Origin of word scientist

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scientist

Pierre Curie and Marie Curie demonstrating an apparatus that detects radioactivity. They received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for their scientific research; Marie also received the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Occupation
Names	Scientist
Occupation type	Profession
Activity sectors	Laboratory, field research
Description
Competencies	Scientific research
Education required	Science
Fields of employment	Academia, industry, government, nonprofit
Related jobs	Engineers

A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences.^[1][2]

In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature called natural philosophy, a precursor of natural science.^[3] Though Thales (circa 624–545 BC) was arguably the first scientist for describing how cosmic events may be seen as natural, not necessarily caused by gods,^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} it was not until the 19th century that the term scientist came into regular use after it was coined by the theologian, philosopher, and historian of science William Whewell in 1833.^[10][11]

History[edit]

The roles of «scientists», and their predecessors before the emergence of modern scientific disciplines, have evolved considerably over time. Scientists of different eras (and before them, natural philosophers, mathematicians, natural historians, natural theologians, engineers, and others who contributed to the development of science) have had widely different places in society, and the social norms, ethical values, and epistemic virtues associated with scientists—and expected of them—have changed over time as well. Accordingly, many different historical figures can be identified as early scientists, depending on which characteristics of modern science are taken to be essential.

Some historians point to the Scientific Revolution that began in 16th century as the period when science in a recognizably modern form developed. It wasn’t until the 19th century that sufficient socioeconomic changes had occurred for scientists to emerge as a major profession.^[13]

Classical antiquity[edit]

Knowledge about nature in classical antiquity was pursued by many kinds of scholars. Greek contributions to science—including works of geometry and mathematical astronomy, early accounts of biological processes and catalogs of plants and animals, and theories of knowledge and learning—were produced by philosophers and physicians, as well as practitioners of various trades. These roles, and their associations with scientific knowledge, spread with the Roman Empire and, with the spread of Christianity, became closely linked to religious institutions in most of European countries. Astrology and astronomy became an important area of knowledge, and the role of astronomer/astrologer developed with the support of political and religious patronage. By the time of the medieval university system, knowledge was divided into the trivium—philosophy, including natural philosophy—and the quadrivium—mathematics, including astronomy. Hence, the medieval analogs of scientists were often either philosophers or mathematicians. Knowledge of plants and animals was broadly the province of physicians.

Middle Ages[edit]

Science in medieval Islam generated some new modes of developing natural knowledge, although still within the bounds of existing social roles such as philosopher and mathematician. Many proto-scientists from the Islamic Golden Age are considered polymaths, in part because of the lack of anything corresponding to modern scientific disciplines. Many of these early polymaths were also religious priests and theologians: for example, Alhazen and al-Biruni were mutakallimiin; the physician Avicenna was a hafiz; the physician Ibn al-Nafis was a hafiz, muhaddith and ulema; the botanist Otto Brunfels was a theologian and historian of Protestantism; the astronomer and physician Nicolaus Copernicus was a priest. During the Italian Renaissance scientists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei and Gerolamo Cardano have been considered as the most recognizable polymaths.

Renaissance[edit]

During the Renaissance, Italians made substantial contributions in science. Leonardo da Vinci made significant discoveries in paleontology and anatomy. The Father of modern Science,^[14][15]
Galileo Galilei, made key improvements on the thermometer and telescope which allowed him to observe and clearly describe the solar system. Descartes was not only a pioneer of analytic geometry but formulated a theory of mechanics^[16] and advanced ideas about the origins of animal movement and perception. Vision interested the physicists Young and Helmholtz, who also studied optics, hearing and music. Newton extended Descartes’s mathematics by inventing calculus (at the same time as Leibniz). He provided a comprehensive formulation of classical mechanics and investigated light and optics. Fourier founded a new branch of mathematics — infinite, periodic series — studied heat flow and infrared radiation, and discovered the greenhouse effect. Girolamo Cardano, Blaise Pascal Pierre de Fermat, Von Neumann, Turing, Khinchin, Markov and Wiener, all mathematicians, made major contributions to science and probability theory, including the ideas behind computers, and some of the foundations of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Many mathematically inclined scientists, including Galileo, were also musicians.

There are many compelling stories in medicine and biology, such as the development of ideas about the circulation of blood from Galen to Harvey. Some scholars and historians attributes Christianity to having contributed to the rise of the Scientific Revolution.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

Age of Enlightenment[edit]

During the age of Enlightenment, Luigi Galvani, the pioneer of the bioelectromagnetics, discovered the animal electricity. He discovered that a charge applied to the spinal cord of a frog could generate muscular spasms throughout its body. Charges could make frog legs jump even if the legs were no longer attached to a frog. While cutting a frog leg, Galvani’s steel scalpel touched a brass hook that was holding the leg in place. The leg twitched. Further experiments confirmed this effect, and Galvani was convinced that he was seeing the effects of what he called animal electricity, the life force within the muscles of the frog. At the University of Pavia, Galvani’s colleague Alessandro Volta was able to reproduce the results, but was sceptical of Galvani’s explanation.^[22]

Lazzaro Spallanzani is one of the most influential figures in experimental physiology and the natural sciences. His investigations have exerted a lasting influence on the medical sciences. He made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction.^[23]

Francesco Redi discovered that microorganisms can cause disease.

