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About This Author
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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
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Well, then, let's just jump right in, shall we? I've got a pretty big backlog of interesting articles to tackle.
Today's is from MIT Press Reader, and it makes for an appropriate-enough premier entry here.
I suppose he's no longer unknown now, at least by me and anyone with the talent, taste, good looks, and perspicacity to read my blog. Or to read the linked article. Or to buy the book that the linked article is nakedly promoting.
As much as I hate ads in general, I have no issue with sharing book promotions here, as long as they're transparent about it.
Unlike Charles Darwin and Claude Bernard, who endure as heroes in England and France, Emil du Bois-Reymond is generally forgotten in Germany — no streets bear his name, no stamps portray his image, no celebrations are held in his honor, and no collections of his essays remain in print.
You know who is unknown to me? Claude Bernard. Or, I should say now, was unknown to me.  Yeah, that sounds like someone I should have heard of.
But it wasn’t always this way. Du Bois-Reymond was once lauded as “the foremost naturalist of Europe,” “the last of the encyclopedists,” and “one of the greatest scientists Germany ever produced.”
Which is high praise, considering some of the other scientists from Germany. Though Einstein came later and probably overshadowed him.
Their lives did overlap, though only for about 17 years. If Wikipedia can be trusted for that.
Those familiar with du Bois-Reymond generally recall his advocacy of understanding biology in terms of chemistry and physics, but during his lifetime he earned recognition for a host of other achievements.
That alone is pretty significant, though it's almost certainly a case of "if he hadn't done it, someone else would have."
He pioneered the use of instruments in neuroscience, discovered the electrical transmission of nerve signals, linked structure to function in neural tissue, and posited the improvement of neural connections with use.
I'm curious what neuroscience was like before instruments, but not curious enough to make a side trip.
He owed most of his fame, however, to his skill as an orator.
Now this is the most interesting part, at least to me. Doing science is one thing. Being able to communicate it effectively is, I believe, an entirely different skill. Our modern-day science communicators may write books or record YouTube videos in addition to holding in-person lectures, but, well, not all of them are really suited to explaining big new concepts to non-scientists.
In matters of science, he emphasized the unifying principles of energy conservation and natural selection, introduced Darwin’s theory to German students, rejected the inheritance of acquired characters, and fought the specter of vitalism, the doctrine that living things are governed by unique principles.
It turns out that, under certain circumstances, some acquired characteristics (here the article's proofreader failed; it's not "characters") can be inherited. That's okay. Scientific theories get modified and revised over time; that means the process is working.
In matters of philosophy, he denounced Romanticism, recovered the teachings of Lucretius, and provoked Nietzsche, Mach, James, Hilbert, and Wittgenstein.
I hold the conviction that science and philosophy are symbiotic: science informs philosophy, while philosophy guides science. Others insist they should remain separate, which is self-contradictory because it is itself a philosophy of science.
In any case, anyone who provoked Nietzsche is okay in my world.
In matters of history, he furthered the growth of historicism, formulated the tenets of history of science, popularized the Enlightenment, promoted the study of nationalism, and predicted wars of genocide.
Funny thing about predictions. Sometimes, they're not predictions but plans (though maybe someone else's plans). I hope that wasn't the case here.
And in matters of letters, he championed realism in literature, described the earliest history of cinema, and criticized the Americanization of culture.
All of which is extra amusing now that some of the world's most popular cinema involves fantasy stories originating in the US.
Today it is hard to comprehend the furor incited by du Bois-Reymond’s speeches. One, delivered on the eve of the Prussian War, asked whether the French had forfeited their right to exist; another, reviewing the career of Darwin, triggered a debate in the Prussian parliament; another, surveying the course of civilization, argued for science as the essential history of humanity; and the most famous, responding to the dispute between science and religion, delimited the frontiers of knowledge.
Oh, I don't know. Some speeches today still incite fury. They're often labeled "controversial." High on that list remains arguments concerning the dispute between science and religion.
The important thing to note, as far as I'm concerned, is that just because you're a great communicator and can give a fiery speech, it doesn't mean you're right.
Du Bois-Reymond supported women, defended minorities, and attacked superstition; he warned against the dangers of power, wealth, and faith; and he stood up to Bismarck in matters of principle.
It also doesn't mean you're wrong.
The rest of the moderately long article goes into more detail about du Bois-Reymond's life and times, and touches on why he might have been all but forgotten despite his celebrity status. Despite the memory hole he seems to have fallen afoul of, I think echoes of his ideas remained; those, after all, are more durable than mere individuals. As support, I'll just provide one more quote, from near the end of the page:
Du Bois-Reymond reminds us that individuals mark their times as much as their times mark them. “If you want to judge the influence that a man has on his contemporaries,” the physiologist Claude Bernard once said, “don’t look at the end of his career, when everyone thinks like him, but at the beginning, when he thinks differently from others.”
I do hope we can forgive his then-contemporary stylistic use of masculine pronouns. I'm pretty sure that idea applies to all people. |
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