking outside the box, rather than just trying to solve one pre-set question. Eventually, the Royal Society and the scientific societies of other countries followed suit, and this has become -- fortunately it's become -- a major part of the scientific landscape today.
Do 19. stoljeća, od prirodoslovnih filozofa očekivalo se da sami plaćaju troškove svojih istraživanja. Povremeno, dodjeljivale su se nagrade, poput one koju je dobio John Harrison u 18. stoljeću, zbog rješavanja tzv. problema longitude, ali nagrade su dodjeljivane samo nakon pronalazaka, kad su uopće dodjeljivane. Prema savjetu Kluba filozofskog doručka, Britanska udruga počela je koristiti dodatne prihode ostvarene kroz sastanke, za podupiranje istraživanja u astronomiji, istraživanja morskih mijena i ribljih okamina, istraživanja u brodogradnji, i u mnogim drugim područjima. Ove su potpore ne samo dopuštale manje imućnim ljudima da istražuju, već su poticale i mišljenje izvan ustaljenih okvira, umjesto tek nastojanja da se riješi neko unaprijed postavljeno pitanje. Na koncu, Kraljevsko društvo i znanstvena društva iz drugih zemalja slijedila su taj primjer, i to je postalo - nasreću, postalo je - glavnina današnjeg znanstvenog miljea.
So the philosophical breakfast club helped invent the modern scientist. That's the heroic part of their story. There's a flip side as well. They did not foresee at least one consequence of their revolution. They would have been deeply dismayed by today's disjunction between science and the rest of culture. It's shocking to realize that only 28 percent of American adults have even a very basic level of science literacy, and this was tested by asking simple questions like, "Did humans and dinosaurs inhabit the Earth at the same time?" and "What proportion of the Earth is covered in water?" Once scientists became members of a professional group, they were slowly walled off from the rest of us. This is the unintended consequence of the revolution that started with our four friends.
Tako je Klub filozofskog doručka pripomogao izumiti modernog znanstvenika. To je junački dio priče o njima. Postoji i njeno naličje. Nisu predvidjeli barem jednu posljedicu svoje revolucije. Silno bi ih obeshrabrila današnja razdvojenost znanosti i ostatka kulture. Zaprepašćujuće je uvidjeti da svega 28% odraslih Amerikanaca pokazuje barem elementarnu razinu znanstvene pismenosti, što je provjeravano jednostavnim pitanjima poput: "Jesu li ljudi i dinosauri istodobno nastanjivali Zemlju?", ili: "Koliki je dio Zemlje prekriven vodom?". Jednom kad su znanstvenici postali pripadnici neke stručne skupine, polako su se udaljavali od nas ostalih. Ovo je nenamjerna posljedica revolucije koja je započela s našom četvoricom prijatelja.
Charles Darwin said, "I sometimes think that general and popular treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work." In fact, "Origin of Species" was written for a general and popular audience, and was widely read when it first appeared. Darwin knew what we seem to have forgotten, that science is not only for scientists.
Charles Darwin je rekao: "Ponekad mislim da su šire i pristupačnije rasprave gotovo jednako važne za napredak znanosti kao i izvorno djelo." Zapravo, "Porijeklo vrsta" napisano je za široku publiku, i bilo je vrlo čitano čim je objavljeno. Darwin je znao ono što smo mi, čini se, zaboravili, da znanost nije samo za znanstvenike.
Thank you.
Hvala vam!
(Applause)
(Pljesak)