19th century[edit]

Until the late 19th or early 20th century, scientists were still referred to as «natural philosophers» or «men of science».^{[24][25][26][27]}

English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the term scientist in 1833, and it first appeared in print in Whewell’s anonymous 1834 review of Mary Somerville’s On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences published in the Quarterly Review.^[28] Whewell wrote of «an increasing proclivity of separation and dismemberment» in the sciences; while highly specific terms proliferated—chemist, mathematician, naturalist—the broad term «philosopher» was no longer satisfactory to group together those who pursued science, without the caveats of «natural» or «experimental» philosopher. Whewell compared these increasing divisions with Somerville’s aim of «[rendering] a most important service to science» «by showing how detached branches have, in the history of science, united by the discovery of general principles.»^[29] Whewell reported in his review that members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science had been complaining at recent meetings about the lack of a good term for «students of the knowledge of the material world collectively.» Alluding to himself, he noted that «some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form [the word] scientist, and added that there could be no scruple in making free with this term since we already have such words as economist, and atheist—but this was not generally palatable».^[30]

Whewell proposed the word again more seriously (and not anonymously) in his 1840^[31] The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences:

The terminations ize (rather than ise), ism, and ist, are applied to words of all origins: thus we have to pulverize, to colonize, Witticism, Heathenism, Journalist, Tobacconist. Hence we may make such words when they are wanted. As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have called him a Physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.

He also proposed the term physicist at the same time, as a counterpart to the French word physicien. Neither term gained wide acceptance until decades later; scientist became a common term in the late 19th century in the United States and around the turn of the 20th century in Great Britain.^[28][32][33] By the twentieth century, the modern notion of science as a special brand of information about the world, practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, was essentially in place.

20th century[edit]

Marie Curie became the first female to win the Nobel Prize and the first person to win it twice. Her efforts led to the development of nuclear energy and Radiotherapy for the treatment of cancer. In 1922, she was appointed a member of the International Commission on Intellectual Co-operation by the Council of the League of Nations. She campaigned for scientist’s right to patent their discoveries and inventions. She also campaigned for free access to international scientific literature and for internationally recognized scientific symbols.

Profession[edit]

As a profession, the scientist of today is widely recognized^{[citation needed]}. However, there is no formal process to determine who is a scientist and who is not a scientist. Anyone can be a scientist in some sense. Some professions have legal requirements for their practice (e.g. licensure) and some scientists are independent scientists meaning that they practice science on their own, but to practice science there are no known licensure requirements.^[34]

Education[edit]

In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting (e.g., universities and research institutes), mostly at the level of graduate schools. Upon completion, they would normally attain an academic degree, with the highest degree being a doctorate such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).^[35] Although graduate education for scientists varies among institutions and countries, some common training requirements include specializing in an area of interest,^[36] publishing research findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals^[37] and presenting them at scientific conferences,^[38] giving lectures or teaching,^[38] and defending a thesis (or dissertation) during an oral examination.^[35] To aid them in this endeavor, graduate students often work under the guidance of a mentor, usually a senior scientist, which may continue after the completion of their doctorates whereby they work as postdoctoral researchers.^[39]

Career[edit]

After the completion of their training, many scientists pursue careers in a variety of work settings and conditions.^[40] In 2017, the British scientific journal Nature published the results of a large-scale survey of more than 5,700 doctoral students worldwide, asking them which sectors of the economy they would like to work in. A little over half of the respondents wanted to pursue a career in academia, with smaller proportions hoping to work in industry, government, and nonprofit environments.^[41][42]

Other motivations are recognition by their peers and prestige. The Nobel Prize, a widely regarded prestigious award,^[43] is awarded annually to those who have achieved scientific advances in the fields of medicine, physics, and chemistry.

Some scientists have a desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of people’s health, the nations, the world, nature, or industries (academic scientist and industrial scientist). Scientists tend to be less motivated by direct financial reward for their work than other careers. As a result, scientific researchers often accept lower average salaries when compared with many other professions which require a similar amount of training and qualification.^{[citation needed]}

Research interests[edit]

Scientists include experimentalists who mainly perform experiments to test hypotheses, and theoreticians who mainly develop models to explain existing data and predict new results. There is a continuum between two activities and the division between them is not clear-cut, with many scientists performing both tasks.

Those considering science as a career often look to the frontiers. These include cosmology and biology, especially molecular biology and the human genome project. Other areas of active research include the exploration of matter at the scale of elementary particles as described by high-energy physics, and materials science, which seeks to discover and design new materials. Others choose to study brain function and neurotransmitters, which is considered by many to be the «final frontier».^[44][45][46] There are many important discoveries to make regarding the nature of the mind and human thought as much still remains unknown.

