#simon schaffer

[curatingcuriosities]

Ting-Tong Chang's recent work has been directly inspired by the historian of science Simon Schaffer's work on 18th Century automata -- the BBC documentary film Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams (2013) in particular. We were fortunate enough to invite Simon to be in conversation with Ting-Tong at this studio in London. 

The full edited transcript of the original one-hour chat will be published in the artist's monograph early October.

[shy-grass]

These developments had little or no connection to any disposition to criticize science: the alternative to celebrating science was not denigration but naturalism.

Steven Shapin & Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump

[m1en-ezmenne]

Best of

Hogy mik a legjobb dokumentum filmek, ismeretterjesztő sorozatok?

Human planet, The Ascent of Man, How Earth Made Us, Everything and Nothing,majdnem minden Jim al Khalilitől (tudomány),majdnem minden Simon Schaffertől (tudomány) és ezek csak amik random eszembe jutottak... 

késöbb írok róluk de a legjobbakról a legnehezebb

[my-mother-is-the-republic]

Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams

The story of automata, ancient clockwork machines designed to mimic and recreate life.

An absolute must for any UK followers I have here. I've actually worked myself up into something of a state over this brilliant documentary which chronicles the development of automata. 

Especially relevant for this blog is Simon Schaffer's discussion on the link between the popularity of automata with  the aristocracy  And  how these sublime objects became viewed with hostility as we move into the later stages of the 1700s - towards, of course, The French Revolution.

>> THIS  << lovely lady is featured, one of my absolute favourites. 

Just absolutely stunning footage of these exquisite works of art, I urge you to watch it if you can. . 

[mad5am]

56:38 onwards - The ending is so BEAUTIFUL.

My favourite BBC documentary.

[evokit-notes]

Hobbes argument [about the validity of the scientific method and empiricism] was: "just because it [the experiment] happens in one place how do we know it happens else where?" [....] You can't build a knowledge of the universe from what you see on one occasion.

Simon Schaffer / How to think about science / Episode 1 ~ 32:50

[evokit-notes]

[Simon Schaffer argues that the really critical achievement of science lies not in its scepticism but in its ability to create and maintain trust] The basic question, which collective public knowledge has to solve in every culture, is: who should I believe and why? Almost everything anyone knows about the world they know on trust. Almost all our knowledge is testimony. Very little of what we know and believe about the world is based entirely and absolutely on our own empiricism. Empiricism is the philosophical position that my knowledge comes from my experience. And there is a problem there, because most of what I know and believe I haven't directly experienced. I have experienced through others. [....] Adam Smith, the great Scottish economist of the 18th century puts this wonderfully in one of his lectures he says: "If you reckon up what you know about the world you will see that most of what you know has been purchased, like your shoes and socks, from those whose business it is to put these things on the market" And I think that's still absolutely true. If I reflect about what I know about the world, what I think is true, almost all of it is based on what I have heard or been told or have read, not what I have directly experienced. I think a good slogan is: "The western natural sciences work very well partly because they organise trust extremely efficiently" [....] If you look round a working laboratory, likely it will be full of machinery and equipment not made by the people in the lab. They have to rely on the people who have made those devices, or made those observations, or calibrated the content of those bottles, or designed that piece of software. So a laboratory is a place connected through an immensely complicated networks to the labours of many, many other people. And if those people's work can be trusted, then what goes on in that lab can be trusted.

Simon Schaffer / How to think about science / Episode 1 ~ 25:00

[evokit-notes]

Knowledge is an [social] institution [....] people in social groups build their knowledge like they do other institutions [....] Some of the most important institutions that they [people] live are the things they hold to be true about the world.

Simon Schaffer / How to think about science / Episode 1 ~ 8:11