Harvard University Press Publicity Blog

First edition of The Origin of Species auctioned in England

Via MobyLives, one of the best publishing house blogs out there, we learn that a first-edition copy of On the Origin of Species has sold at auction for £35,000. Not just first-edition, either, but first print-run (there were 1,250, of which the publisher, John Murray, sold out immediately).

If you can't cough up the $52,000 or so (by our calculation) that such a treasure will run you, be aware that we've just published The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species, which is the edition used in Harvard's Darwin Summer Course at Oxford. The book carries line-by-line annotations by James T. Costa, who developed what we think is the first modern university course specifically geared to teach Darwin with Darwin, that is, with the original text of Origin. Legend has it that Costa had the idea after hearing Stephen Jay Gould complain that everyone had an opinion on Darwin, but no one had actually read him.

||| The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species

A thrilling story about math

Not an oxymoron. As the Seminary Co-op's Front Table blog explains, to explore the development of set theory is to learn not only about "the set of integers N" and "the set of real numbers R" (also known by the disturbingly singular name "the Continuum"), but to learn of the men who made these abstract symbols mean something. Important also, they point out, to remember that not even mathematicians live in a vacuum -- people, politics, religion, they all come home to roost, even if you try to restrict yourself to the little matter of attempting to name and define a little thing called INFINITY.

The occasion for such musings is a review of Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor's Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity, over the course of which you'll be taken on a tour of the political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas inherent in the search for a satisfactory answer to one of the biggest math mysteries of the twentieth century.

The Birds

No need to run shrieking in terror from the New York Times' fabulous slide show of images from Audubon: Early Drawings and Egg & Nest, our dual (but not dueling, we hope) bird books out this season. Previous coverage of Audubon on the blog here, and don't miss Rosamond Purcell, author/photographer of Egg & Nest, TONIGHT at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (6pm, directions). Purcell should be on your radar; check out these bona fides from none other than Jonathan Safran Foer: "What kind of genius is Rosamond Purcell? Is she an artist? A scholar? A documentarian? A living cabinet of wonders? Her originality defies category, as does her newest triumph, Egg & Nest. Crack its shell."

Image: Tippi Hedren & Co. make a run for it in a still from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). 

On humans, dinosaurs, and Sarah Palin

When we read this LA Times story on Sarah Palin's apparent belief that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together a mere 6,000 years ago, we wondered, despite acknowledging how patently awesome it would be to pet a dinosaur, where exactly such a belief comes from (hint: it's not from modern science). To that end, we asked our friend Ronald Numbers, who has made a calling out of tracking the origins and development of modern creationist thought, to fill us in on Young Earth creationism, where the idea came from, and whether or not, as its proponents claim, it can truly be called "science." Numbers is the author of the near-canonical The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, released in an expanded edition last year, and is editor of the forthcoming Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. So, a pretty good person to ask! Below is what he had to say.

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According to a recent article by Stephen Braun in the Los Angeles Times (September 28, 2008), Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, believes that the earth was created about 6,000 years ago and that humans and dinosaurs once lived together, a belief supported, she has claimed, by evidence of human footprints inside of dinosaur tracks. A conservative Christian with strong Pentecostal and Fundamentalist leanings, Palin favors teaching creationism along with evolution. "Teach both," she once urged during her race for governor of Alaska. "You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

I don’t much care, and I don’t think other voters should care, about the religious peculiarities of candidates for public office—so long as their views don’t impinge on public policy. It makes little difference to me whether Joe Biden, a Catholic, subscribes to the doctrines of transubstantiation or the Immaculate Conception, or whether Mitt Romney affirms the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon, if these doctrinal idiosyncrasies remain privately held convictions. But we have every right as voters to express concern about a Pentecostal being in charge of protecting the environment (think James Watt, President Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior) who believes that we are living in the Last Days before the total destruction of that environment; or, say, a Christian Scientist, who denies the efficacy of modern medicine, being appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services. In such instances, examining the religious beliefs of political candidates is not bigotry.