By specialization[edit]

Natural science[edit]

Physical science[edit]

Chemist Agrochemist Analytical chemist Astrochemist Atmospheric chemist Biophysical chemist Clinical chemist Computational chemist Electrochemist Femtochemist Geochemist Green chemist Chemical laboratory technician Inorganic chemist Medicinal chemist Nuclear chemist Organic chemist Organometallic chemist Pharmacologist Physical chemist Quantum chemist Solid-state chemist Stereochemist Structural chemist Supramolecular chemist Theoretical chemist Thermochemist

Earth scientist Astrogeologist Biogeochemist Climatologist Dendroarchaeologist Dendrologist Edaphologist Gemologist Geoarchaeologist Geobiologist Geographer Geologist Geomicrobiologist Geomorphologist Geophysicist Glaciologist Hydrogeologist Hydrologist Hydrometeorologist Limnologist Meteorologist Mineralogist Oceanographer Paleoclimatologist Paleoecologist Paleogeologist Paleoseismologist Palynologist Petrologist Sedimentologist Seismologist Speleologist Volcanologist

Physicist Agrophysicist Astrophysicist Atmospheric physicist Atomic physicist Biological physicist Chemical physicist Computational physicist Cosmologist Condensed-matter physicist Engineering physicist Material physicist Molecular physicist Nuclear physicist Particle physicist Plasma physicist Polymer physicist Psychophysicist Quantum physicist Theoretical physicist

Astronomer Planetary science Space science Cosmology

Life science[edit]

Biologist Acarologist Aerobiologist Anatomist Arachnologist Bacteriologist Bioclimatologist Biogeographer Bioinformatician Biotechnologist Bioarcheologist Biochemist Biolinguist Biophysicist Biostatistician Botanist Cell biologist Chronobiologist Cognitive biologist Computational biologist

Conservation biologist Dendrochronologist Developmental biologist Ecologist Electrophysiologist Embryologist Endocrinologist Entomologist Epidemiologist Ethologist Evolutionary biologist Geneticist Hematologist Herbchronologist Herpetologist Histologist Human behavioral ecologist Human biologist

Ichnologist Ichthyologist Immunologist Integrative biologist Lepidopterist Mammalogist Marine biologist Medical biologist Microbiologist Molecular biologist Mycologist Neuroendocrinologist Neuroscientist Ornithologist Osteologist Paleoanthropologist Paleobotanist Paleobiologist Paleontologist Paleopathologist

Parasitologist Pathologist Physiologist Phytopathologist Population biologist Primatologist Quantum biologist Radiobiologist Sclerochronologist Sociobiologist Structural biologist Theoretical biologist Toxicologist Virologist Wildlife biologist Zoologist

[edit]

Anthropologist Archaeologist Biological anthropologist Cultural anthropologist Communication scientist Criminologist Demographer Economist Linguist Management scientist Political economist Political scientist

Psychologist Abnormal psychologist Behavioral psychologist Biopsychologist Clinical psychologist Cognitive psychologist Comparative psychologist Developmental psychologist Educational psychologist Evolutionary psychologist Experimental psychologist Forensic psychologist Health psychologist Industrial and organizational psychologist Medical psychologist Neuropsychologist Psychopharmacologist Psychophysicist Social psychologist Sport psychologist Sociologist

Formal science[edit]

Applied[edit]

Interdisciplinary[edit]

By employer[edit]

• Academic
• Independent scientist
• Industrial/applied scientist
• Citizen scientist
• Government scientist

Demography[edit]

By country[edit]

The number of scientists is vastly different from country to country. For instance, there are only four full-time scientists per 10,000 workers in India, while this number is 79 for the United Kingdom, and 85 for the United States.^[47]

Scientists per 10,000 workers for selected countries^[47]

Nigeria: 1 Indonesia: 1 Malaysia: 2 Thailand: 2 Bangladesh: 2 Pakistan: 3

India: 4 Kenya: 6 Chile: 7 Brazil: 14 Egypt: 14

United Arab Emirates: 15 Saudi Arabia: 15 China: 18 South Africa: 20 New Zealand: 35

Spain: 54 Russia: 58 France: 68 Australia: 69 Germany: 70 Italy: 70

Canada: 73 United Kingdom: 79 Japan: 83 United States: 85 Israel: 140

United States[edit]

According to the National Science Foundation, 4.7 million people with science degrees worked in the United States in 2015, across all disciplines and employment sectors. The figure included twice as many men as women. Of that total, 17% worked in academia, that is, at universities and undergraduate institutions, and men held 53% of those positions. 5% of scientists worked for the federal government, and about 3.5% were self-employed. Of the latter two groups, two-thirds were men. 59% of scientists in the United States were employed in industry or business, and another 6% worked in non-profit positions.^[48]

By gender[edit]

Scientist and engineering statistics are usually intertwined, but they indicate that women enter the field far less than men, though this gap is narrowing. The number of science and engineering doctorates awarded to women rose from a mere 7 percent in 1970 to 34 percent in 1985 and in engineering alone the numbers of bachelor’s degrees awarded to women rose from only 385 in 1975 to more than 11000 in 1985.^{[49][clarification needed]}

See also[edit]

• Engineers
• Inventor
• Researcher
• Fields Medal
• Hippocratic Oath for Scientists
• History of science
• Intellectual
• Independent scientist
• Licensure
• Mad scientist
• Natural science
• Nobel Prize
• Protoscience
• Normative science
• Pseudoscience
• Scholar
• Science
• Social science

Related lists

• List of engineers
• List of mathematicians
• List of Nobel laureates in Physics
• List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry
• List of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
• List of Russian scientists
• List of Roman Catholic cleric-scientists

References[edit]

External articles[edit]

Further reading

• Alison Gopnik, «Finding Our Inner Scientist», Daedalus, Winter 2004.
• Charles George Herbermann, The Catholic Encyclopedia. Science and the Church. The Encyclopedia press, 1913. v.13. Page 598.
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962.
• Arthur Jack Meadows. The Victorian Scientist: The Growth of a Profession, 2004. ISBN 0-7123-0894-6.
• Science, The Relation of Pure Science to Industrial Research. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Page 511 onwards.

