This essay aims to show the peculiar emergence of a culture of correlation in the field of observatory sciences that resulted from the experimental and philosophical currents of the Society of Jesus and Catholic culture in general. Building on the teaching of experimentalism and physico-chemical atomism at the Jesuit Collegio Romano (in a context of opposition to both the materialism and atheism of modern society and neo-Thomist currents within the Church), it examines the observational practice and the unitary conception of (...) physical forces introduced by the director of the Collegio’s Observatory, Angelo Secchi. It argues that his dynamist theory of the unified universe shaped his later articulation of the correlation between meteorological, magnetic, and astronomical phenomena. The essay suggests that the construction of correlations promoted in this context is not merely local in character but precedes and participates in the formation of the culture of prediction in Jesuit mission observatories. (shrink)

The “Coefficient of Racial Likeness” (CRL) ascribed to Karl Pearson (1857–1936) was born in the Biometric Laboratory in London. It was developed with the purpose to determine the distance between two samples of different origins. Widely used but also distrusted before being ultimately replaced by a true statistical measure of divergence, the Mahalanobis distance (D2), the global biography of the CRL reveals the social, scientific, and historical forces at play that determined the lifespan of the coefficient, its success and fall (...) from grace. Closely linked to Pearson personally, he could no longer control its fate once the CRL had escaped his laboratory and gotten into the hands of critical mathematicians, or to China where results of racial classification based on a single number and the assumption of homogeneity did not please the audience. (shrink)

Even though agriculture was not the central thrust of planning in Mao-era China (1949–1976), starting in the 1950s, the party-state progressively nationalized land, reorganized social relations in the countryside, and instituted a universal system of wages that fundamentally reshaped rural China. Quantifying and measuring agricultural labor, in particular, developed into an increasingly important task as the state became not just the sole purveyor but also the sole provider of people’s incomes. At the heart of this measurement was the system of (...) work points. The Work Point System quantified every aspect of rural life by classifying every activity within the rural economy in terms of the number of points needed to perform it. Putatively, every activity was thus reduced to a single number (usually between 1 and 10 for men; and 1 and 9 for women), accounted for on a daily basis. As a result, people’s relationship to numbers and quantification changed in new and fundamental ways. In this paper, I explore the history of the Work Point System, tracing its rationale and how it came to influence rural life and rural imaginations. (shrink)

Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795–1876) researched living and fossil microbes (infusoria) from air, sediment, or food samples. His discovery around 1840 that infusoria from the Berlin underground would damage buildings caused an early public microbe scare. In the context of the cholera epidemic of 1848, Ehrenberg devoted his attention to blood-red discoloration of food, which he identified as an innocuous red microbe. Both cases allow understanding the goal of this natural history of microbes: Following up on Alexander von Humboldt, he aimed (...) at a full picture of microbes’ place in nature, such as for geological and biological processes, including humans. In a period of political instability, Ehrenberg’s investigations were more than an early chapter in the historiography of microbiology. His conservative-reformist perspective on materialism, religion, and the state sheds new light on the relationship of science and politics around 1848. Not least, Ehrenberg’s mid-nineteenth-century argument about the omnipresence and big impact of microscopic life resonates with contemporary debates about microbes’ planetary agency. (shrink)

This article demonstrates that the organisation of the library and manuscript collections was crucial to George Biddell Airy’s reform of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, resulting in the creation of a vast archive that continues to this day. It analyses the official papers and reports Airy produced to identify the development of the library and the technique of document management. Airy understood that the systematic and orderly organisation of information, books, and papers was the foundation of scientific research and the running (...) of the observatory. He also attached great significance to the preservation of the archives, intending to hold a complete record of observations at the Royal Observatory since its foundation and contribute to the study of the history of science in the future. This article argues that the primary aim of collecting documents and observations was to tighten the link of the nineteenth-century Royal Observatory with its tradition and history. In doing so Airy sought to justify the observatory’s current status and research programmes and to forge its institutional identity. (shrink)

This article explores a key question in the history of science: Could untrained officials learn and apply practical knowledge by reading how-to books and collaborating with expert practitioners? Notably, historians of science have studied workplaces such as the mines as arenas of knowledge exchange between workers, expert practitioners, and learned humanists. This article uses a labor history approach to explore what this exchange meant in practice. It analyzes the attempts of an untrained official in the mines of the Medici family (...) to learn and reproduce practical knowledge about prospecting and surveying. By the mid-sixteenth century, this official read Georg Agricola’s (1494–1555) mining treatises and had access to the expertise of German miners from the renowned mining districts of Central Europe. The analysis of his reports based on the reading of the book, along with the hierarchical organization of labor established by the German experts in the Medici mines, reveals that the presence of craftsmen and scholarly works reinforced, rather than blurred, the boundaries of knowledge in early modern mines. (shrink)

