Philosophy Breakfast Club (shared by Ted)

In 1812, four men at Cambridge University had breakfast together. An impassioned meal sparked a new scientific revolution in which these people called themselves "natural philosophers" until later created the "scientists" who introduced the four principles into scientific research. Historian and philosopher Laura Snyder tells their interesting story.

I want to take you back to the 19th century, to June 24, 1833, to be exact. The British Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its third congress at the University of Cambridge. On the first night of the conference, there was a great discussion that had a permanent impact on the development of science.

An old man with white hair stood up, and the participants were surprised to realize that he was the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and today was his first public appearance in years. But what shocked them even more was what he said.

"You should not continue to call yourself a 'natural philosopher.'"

Coleridge believed that a true philosopher should sit in his chair and think about everything in the universe, as he did. Philosophers shouldn't be tossing and turning in fossil pits, and they shouldn't be doing disgusting experiments with electrodes like members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

People became angry and started complaining loudly. A young Cambridge scholar named William Whewell stood up and silenced everyone. He politely admitted that there was no suitable name to describe the identity of the members of the association.

"If the word 'philosopher' is too broad and sublime," "then, by analogy with the term 'artist' and 'art,' we can use the word 'scientist.'" This was the first time the term 'scientist' was known to the public, and it's only been 179 years.

I was in graduate school when I first heard about it, and it surprised me. I mean, how could the word "scientist" have only come to be in 1833? What did scientists call themselves before that? What did creating a new name change in those days? Before this conference, people who studied the natural world were some very gifted enthusiasts. They would be town priests or squires who were keen to collect beetles or fossil specimens, such as Charles Darwin, or Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen, who was then the Marquis of Lansdowne. After that, they all became scientists, professional researchers with specific research methods, goals, groups, and funding.

Many innovations date back to 1812 when four people gathered at Cambridge University: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell. These four leaders were very wise and fruitful. I think most TED listeners know that Charles Babbage invented the first mechanical computer and the prototype of the first generation of computers. John Herschel produced star maps of the southern hemisphere and co-invented photographic techniques in his spare time. I believe that if we quit Facebook and Twitter, we could be so prolific. Richard Jones became an important economist, and he later influenced Karl Marx. Whewell coined not only the word "scientist", but also "anode", "cathode" and "ion", and his study of global tides has had a profound impact internationally. In Cambridge in the winter of 1812-1813, the four men participated several times in meetings known as the "Philosophical Breakfast". They talk about science and the need for a new scientific revolution. They think that the scientific revolution, which originated in the 17th century, has now come to some sort of stagnation. It's time for a new revolution that they're going to make sure happens, and what's most amazing about these people is that not only can these bold and beautiful dreams, but they're actually living up to them, even beyond their own craziest dreams. I'm going to briefly describe the major contributions of these four people to the scientific community.

About 200 years ago, Bacon and later Newton summed up a scientific method of inductive summation. This method is first based on data from observations or experiments, and then by generalizing these data to obtain so-called laws of nature, conclusions that can be supported or overturned by new evidence. In 1809, however, David Ricardo stirred up muddy waters, arguing that another method should be used in economics: deductive methods. The problem stemmed from an influential scientific community in Oxford, who argued that since deduction is so useful in economics, it should also apply to the natural sciences. Members of the Philosophy Breakfast Club disagreed. They wrote books and articles to promote the application of inductive methods in all areas of science, and these texts were widely read by natural philosophers, university students, and the general public at that time. Herschel's writings became a watershed moment that later changed Darwin's thought. Darwin later wrote: "It was terrible, and there had never been a thought that affected me so profoundly. And that gave me a desire to contribute to the treasure trove of natural knowledge of humanity. The formation of the scientific research methods of Darwin and his peers was also influenced by Herschel. [Science oriented to the public interest]