Websites

• For best results, add a little inspiration – The Telegraph about What Inspired You?, a survey of key thinkers in science, technology and medicine
• Peer Review Journal Science on amateur scientists
• The philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history (1847) – Complete Text

Audio-Visual

• «The Scientist», BBC Radio 4 discussion with John Gribbin, Patricia Fara and Hugh Pennington (In Our Time, Oct. 24, 2002)

IRA FLATOW, host:

This week, something new. We call it Science Diction. It’s a little science history, the story of how a scientific word came to be. And what better place to start off our series of Science Diction with the word scientist. How did the word scientist come to be?

Joining us now to talk more about that is my guest Howard Markel. He’s professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He’s also director of the Center for the History of Medicine there. And he joins us from WUOM out there in Ann Arbor. Welcome back to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

Dr. HOWARD MARKEL (University of Michigan): Well, thanks for having me, Ira.

FLATOW: The history of the word scientist. Scientist is not that old a word, is it?

Dr. MARKEL: No. I was really amazed. It’s only about 176 years old, to be precise. It came around in 1834. And a Cambridge University historian and philosopher of science named William (technical difficulties) coined it.

FLATOW: William, again? We missed that name.

Dr. MARKEL: William Whewell. It’s spelled W-H-E-W-E-L-L. And he (technical difficulties) science, and it was an early point in science, at least experimental science, when a lot of the game rules were actually being developed. So he was really quite an umpire and was consulting with people like Darwin and Faraday and a lot of other prominent scientists that we idolize today.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And so how did they get around to using that word?

Dr. MARKEL: Well, no one really knew what to call a scientist. There was all these different names like cultivators of science and…

FLATOW: Wasn’t there a natural philosopher used?

Dr. MARKEL: Natural philosopher, yes. And so he thought — you know, there’s a lot of consilience. In other words, he came up with a lot of jumping together of all fields of science. And we ought to come up with a word that refers to all of them. And so he was actually writing in 1834. He came up with (technical difficulties) terms. The first he considered was savant, or men of learning. But he dismissed that for both being presumptuous and French. He was British, as you recall. He also considered the German term naturforscher, which is really naturalist. But he worried that some might make fun of that term, calling it nature-poker or nature-peeper. And as you just mentioned, natural philosopher was dismissed because it was simply too wide and too lofty a term.

But eventually he came up with, by analogy with artist, that they might (technical difficulties) word scientist. But he had a few qualms about that because it was close to a few other words that were not held in high regard. The first was economist. That may still be true to this day. And the other was atheist, which was a real problematic term back in those days. But he came back to it, nevertheless and he said, you know, I think this is a word, a cultivator of science in general ought to be called a scientist.

And a review of his work in Blackwell’s magazine later on that year, in 1840, described it even better. They said Leonardo da Vinci was mentally a seeker after truth. He was a scientist. Well, Correggio, who as you may recall like to play with lightness and (technical difficulties) so the size of body parts, was an asserter of truth. He was an artist.

FLATOW: Hmm. How did he get to be friends with all those famous people, Faraday, Darwin?

Dr. MARKEL: Well, he was the master of Trinity College at Cambridge, so he had a very good position. He was also a fairly good scientist in his own right. He was a mineralogist. He wrote about geology. He wrote about oceanic tides, mathematics. So he was around.

And he was actually writing a book that became very well known, «The Philosophy of the Inductive Science,» at this time, where he was trying to set up — how do you come up with a hypothesis? How do you prove it? Should it be universal? And you know, this all seems, you know, so basic to us today. But (technical difficulties) back in 1830s, 1840s, when real science, as we understand it, was just being laid out.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number, if you’d like to talk with Howard Markel about the origin of the word scientist.

Howard, how do you come up with this stuff?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. MARKEL: Well, I’m afraid to tell you because it’s so easy. You may not ask me to come back. We want to look up a word, any word in English language. The best place to start is the Oxford English Dictionary because it not only gives you definitions of the word, but it tells you every point in English history where it first appeared.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. MARKEL: (Technical difficulties) look it up. But that’s the fun of it because you never know what you’re going to find, and it’s always something good, and you find all these connections. And so finding out about that scientist was a relatively new word led to Whewell’s works and then it led to me finding about who his friends were and so on. I even learned that he died, unfortunately, falling off a horse at the age of 71. But it’s really just — you know, you start with that Oxford English Dictionary and you’re off to the races. And so, you know, it’s so much fun looking up things. So I hope the listeners want to do that as well.

FLATOW: You know, it seems like there was sort of an evolution. The first words that you mentioned were — ended in ER, nature-poker, nature-peeper, natural philosopher. And now it seems like you take the words and you put an ist, scientist, naturalist, you know, biologist.

Dr. MARKEL: Yeah — biologist, geologist.

FLATOW: Yeah. They just decide, well, we’re going to go with that kind of ending. We’ll take the same things — the discipline that these people do, put an ist on it instead.

Dr. MARKEL: Well, what’s really neat is that it all comes from the word artist. And you know, often there’s great art in great science, just as there often is great science in great art. I think it’s a really neat coming together (technical difficulties)…

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Is there another source that’s just as good, besides the OED, maybe other sources? I mean, there’s the Internet. The Internet must serve now as a great source to find the history of all these words.

