Talk:Royal Society

Removed from the article:

Prior to the Royal Society, Science itself did not formally exist

Eh? -- Anon.

Prior to the Royal Society, the term Science did not exist as we know it. (See below.) -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:25, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And for a long time after, the term science still did not exist as we know it. It doesn't necessarily follow that we can't or shouldn't use it in this article. The term is used in histories of earlier societies like the Accademia del Cimento and the Accademia dei Segreti, and of course when talking about medieval science (pursued in institutions like the University of Paris) and Greek science (in institutions like the Lyceum and the Museum). -- AnotherAnon.

Royal Society in fiction

There should be a mention to Gulliver's Travels -- 62.99.88.10

Perhaps we can insert a small subsection or just a paragraph dedicated to the portrayal of RS in works of fiction? Another book possibly warranting mention is Quicksilver (novel). Paranoid 10:41, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

History of the Royal Society

This will require some verification. As such, I am not placing this in the main body of the article until it's edited and cleaned up. Also, I have typed a portion of my reference 'as is' from the book itself. (Quoting passages.) (As is, minus any typos that I might have introduced.) -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:23, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A few comments: 1. Francis Bacon was no longer just Sir Francis, but Lord St Albans, by the time the Royal Society was founded.
2. By then, Bacon was also dead. He didn't support the society himself, but some of the foundation members were very supportive of Bacon's ideas. The Royal Society states this on its own web page. It'd be worth linking to a separate entry on Baconianism instead of dealing with that here.
3. The Royal Society considers itself to have originated in the Philosophical College or Invisible College, an informal gathering of thinkers who liked to talk about Baconian ideals.

References:
Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution

The original purpose of the Royal Society was to create an alternative form of the study of natural philosophy. The term science did not mean the same thing when the Royal Society was founded. Disillusioned by the current study of natural philosophy being taught by 16th century institutions of education, several people founded the Royal Society.

Several rules were imposed on the members of the Royal Society:
1. Members were not allowed to talk about religion
2. Members were not allowed to discuss about their personal problems and issues of politics

The Royal Society's primary purpose in the 16th century was attempting to establish mechanical philosophy. Or rather, attempt a "depersonalization of nature" as Shapin describes in his book.

Sir Francis Bacon had a large impact on the Royal Society, supporting it and especially with his writings.

Bacon said that the "universities are the seat and continent" of the "distempers" of learning, - Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, Page 133.

The following text is disclosed under fair use of the US Copyright.

From Pg. 134-135 of The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin:
A publicist of the early Royal Society of London announced that its membership was composed for the most part of "Gentlemen, free and unconfined," and, indeed, one marked contrast with traditional scholarly sites was the more civic, and more socially elevated, tone of several of the new societies. While Bacon made a humanist case for reforming natural philosophy so as to fit it for civic gentlemen, the participation in the Royal Society of men like the Honourable Robert Boyle -- a wealthy and well-connected Anglo-Irish aristocrat -- substantially transformed Baconian vision into social reality. The enterprise of natural knowledge was intentionally being made attractive to, and fit for, civic gentlemen. The consequences of changing participation in natural knowledge were considerable. A society dominated by gentlemen could more effectively draw on codes of genteel civility and decorum in conducting philosophical debate and evaluting testimony. Gentlemanly society had its own well-developed conventions for guaranteeing googd order. The adhesion to narutal philosphy of civic gentlemen thus offered a powerful alternative to scholarly disputatiousness.¹
The codes regulating the "civil conversation" of early modern gentlemen warned against the intrusion of potentially divisive and disruptive topics. Ad hominem speech, as well as contentious matters of politics, theology, and metaphysics, was seen as threatening the good order and continuance of conversation. Just as the establishment of Boyle's matters of fact depended on protecting the boundaries betwen the factual and the theoretical, so the consitituion of the Royal Society of London explicitly prohibited its fellows from speaking of religion or poltics during the course of its scientific meetings, and similar prohibitions were inscribed in the charters of a number of Continental societies.

Footnote: From page 134 of The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin: By no means all natural philosphers -- even in the English Royal Society -- were gentlemen. We still lack a secure understanding of the social map of scientific learning anywhere in Europe, and we do know that many important modern practictioners came from ungentle backgrounds. Nevertheless, the improtance of gentlemanly codes of conduct in regualting behavior is formally independent of the identities of all the individuals operating under those codes. So, for example, knowledge of how to behave in a church is not confined to the community of Christians, or even of believers of God. Nor was knowledge of how to behave as a gentlemen restricted to those who were gentlemen.

Invisible College

Invisible College redirects to this article, but the name is not mentioned at all in the text.