You are invited

Come on down ... you're the next contestant on ... just kidding, come on down to the Harvard Museum of Natural History this Thursday at 6pm to see Scott Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Ornithology in Harvard’s MCZ, and Leslie Morris, Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts at Harvard’s Houghton Library, discuss the origin and scientific significance of John James Audubon’s early drawings. Edwards and Morris are among the principal contributors (along with Audubon's biographer Richard Rhodes) to Audubon: Early Drawings, which collects the naturalist's crucial early work in a full-color, large-format (11"x14") volume. Extra bonus for those who choose to attend--the speakers have decided to bring some of the Audubon originals with them, which will be on public display during the lecture. Normally this stuff is locked away in the Houghton Library, so this is your chance people!

To get an idea of what's in the book, take a look at the slide show we've set up--just a few of the 116 portraits contained in the published volume.

Hysterical men

No, not Richard Pryor "hysterical." Mark S. Micale's new book takes on the other kind of hysteria, the kind that's been attributed mainly to women ever since crusty old Hippocrates described the malady as the unfortunate result of a "wandering uterus" (thanks for the oath, Hippocrates, perhaps we'll pass on the "wandering uterus" theory). In Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness, Micale locates the cracks in Western medicine's vision of the "stable and secure male"--a vision whose coherence rests, of course, on a converse notion of women as just the opposite, i.e. "hysterical"--and drives a big fat scholarly chisel into them. For hundreds of years, Micale shows, Western physicians have been covering up and explaining away signs of male weakness (how can men be hysterical, anyway, when THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE A UTERUS??) while simultaneously indulging in extravagant theorizing regarding the origins of perceived female weakness, over-emotionality, and madness. Some might even call their efforts, well, "hysterical."

Hysterical Men has found some review space in what we like to consider our natural home within the media landspace--the New York Times Sunday Styles Section. Therein, Holly Brubach sees in Micale's work an attestation that "researchers discover and doctors diagnose only those conditions that their culture allows them to find." Yup!

Image: Hans von Gersdorff, Fieldbook of medicine (1517). Treatment of a skull injury. Wood cut work attributed to Hans Wechtlin. Click to enlarge.

Big in China

We've just learned that the Chinese translation of Danian Hu's China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China, 1917-1979 has been selected as one of the ten best books published in China in 2006 by the  editors of Zhonghua dushu bao ("China Book Reading Weekly"), a popular and influential periodical among students and intellectuals in China (the linked article is in Chinese, by the way).

Zhongguo xinwen zhoukan ("Chinese Newsweek"--not affiliated with the U.S. magazine of the same name) also prepared a report (this link is also in Chinese) on Hu's analysis of Einstein's "rebirth" during the Cultural Revolution, a subject that comprises the last chapter of his fantastic book.

Ronald Numbers on creationism

The lead article on Salon.com today is an interview with Ronald Numbers, author of The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, which HUP has just released in an expanded edition featuring two new chapters. See our previous coverage of Numbers's book here and here.

UPDATE: Quite a bit of reaction to this article in the blogosphere.

Noted today

In the New York Times--"China Pursues Major Role in Particle Physics." Those who want to learn more about the history of science in China should consult our appropriately-titled A Cultural History of Modern Science in China, by Benjamin A. Elman, or for a more in-depth look, Elman's magnum opus, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900.

Check out our last post on science in China, dealing with the reception of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity in the Middle Kingdom.

China & Albert Einstein

Dennis Overbye's New York Times article on Chinese dissident scientist Xu Liangyang mentions Danian Hu's HUP book China & Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China, 1917-1979. A little more on Xu:

For seven decades, Xu Liangying has been Albert Einstein’s man in China, intertwining revolution and physics to speak up for political freedom and the value of scientific curiosity in a land where the rulers have often had a different agenda. His Einstein translations, retrieved and published, helped inspire a rebirth of interest in Einstein and in science in China.

Xu figures prominently in Hu's book, which is the first study in English of how Einstein's ideas penetrated into China through the work of Chinese physicists.

The history of science in China, especially during the Communist era, is fascinating because it is so fraught with political concerns. Those of you who want to know more would do well to pick up not only Hu's book, but also Benjamin Elman's A Cultural History of Modern Science in China, due out this October.