Dr. MARKEL: Well, the Internet is wonderful because once you find (technical difficulties) then you can do this on Internet, you know, services as well, then you can find the books without even, God forbid, going to the library at all. You could actually find the books on the Internet. And that’s really quite easy too. So you can do it really from your home.

FLATOW: Yeah. And of course you always have to — as everything on the Internet, you have to watch out for the source, right?

Dr. MARKEL: Absolutely. You don’t want to go to Bob’s really cool word site as opposed to the Oxford English Dictionary. So you want to weigh your sources just as you would between bound covers. You can’t necessarily judge a book by its cover, and you can’t judge an Internet source by its Web page.

FLATOW: What other juicy words are you investigating?

Dr. MARKEL: We’re working on a few. X-ray is really a fun term. You know, we talk about it, but where did that come from? But what would really be great is if the listeners try to come up with their own words of what they want to find out, and I’ll be happy to look them up for you.

But there’s so many terms in science that we can find out together, also in medicine as well. You know, the sky is really the limit. But we can find out -also fields about — for example, orthopedics, the bone doctors, you know, doctors of broken bones. That comes from bent bone, which (technical difficulties) born with birth defects.

FLATOW: We’re talking — let me…

Dr. MARKEL: But one thing leads to another.

FLATOW: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

FLATOW: We’re talking with Howard Markel this hour in SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. There’s nothing wrong with your radio. If you hear little dropouts, that’s because we’re in the digital age and digital lines are sometimes a little finicky as they try to get all those packets to go through the same place at the same time and put themselves back together. So if you hear a little dropout, please hang in there with us.

And I guess new scientific terms, Howard, are always — are now being born all the time as we have new disciplines coming up.

Dr. MARKEL: Yeah. You know, the technical term for that is neologism, where you combine two different (technical difficulties) to come up with a new meaning. It also, as I recall from my medical school days, is a sign or symptom of schizophrenia, so you have to be careful about the new words that you invent. But, you know, we’re doing this all the time when we come up with, you know, blog, Weblog or…

FLATOW: Right.

Dr. MARKEL: …website or all these kinds of things and…

FLATOW: Tweet, tweeting, twittering.

Dr. MARKEL: Yeah. Yeah.

FLATOW: But even new disciplines that were not around years ago, like nanotechnology.

Dr. MARKEL: Sure, yeah. I mean, that’s what’s so great. I mean, linguists always talk about how language changes with each time period, but I (technical difficulties) anywhere more true anywhere than in the world of science and medicine, yes.

FLATOW: Are there words that are just no longer used anymore, science words that were in the common vernacular that you never hear anymore?

Dr. MARKEL: Well, you brought up naturalist, for example…

FLATOW: Right.

Dr. MARKEL: …which was a very popular word. I remember the first time I saw that was reading Dr. Doolittle books. I don’t think…

(Soundbite of laughter)

FLATOW: (Unintelligible)

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. MARKEL: You may recall.

FLATOW: That’s right.

Dr. MARKEL: (Technical difficulties) a naturalist. And there’s all sorts of medical terms as well or spellings of terms, like surgeon, chirurgal(ph) (technical difficulties) with a C-H-I was the older term for surgical. Physic…

FLATOW: Oh, that’s right. That’s right.

Dr. MARKEL: But it (technical difficulties) internist (technical difficulties) specialist. You deal with the internal part of the body.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And even the spelling of things, right? Just the spelling…

Dr. MARKEL: Yeah. They change too.

FLATOW: And so what’s the biggest challenge then for someone who wants to follow words, for a historian? Is there — is it finding resources to find out who was first first? Because I know in science, one of the hardest things in science is when you discover who you think was the first, there’s always someone who is firster before that one.

Dr. MARKEL: And I’ve learned (technical difficulties) historian never to say anyone was first, because I automatically get a call or an email or a letter saying no (technical difficulties) but you can get an approximation. What the Oxford English Dictionary does in terms of firsts is that they use the first time it appeared in print.

FLATOW: Yeah. Well, given the state of our phone line, I don’t want people to keep filling in the blanks, Howard. I want to thank you…

Dr. MARKEL: Oh, I’m sorry.

FLATOW: It’s okay. Thank you very much. We’re going to — we’ll continue with our series of Science Diction — in fact, if you have an idea, a word you’d like to hear in Science Diction, leave a comment on our Science Diction page at sciencefriday.com. We’ll give them — we’ll shoot them over to Howard, and Howard can help us find some words for you. So thanks for being with us today, Howard.

Dr. MARKEL: Oh, thanks so much, Ira.

FLATOW: You’re welcome. Howard Markel is professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He’s also a director of the Center for the History of Medicine there. And he joins us from WUOM in Ann Arbor.

That’s about all the time we have for today. Surf over to our website if you want to leave us a Science Diction word while you’re there. You can also look at our Video Pick of the Week. Flora’s Video Pick of the Week, the red-eyed tree frog, great little frog that’s shaking up the branches out there.

Also, take our survey. We have a new survey. We want to know about who you are, whom you are, whichever is grammatically correct. And so just click on the button. There’s just a few questions. We’ll ask you about what you like, what your preferences are, how you like SCIENCE FRIDAY, where you hear it. Click on that, and we’ll take that little survey.

And you can also take SCIENCE FRIDAY with you in your iPhone app. Click on there and go to iTunes. And you can also leave us an email there or you can send it the old-fashioned way. But go to our website, everything is there in one spot.

Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week. I’m Ira Flatow in New York.

