Lorraine J. Daston What Science Will Be Remembered Centuries from Now, and Why?
© Maximilian Dörrbecker
Max Planck Society
"The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field." (Source)
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
"Founded in 1994, the MPIWG in Berlin is one of the more than eighty research institutes administered by the Max Planck Society. It is dedicated to the study of the history of science and aims to understand scientific thinking and practice as historical phenomena. Researchers pursue an historical epistemology in their studies of how new categories of thought, proof, and experience have emerged." (Source)
Some sciences like geology, astronomy or demography require a time scale of observation and study of phenomena that lasts longer than a human life span – and even that of civilizations. These “Sciences of the Archives” rely on the contribution of scientists who store their data and knowledge for the generations following after them. In this video LORRAINE DASTON explains how an interdisciplinary group of scholars investigated which conditions enable such scientific endeavors that depend on long-lived collections. They studied historical sources and how these records are kept to identify patterns across millennia and cultures. The findings indicate that a key driver for the people involved in building these archives is an almost utopian vision: The believe that their discipline will continue to make use of the archives and that future insights will depend on these records.
LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10291
The Sciences of the Archives
- Lorraine J. Daston
- Published in 2012