Previously, it was believed that scientific knowledge should serve the interests of kings and queens or individuals. For example, a captain needs to know the laws of the tides so that his ship can be safely anchored in port. The portmaster collects this information and sells it to the captains. The Philosophical Breakfast Club has changed that by working collaboratively. Whewell studied the global tidal laws and made a map of the global tidal laws, which provided all the captains with the knowledge of the tides that only the portmaster could grasp. Herschel helped set up a tidal observatory off the coast of South Africa, and on one occasion he complained to Whewell that he had been swept down by a big wave on the dock because of a mistake. These four people really did it to help each other. They lobbied tirelessly with the British government to allocate funds to build Babbage's differential machines because they believed that these engines could have a very positive impact on society. In an era without electronic calculators, many industries needed to use data -- bankers, insurance agents, captains, engineers -- and could only be found in tomes like this, which contained various pre-calculated tables of numbers. These tables are all done over and over again by some temporary workers -- called "artificial computers" -- based on a fixed process of calculations, but these calculations are really complicated. For example, this nautical calendar calculates the difference in phases of each month of the year. It takes 1365 calculations per month, so these tables are riddled with errors. Babbage's differential machine was the first to be used to accurately calculate any result in a table. Twenty years ago, a team at the Science Museum in London built two differential machines based on his drawings. The picture shows this now at the California Computer History Museum, and it can still be calculated precisely. It can actually still be used. The analytical machine proposed after Babbage was the first mechanical computer in the modern sense. The machine has a separate CPU and memory. It can be iterated, conditional jumps, and can be processed in parallel, programmed using punch cards, which Babbage took inspiration from Jacquard's loom. It's a pity that Babbage's analytical machines didn't actually work out, because most people don't think non-human computers are good for the public good. [New Scientific System]

The Royal Society of London, founded in the Bacon era, was the first scientific society in England, and indeed in the world. In the 19th century, it became a club of upper-class gentlemen, packed with antiquities, writers and aristocrats. The Philosophical Breakfast Club has helped build a range of scientific groups, including the British Progressive Science Association. These new societies all require their members to be active researchers and have published findings. They resumed a question-and-answer session for academic papers, a tradition that had not been adopted by the Royal Society of London at the time, on the grounds that they were not gentlemen enough. At the same time, for the first time, they gave women the opportunity to dabble in science. The British Association for the Advancement of Science encouraged members to bring their wives, daughters, and sisters to the conference, and although women were only allowed to participate in some public reporting and social activities at that time, women began to gradually participate in the field of science. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was also the first mainstream national academic body to accept women as full members. [Science Foundation]

Up to the 19th century, natural philosophers had to pay for experimental equipment and supplies themselves. Occasional bonuses, such as those given by John Harrison in the 18th century to solve the so-called "longitude problem," but only when the work is done can they get the full prize money. At the suggestion of the Philosophical Breakfast Club, the British Progressive Science Association began using the extra money it had spent to host conferences to sponsor research in astronomy, tidalities, fish fossils, shipbuilding, and many other fields. Not only do these funds allow less wealthy people to participate in scientific research, but they also encourage people to look for new challenges rather than solve pre-set problems. Eventually, the Royal Society and other national scientific societies began to follow suit, and became -- fortunately -- the foundational form of scientific research today.

The Philosophical Breakfast Club helped create modern scientists. This is their heroic story. Of course, everything has a negative side. At least one thing they didn't foresee at the time. If they see the separation of science from other popular cultures today, they may be deeply disappointed. You might be surprised that only 28 percent of American adults have basic scientific knowledge, and the test questions are very simple: "Did humans and dinosaurs live in the same era?" "How much of the Earth's surface is covered with water?" Once scientists become a professional group, they begin to slowly break away from the masses. This is something that our four friends did not expect when they started the revolution.

Darwin said, "I often think that the importance of popular and popular science articles should be as important as original work in science." In fact, On the Origin of Species is aimed at both popular and ordinary readers, and it has been widely circulated since its initial publication. Darwin knew we seemed to have forgotten one thing: science is not just a scientist's business.

Video source: https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_snyder_the_philosophical_breakfast_club