Copyright © 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Robyn Williams, on The Science Show, was recently in Britain talking to scientists in Guilford, in Surrey, at The British Festival of Science. He said this festival has been going for about 180 years.

I was interested to hear him say it was here that the word scientist was first coined, in 1833.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that William Whewell (1794-1866), who originated the word scientist, was an influential thinker, respected by the major scientists of his day, so much so that he was frequently asked to invent new words.

Whewell invented the terms “anode,” “cathode,” and “ion” for Faraday. Upon the request of the poet Coleridge in 1833 Whewell invented the English word “scientist;” before this time the only terms in use were “natural philosopher” and “man of science.”

Wondering why it took a poet to request a new term, I looked at a short piece by John H. Lienhard of the University of Houston. It’s a brief discussion of the influence the Romantic Poets had on the science of the 19th Century. In part, he says:

When those 19th-century thinkers attacked Rationalism, their impact on the world of making and doing was profound. Science went into retreat while a technology like none ever known rose up in England. Machines, of course, are the first fruit of the human mind. Before a machine can be built in the world, it must be built in the mind. It is a synthetic reality. Technology acts out the Romantic vision.

I must say, to me it’s poetry in motion to see a passenger jet streak across the sky, or to listen to the rumble of traffic across the old stone bridge over the Darebin Creek.

• Afrikaans: wetenskaplike (af)
• Albanian: dijetar (sq) m, dijetare (sq) f, shkencëtar (sq) m, shkencëtare (sq) f
• Amharic: ሳይንሰኛ m or f (saynəsäña)
• Arabic: عَالِم‎ (ar) m (ʕālim), عَالِمَة‎ f (ʕālima)
• Armenian: գիտնական (hy) (gitnakan)
• Asturian: científicu m
• Azerbaijani: alim (az)
• Bashkir: ғалим (ğalim)
• Basque: zientzialari
• Belarusian: вучо́ны m (vučóny), вучо́ная f (vučónaja)
• Bengali: বিজ্ঞানী (bn) (biggêni)
• Bulgarian: у́чен (bg) m (účen), у́чена (bg) f (účena)
• Burmese: ပညာရှင် (my) (pa.nyahrang)
• Catalan: científic (ca) m, científica (ca) f
• Chechen: ӏилманча (ˀilmanča)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 科學家／科学家 (zh) (kēxuéjiā)

• Czech: vědec (cs) m, vědkyně (cs) f
• Danish: videnskabsmand c, videnskabskvinde c
• Dutch: wetenschapper (nl) m, wetenschapster (nl) f
• Esperanto: sciencisto, scientisto
• Estonian: teadlane (et)
• Faroese: vísindamaður m, vísindakvinna f
• Finnish: tieteilijä (fi), tiedemies (fi), tiedenainen (fi)
• French: scientifique (fr) m or f, savant (fr) m, savante (fr) f
• Galician: científico (gl) m
• Georgian: მეცნიერი (mecnieri)
• German: Wissenschaftler (de) m, Wissenschaftlerin (de) f, Wissenschafter (de) m, Wissenschafterin (de) f
• Greek: επιστήμονας (el) m (epistímonas)
• Hebrew: מַדְעָן‎ (he) m (mad’án)
• Hindi: वैज्ञानिक (hi) m (vaigyānik), आलिम (hi) m (ālim), विज्ञानी (hi) m (vigyānī)
• Hungarian: tudós (hu)
• Icelandic: vísindamaður (is) m, vísindakona f
• Ido: ciencisto (io)
• Indonesian: ilmuwan (id)
• Irish: eolaí m
• Italian: scienziato (it) m, scienziata (it) f, ricercatore (it) m, ricercatrice (it) f
• Japanese: 科学者 (ja) (かがくしゃ, kagakusha)
• Karakalpak: ilimpaz
• Kazakh: ғалым (kk) (ğalym)
• Khmer: អ្នកវិទ្យាសាស្ត្រ (nĕək vityiəsaah)
• Korean: 과학자(科學者) (ko) (gwahakja)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: zanistmend (ku) m, zanistvan (ku), zanistyar (ku)

• Kyrgyz: окумуштуу (ky) (okumuştuu), илимпоз (ky) (ilimpoz), аалым (ky) (aalım)
• Lao: ນັກວິທະຍາສາດ (lo) (nak wi tha nyā sāt)
• Latgalian: zininīks m, zinineica f
• Latvian: zinātnieks m, zinātniece f
• Lithuanian: mokslininkas m, mokslininkė f
• Macedonian: научник m (naučnik), научничка f (naučnička)
• Malay: saintis (ms), ahli sains (ms)
• Maltese: xjentist m
• Maori: kaipūtaiao, mātanga pūtaiao
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: эрдэмтэн (mn) (erdemten)

  Mongolian: ᠡᠷᠳᠡᠮᠲᠡᠨ (erdemten)

• Navajo: naʼałkaahí
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: forsker (no) m, vitenskapsmann m, vitenskapskvinne m or f

