We are so obsessed with Darwin that we forgot Mendeleev
2009 March 13
More than 33,00 blog articles appeared in last one month related to Charles Darwin, as everyone is celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species. People are really crazy or too much obsessed with the Darwin and his evolution. I don’t know much about Darwin’s life and his contribution to science, and if he discovered something really scientific, or it was just intellectual exercise by scientific community to establish him as biggest genius of all the time. I was never a Darwin fanatic, but I do know that there was a genius chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table of elements. First version of Mendeleev’s periodic table was published on 17 February 1869, and this year it was 140th anniversary of publication, around same time when we all were busy in celebrating Charles Darwin bicentenary. Why scientific community is so irrational? Why we think that On the Origin of Species is so much better than periodic table of elements? It may be real shame for so called scientific oxymorons, but there is no much appreciation for real science these days. Well I think that Popular science is materialistic in true sense, or in other words science which can be monetize is popular, the one we see at scienceblogs selling cups to t-shirts.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=1e6aa882-0def-4b8e-b40e-2aa2e37783a4)
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Hi Abhishek
I simply couldnt restrain from commenting on this. I am a die hard Darwin fan if you already didn’t know but I think your question about not idolizing Mendeleev is valid too.
Looking back at the times, one can say a Russian discovery would not resonate so much as that of the English discovery. If fame is what Darwin got, he got it through a continuous criticism of his works, and the fact that evolution touched the core of humanity. This may be the reason any student of science looks twice into the life of Darwin over Mendeleev.
Richard Dawkins in his book – Climbing mount improbable says that every individual seems to be hitting on to evolution. Everyone from the Clergy to the lawyers to the president have an opinion about evolution but not about superconductivity of matter.
I feel however distant scientific community is from the public, the fame or legacy of a scientist comes from the public opinion of his work. This opinion feeds on during the ages and the person becomes god-figure to be revered on.
Anyways a small tit-bit. Mendeleev work was really outstanding. It is said that he refrained from any social contacts for a few weeks, wrote down all the atomic numbers on cards, rearranged them over the days and finally we had the periodic table. People say it was an intense dedication to get this problem solved once and for all that we have an elegant periodic table.
Jagannath
We are so obsessed with Darwin that we forgot Mendeleev: More than 33,00 blog articles appeared in last one mont.. http://tinyurl.com/cm5xml
Really interesting point, Abhishek. To add fuel to it: Almost every day is probably how often I rely on information the period table provides for me. Whereas I don’t have to think about evolutionary biology very often to get my science accomplished. I really just need to know that stuff that we can study in yeast has relevance to humans, due to evolution. But I don’t need to know much more than that on a day-to-day basis.
Could it possibly be because of the fact that scientists are basically human too.. As humans we are affected by the world around us. I would put down Darwin’s immense popularity to the fact that Evolution as a topic has just been given a lot of attention in the media lately. And along with all the anti-evolution rhetoric thats been going around, supporting evolution is considered one of the ways of proving your devotion to rational thought. I dont deny that it smacks of herd mentality.. But i wouldnt go so far as to say that all science is based on monetary considerations. Its just our humanness acting up..
Well I don’t deny the fact that scientists are human too, lately I have no objection if Darwin is popular for what so ever reason, I am concerned that we need a clear distinction between what exactly science is and what is not. I don’t consider what Darwin formulated was science but at same time Mendeleev work was more practical and scientific.