Numerous studies over the past two decades have indicated that autism prevalence in China is lower than international estimates, believed to be around 1%. However, various publications, especially newspaper articles and activist reports, have still characterized autism prevalence in the country as 1%. This paper examines the discrepancy between data by writing the biography of the 1% estimate, exploring its sociopolitical implications and cultural significance. It highlights the attractiveness and power of the 1% value in China, hinting at a possible (...) role played by numbers in the “looping effect” described by Ian Hacking. Moreover, the author suggests that the emphasis on this specific estimate downplays the importance of questions opened up by the discrepancy in findings between Chinese and international autism research. (shrink)

In the early to mid-1960s, Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed gate control theory, the most enduring theory of pain of the twentieth century. Challenging the notion of pain as a pure sensation of injury, Melzack and Wall refigured bodily experience as a dynamic state of the entire nervous system, including the higher levels of the brain. Within a decade, their neurophysiological model had become the conceptual foundation for the burgeoning and multidisciplinary field of (...) pain medicine. This essay excavates the conditions of possibility for the invention of gate control theory. It shows how two intellectual cultures emerging across the postwar neuro and psy disciplines—namely, cognitivism and cybernetics—converged in a holistic understanding of patients’ reported experiences. In reframing gate control theory, this story reveals how postwar scientists were able to construct a vision of an integrated, post-Cartesian self. (shrink)

In 1932, Japanese psychologist Takano Kiyoshi conducted experimental research on vibratory sensations using hundreds of deaf schoolchildren as research subjects. This article examines the little-studied relationship between the global spread of oralism and the local formulation of knowledge about the vibratory sense—or senkaku 顫覚—in Japanese psychoacoustics. In the 1920s, American missionaries and educators helped spread oralism in Japan, and the Japanese state implemented the Blind and Deaf-Mute Schools Ordinance. There was also a notable development of experimental psychology in the country. (...) Influenced by German psychologist David Katz’s work, Takano viewed deafness as a physical “ability” or physiological “advantage” for his scientific project. A close reading of Japanese, German, and American psychologists’ works on the vibratory sense around the time reveals that it was considered not quite identical to hearing, nor to touch. The five senses framework—based on the ideas of touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste—does not always function properly in sensory history; this prevalent framework can put aside the actual nuances and complexities of one’s varying understanding of the human sensorium across time and space. This study highlights the (anonymous) participation of deaf individuals as research subjects and draws attention to how people with impairments played diverse roles in the history of science. (shrink)

This article offers a cross-cultural analysis of two enigmatic figures from Indo-European mythologies: Tīrka Šavār, a lesser-known Persian omen of death or misfortune, and the Dullahan, Ireland’s iconic headless horseman. Both entities serve as harbingers of fate, embodying their cultures’ anxieties about mortality, the unknown, and the thin veil between the human and supernatural realms. Through comparative methodology, this study explores how these myths reflect distinct cultural values—Persian narratives often intertwine destiny with moral and cosmic order (aša), while Irish lore (...) emphasizes the inevitability of death and the capriciousness of the Otherworld. The analysis reveals striking parallels: both figures act as liminal beings, mediating between life and death, and their appearances are marked by omens (e.g., the Dullahan’s lantern, Tīrka Šavār’s symbolic manifestations). Yet their differences are equally telling: Tīrka Šavār’s role in Persian cosmology often ties to Zoroastrian dualism, where moral choices influence fate, whereas the Dullahan operates within a Celtic framework of inescapable doom. By situating these myths within their historical and religious contexts, this article illuminates how ancient societies grappled with existential fears and conceptualized the supernatural. (shrink)

This study examines the pursuit of immortality through a comparative analysis of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh and Hindu mythology centered on Vishnu, the preserver god. Employing a literary and philosophical approach, the paper contrasts Gilgamesh’s personal, mortal-driven quest with Vishnu’s cosmic, eternal existence. In Gilgamesh, the semi-divine king seeks eternal life after his companion Enkidu’s death, only to confront the inevitability of mortality, reflecting a Mesopotamian view of death as a divine boundary. Conversely, Vishnu embodies immortality as an intrinsic (...) attribute, manifested through avatars like Krishna, aligning with Hindu cosmology’s cyclical view of existence and the eternal soul. The analysis reveals distinct cultural frameworks: Gilgamesh’s linear struggle for individual legacy versus Vishnu’s timeless duty to universal order. Results highlight that Gilgamesh’s journey ends in acceptance of human limits, finding meaning in earthly achievements, while Vishnu’s narrative offers transcendence through reincarnation and cosmic harmony. The study concludes that these contrasting perspectives—personal desperation versus divine continuity—mirror Mesopotamian pragmatism and Hindu metaphysics, respectively, yet both resonate with humanity’s universal longing to transcend death. This comparison underscores that the quest for immortality is less about evading mortality than redefining its significance across cultural and philosophical landscapes. (shrink)