  Nynorsk: forskar (nn) m, vitskapsmann m, vitskapskvinne f

• Oriya: ବିଜ୍ଞାନୀ (or) (bijñani)
• Pashto: عالم‎ (ps) m (‘ālam)
• Persian: دانشمند‎ (fa) (dânešmand), عالم‎ (fa) (‘âlem)
• Plautdietsch: Wissenschoftla m
• Polish: naukowiec (pl) m, naukowczyni (pl) f, uczony (pl) m, uczona (pl) f
• Portuguese: cientista (pt) m or f
• Punjabi: ਵਿਗਿਆਨੀ m (vigiānī)
• Romanian: om de știință (ro) m, femeie de știință (ro) f, savant (ro) m, savantă (ro) f, învățat (ro) m
• Russian: учёный (ru) m (učónyj), учёная (ru) f (učónaja)
• Samogitian: muokslėninks m, muokslėninkė f
• Sanskrit: वैज्ञानिक (sa) m (vaijñānika), वैज्ञानिकी f (vaijñānikī)
• Scottish Gaelic: eòlaiche m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: на̀учнӣк m, на̀учница f (Bosnian, Serbian), зна̀нственӣк m, зна̀нственица f (Croatian)

  Roman: nàučnīk (sh) m, nàučnica (sh) f (Bosnian, Serbian), znànstvenīk (sh) m, znànstvenica (sh) f (Croatian)

• Sicilian: scinziatu m, scinziata f
• Slovak: vedec m, vedkyňa f
• Slovene: znanstvenik (sl) m, znanstvenica f
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: wědomnostnik m, wědomnostnica f

• Spanish: científico (es) m, científica (es) f
• Swahili: mwanasayansi (sw)
• Swedish: vetenskapsman (sv) c, forskare (sv) c, vetenskapskvinna c
• Tagalog: dalub-agham (rare), siyentipiko
• Tajik: олим (olim), донишманд (donišmand)
• Tatar: галим (tt) (ğalim)
• Telugu: శాస్త్రవేత్త (śāstravētta)
• Thai: นักวิทยาศาสตร์ (nák-wít-tá-yaa-sàat)
• Tibetan: ཚན་རིག་མཁས་པ (tshan rig mkhas pa)
• Turkish: âlim (tr) m (chiefly religion), âlime (tr) f (chiefly religion), bilim adamı (tr), bilim insanı (tr), bilim kadını (tr) f, ilim adamı (tr) m (obsolecent), ilim kadını (tr) f (obsolecent)
• Turkmen: alym (tk)
• Tuvan: эртемден (ertemden)
• Ukrainian: вче́ний m (včényj) / уче́ний m (učényj), вче́на f (včéna) / уче́на f (učéna); науко́вець m (naukóvecʹ), науко́виця f (naukóvycja)
• Urdu: عالِم‎ (ur) m (‘ālim), سائِنْس داں‎ m (sāins dā̃)
• Uyghur: ئالىم‎ (alim)
• Uzbek: olim (uz)
• Vietnamese: nhà khoa học (vi)
• Volapük: nolavan (vo)
• Welsh: gwyddonydd (cy) m
• Yiddish: וויסנשאַפֿטלער‎ m (visnshaftler), וויסנשאַפֿטלערין‎ f (visnshaftlerin)
• Zhuang: gohyozgyah
• Zulu: please add this translation if you can

24 Oct /13

Derived from the Latin scientia meaning expertise, the word scientist was first used in print in 1834 by William Whewell, a true Renaissance Man who would also coin the word physicist.

Whewell was versatile by any standard. A professor of both mineralogy and philosophy, he excelled as a mathematician and an equation defining the shape of a curve is named after him – the Whewell Equation.

He was also a man of faith, pursuing his calling as an Anglican Priest. And he kept a keen eye on languages and cultures. A particular interest in Germany led him to translate Goethe’s Faust into English and to write his own seminal book on German churches.

Not surprisingly this breadth of accomplishments earned Whewell a large network of admirers. His student Charles Darwin quotes him on the title page of On the Origin of Species and during his tenure at Cambridge he became Master of Trinity College, whose alumni have won 32 Nobel Prizes.

As well as giving a name to the world’s scientists, Whewell gave names to many of the terms they would come to use in their daily working lives. To his contemporary Michael Faraday he suggested cathode and ion. Other words that owe their place in the English language to this remarkable man include developer, electromagnetics, biometry and catastrophic.

Considering his dedication to human advancement, it is appropriate that William Whewell’s name is remembered not only on earth but also in an exclusive spot almost 240,000 miles away. Whewell died in 1866, a full century before the Apollo missions launched mankind to what may be considered our greatest scientific achievement. But on the surface of the moon, eight miles in diameter and a mile and a half deep, is the Whewell Crater.

Did you like the article? Then please like and share it on Facebook, tweet it on Twitter or add it in Google+.

---

For most of history, scientists have been called natural philosophers. You might expect that scientist gradually and imperceptibly replaced natural philosopher over time. Surprisingly, it’s possible pinpoint exactly when and where the term scientist was born.

It was June 24, 1835 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was in attendance. (He had previously written about the scientific method.) Coleridge declared that although he was a true philosopher, the term philosopher should not be applied to the association’s members. William Whewell responded by coining the word scientist on the spot. He suggested

by analogy with artist, we may form scientist.

Since those who practice art are called artists, those who practice science should be called scientists.

This story is comes from the prologue of Laura Snyder’s new book The Philosophical Breakfast Club (ISBN 0767930487). The subtitle is “Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World.” William Whewell was one of these four friends. The others were John Herschel, Richard Jones, and Charles Babbage.

Update 1: Will Fitzgerald created the following Google Books ngram that suggests that scientist was used occasionally before 1835 and would take another 30 years to start being widely used in books. Click on the image to visit the original ngram.

