Varieties of ScienceAuthor(s): Alan CookSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Sep., 2001), p. 349Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/531945 .

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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 55 (3), 349 (2001)

VARIETIES OF SCIENCE

Two papers in this issue of Notes and Records remind us of the great variety of pursuits that are embraced by the concept of the sciences or natural knowledge. Robert Boyle apparently made regular records of his experiments and although they have been preserved in his papers it was in a disjointed manner and they were only recognised and rearranged as a result of literary detective work by Michael Hunter. Professor Hunter explains in this issue what he had to do. Boyle seems to emerge as a most systematic experimenter, and he was investigating what in his day were seen to be fundamental problems of the basic constitution of the material world. Many of Boyle's experiments depended for their success on the instrumental ingenuity of Robert Hooke, and the papers on Newton's interference colours and on the history of X-ray crystallography drive home the dependence of natural knowledge on the design and construction of advanced instruments.

With sea lions and greasepaint we are in a different world. Many people would collapse in amused ridicule at the idea that sea lions could be trained to track submarines-was it not obviously absurd? Yet there were fellows of the Royal Society who thought there might be something in it and so came to be involved with tests in which the only person with trained sea lions-a circus performer-had an essential part. It all seems very remote from the aristocratic Boyle studiously occupied with his experiments in the London house of his sister Lady Ranelagh in Pall Mall. We might nonetheless just remember that Boyle and his sister lived next door but one to a notable 'circus' performer, Nell Gwynn, whose house, but not that of Boyle, is dignified with a blue plaque. To no surprise the sea lions showed no interest in tracking submarines, which in any case were rather too fast for them. However, the trials that were done to condition the behaviour of the sea lions have been found of interest much later and have contributed to more recent studies of animal behaviour. The trials cannot be said to have advanced useful knowledge at the time, but they have added to subsequent natural knowledge. The story has a rather exotic interest but it also shows, as is so often the case, that the history of science may contribute to the pursuit of natural knowledge.

Sir Alan Cook

349

© 2001 The Royal Society

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