When was the word scientist first used

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

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How The Word ‘Scientist’ Came To Be In 1834, Cambridge University historian and philosopher of science William Whewell

William Whewell

He also organized thousands of volunteers internationally to study ocean tides, in what is now considered one of the first citizen science projects. He received the Royal Medal for this work in 1837. One of Whewell’s greatest gifts to science was his wordsmithing.

coined the term «scientist» to replace such terms as «cultivators of science.» Historian Howard Markel discusses how «scientist» came to be, and lists some possibilities that didn’t make the cut.

What were scientists originally called?

“Although, we do know that it was philosopher William Whewell who first coined the term ‘scientist. ‘ Prior to that, scientists were called ‘natural philosophers’.” Whewell coined the term in 1833, said my friend Debbie Lee. She’s a researcher and professor of English at WSU who wrote a book on the history of science.

When was the word science first used?

It originally came from the Latin word scientia which meant knowledge, a knowing, expertness, or experience. By the late 14th century, science meant, in English, collective knowledge.

What did they called scientists before the 1830s?

Until the late 19th or early 20th century, scientists were still referred to as «natural philosophers» or «men of science».

Why was the word scientist coined?

In a pinch, the well-known wordsmith coined the term “scientist” for Somerville. Whewell did not intend for this to be a gender-neutral term for “man of science;” rather, he made it in order to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of Somerville’s expertise.

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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.

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As a scientist, I found Prof. Laura Snyder’s TED talk fascinating. I suspect her narrative on the history of science will have wide appeal, which is why Im sharing it here as a blog post rather than tweet. 

Prof. Laura Synder is a Fulbright Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University. In her talk, she illuminates to me and I suspect to you as well that the word «scientist» was shockingly first used in 1833, not that long ago! We owe its origins to a poet’s inquisitiveness. Ultimately, it was the scientist William Whewell who coined the term scientist in response to the poet’s plea that «natural philosophers» upgrade the name of their profession. How could it be that the word scientist was invented so recently?

She gives flesh to four Cambridge University students who in 1812 formed the «Philosophical Breakfast Club» to talk about the state of science in Britain and the world. In ushering in a new scientific revolution that even reached to Charles Darwin, the Philosophical Breakfast Club rapturously changed science. She also reminds us loud and clear that «science is not just for scientists». These six words spoken at the end of her talk resonate boldly with me. They are an anthem for science communication and outreach and for social media platforms like Twitter and Blogging that build bridges between scientists and those interested in science.

And for those that prefer reading over watching, here is Laura Snyder’s TED talk transposed to text. Ive highlighted in blue some key sections that stand out to me. 

«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.

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.

«You must
stop calling yourselves natural philosophers.»

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.

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.

«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.

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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.»

Thank you.

Scientist, by any other name…

History of science is, unfortunately, not among the mandatory classes required for earning a diploma that allows oneself to be called a scientist. Worrisomely, nor is Logic as a formal class. All the more the pity because in the Middle Ages, when the word science entered the English language, to have scientific knowledge meant you have arrived at it by following the Aristotelian way of logical reasoning (a.k.a deductions and inductions). To be fair, the word existed already in Romance languages with the same meaning: new knowledge obtained by applying the rules of Aristotelian syllogisms. By the way, Aristotle is also the guy to whom we owe the basis of the scientific method, but that’s a story for another day.

Although words like scientific or science were altogether frequently used with regards of the scholarly endeavors of the ladies and gentlemen of the early 19th Century (yes, there were ladies too that dabbled into the sciences, even if sometimes it was only to write about the spectacular discoveries and controversies of their time), the term scientist has been officially coined in 1834 by William Whewell. A man truly blessed in the art of words, being credited with coining a lot of other famous words like anode and physicist, he proposed the word in a review of a science popularization book written by one Mrs. Somerville. The circumstance of how this came to be is masterly imparted to us by Sydney Ross in a superb historical account of the word scientist, published in 1962.

For the rounded scientist or for the merely curious, I truly recommend the lecture of the referenced papers. They’re delightful!

Reference 1. [Whewell W] (1834). Art. III. [Review of] On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. By Mrs. Somerville. The Quarterly Review, 51: 58-61. FULLTEXT PDF at GoogleBooks

Reference 2. Ross S (1962). Scientist: The story of a word, Annals of Science, 18:2, 65-85, DOI: 10.1080/00033796200202722. FREE FULLTEXT PDF

P.S. I checked and Wikipedia is correct with the following statement:

“To be exact, the person coined the term scientist was referred to in Whewell 1834 only as “some ingenious gentleman.” Ross added a comment that this “some ingenious gentleman” was Whewell himself, without giving the reason for the identification. Ross 1962, p.72.”

Even if, by some very slim chance, the “ingenious gentleman” was not Whewell himself, Whewell did propose the term scientist in a more formal manner six years later in 1840 bringing more than just linguistic justifications, like the diversity of those engaged in scientific endeavors and how they don’t call themselves natural philosophers anymore.

By Neuronicus, 9 August 2016

I looked in the Oxford English Dictionary (subscription required) for English usages.

physics used in the medical sense, I do not report on.

---

physics used for «natural science» in general: The oldest instance they have is from 1487.

J. Skelton tr. Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica iii. 174 Among the Grekes, as it is many tymes seen, it is long or they can atteigne vnto thentellective of the phisikes [L. philosophiam, Gk. ϕιλοσοϕίας] by-cause they long perseuere not therin, but geve theym vnto lucrative science.

He uses «phisikes» to translate Latin «philosophiam» and Greek «ϕιλοσοϕίας».

---

physics used in the more modern sense: The oldest instance they have is from 1715.

tr. D. Gregory Elements Astron. I. Pref. ii The Celestial Physics, or Physical Astronomy [L. Astronomia Physica], is not only the first in dignity of all inquiries into Nature whatever.

He uses «Celestial Physics» to translate the Latin «Astronomia Physica».

---

science Various obsolete, archaic, and rare usages I do not report on.

---

science paired or contrasted with art: The oldest instance they have is from 1387.

J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John’s Cambr.) (1879) VII. 69 (MED) He..fliȝ into..Spayne, forto lerne curious and sotil artes and sciens þere.

---

science in a more modern sense: there is this definition from 1600

W. Vaughan Golden-groue i. lxv. sig. Mv The name of science is taken more strictly for a habit gotten by demonstration separated from wisedome; in which last signification Naturall philosophy, & the Mathematickes are called Sciences.

So: what had formerly been called «Naturall philosophy» and «Mathematickes» are now called «Sciences».

Last Updated:
28 Mar 2023
— Updated example sentences