So it is with many innovations: the person credited with the innovation may not have been entirely original or immediately successful. Still, perhaps Whewell’s public confrontation with Coleridge gave scientist a push on the road to acceptance.

Update 2: Pat Ballew fills in more of the story on his blog including editorial opposition to the term scientist. Pat brings more famous people into the story, including H. L. Mencken, Michael Faraday, and William Cullen Bryant.

Update 3: Here’s an excerpt from The Philosophical Breakfast Club.

More 19th century science:

• Why Mr. Scott is Scottish
• Victorian method for predicting height
• Grand unified theory of 19th century math

• Defenition of the word scientist

  • Expert in at least one area of science who uses the scientific method to do research.
  • a person with advanced knowledge of one of more sciences
  • a person with advanced knowledge of one or more sciences

Synonyms for the word scientist

• • man of science

Hyponyms for the word scientist

• • Bacon
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • bibliotist
  • biologist
  • chemist
  • cognitive scientist
  • computer scientist
  • cosmographer
  • cosmographist
  • fossilist
  • Francis Galton
  • Franklin
  • Galton
  • geologist
  • Harvey
  • Hooke
  • investigator
  • life scientist
  • linguist
  • linguistic scientist
  • mathematician
  • medical scientist
  • microscopist
  • mineralogist
  • oceanographer
  • palaeontologist
  • paleontologist
  • physicist
  • PI
  • principal investigator
  • psychologist
  • radiologic technologist
  • research worker
  • researcher
  • Robert Hooke
  • Roger Bacon
  • seismologist
  • Sir Francis Galton
  • social scientist
  • William Harvey

Hypernyms for the word scientist

• • human
  • individual
  • intellect
  • intellectual
  • mortal
  • person
  • somebody
  • someone
  • soul

See other words

• • What is rook
  • The definition of torrent
  • The interpretation of the word top hat
  • What is meant by rodent
  • The lexical meaning rod
  • The dictionary meaning of the word schlock
  • The grammatical meaning of the word tonsure
  • Meaning of the word tone number
  • Literal and figurative meaning of the word robe
  • The origin of the word rouge
  • Synonym for the word scientologist
  • Antonyms for the word room
  • Homonyms for the word townie
  • Hyponyms for the word rover
  • Holonyms for the word tracheophyte
  • Hypernyms for the word traffic light
  • Proverbs and sayings for the word scold
  • Translation of the word in other languages trainer

• Dictionary
• S
• Scientist

Definitions of scientist word

• noun scientist an expert in science, especially one of the physical or natural sciences. 1
• countable noun scientist A scientist is someone who has studied science and whose job is to teach or do research in science. 0
• noun scientist a person who studies or practises any of the sciences or who uses scientific methods 0
• noun scientist Christ as supreme spiritual healer 0
• noun scientist short for Christian Scientist 0
• noun scientist a specialist in science; esp., a person whose profession is investigating in one of the natural sciences, as biology, chemistry, physics, etc. 0

Information block about the term

Origin of scientist

First appearance:

before 1825

One of the 37% newest English words

1825-35; < Latin scient(ia) science + -ist

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Scientist

scientist popularity

A common word. It’s meaning is known to most children of preschool age. About 85% of English native speakers know the meaning and use the word.

Most Europeans know this English word. The frequency of it’s usage is somewhere between «mom» and «screwdriver».

Synonyms for scientist

noun scientist

• analyzer — An analyzer is a piece of equipment used to analyze the substances that are present in something such as a gas.
• artiste — An artiste is a professional entertainer, for example a singer or a dancer.
• clinician — A clinician is a doctor who specializes in clinical work.
• doc — Directed Oc
• doctor — a person licensed to practice medicine, as a physician, surgeon, dentist, or veterinarian.

Antonyms for scientist

noun scientist

• artiste — An artiste is a professional entertainer, for example a singer or a dancer.
• artist — An artist is someone who draws or paints pictures or creates sculptures as a job or a hobby.
• handicrafter — One who engages in handicrafts.

Top questions with scientist

• how to become a data scientist?
• what is a scientist?
• what is a data scientist?
• how to think like a computer scientist?
• what is the definition of scientist?
• how to become a forensic scientist?
• how much does a forensic scientist make?
• what is a social scientist?
• what is a forensic scientist?
• which scientist proposed a link between contaminated water and cholera?
• how to become a scientist?
• the work of which scientist was largely ignored?
• what three tasks or responsibilities does a forensic scientist have?
• which scientist is associated with the discovery of the electron?
• what is the scientist about?

See also

• All definitions of scientist
• Synonyms for scientist
• Antonyms for scientist
• Related words to scientist
• Sentences with the word scientist
• scientist pronunciation
• The plural of scientist

Matching words

• Words starting with s
• Words starting with sc
• Words starting with sci
• Words starting with scie
• Words starting with scien
• Words starting with scient
• Words starting with scienti
• Words starting with scientis
• Words starting with scientist

• Words ending with t
• Words ending with st
• Words ending with ist
• Words ending with tist

• Words containing the letters s
• Words containing the letters s,c
• Words containing the letters s,c,i
• Words containing the letters s,c,i,e
• Words containing the letters s,c,i,e,n
• Words containing the letters s,c,i,e,n,t

• Words containing s
• Words containing sc
• Words containing sci
• Words containing scie
• Words containing scien
• Words containing scient