Humboldtian science

Humboldtian science refers to a movement in science in the 19th century closely connected to the work and writings of German scientist, naturalist, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. It maintained a certain ethics of precision and observation, which combined scientific field work with the sensitivity and aesthetic ideals of the age of Romanticism. Like Romanticism in science, it was rather popular in the 19th century. The term was coined by Susan Faye Cannon in 1978. The example of Humboldt's life and his writings allowed him to reach out beyond the academic community with his natural history and address a wider audience with popular science aspects. It has supplanted the older Baconian method, related as well to a single person, Francis Bacon.

Humboldt was born in Berlin in 1769 and worked as a Prussian mining official in the 1790s until 1797 when he quit and began collecting scientific knowledge and equipment. His extensive wealth aided his infatuation with the spirit of Romanticism; he amassed an extensive collection of scientific instruments and tools as well as a sizeable library. In 1799 Humboldt, under the protection of King Charles IV of Spain, left for South America and New Spain, toting all of his tools and books. The purpose of the voyage was steeped in Romanticism; Humboldt intended to investigate how the forces of nature interact with one another and find out about the unity of nature. Humboldt returned to Europe in 1804 and was acclaimed as a public hero. The details and findings of Humboldt's journey were published in his Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equatorial Regions of the New Continent (30 volumes). This Personal Narrative was taken by Charles Darwin on his famous voyage on H.M.S Beagle. Humboldt spent the rest of his life mainly in Europe, although he did embark on a short expedition to Siberia and the Russian steppes in 1829. Humboldt's last works were contained in his book, Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung ("Cosmos. Sketch for a Physical Description of the Universe"). The book mainly described the development of a life-force from the cosmos, but also included the formation of stars from nebular clouds as well as the geography of planets. Alexander von Humboldt died in 1859, while working on the fifth volume of Kosmos. Through his travels to South America and his observational records in An Essay on the Geography of Plants as well as Kosmos, an important trend emerged through his techniques of observation, scientific instruments used and unique perspective on nature. Humboldt's novel style has been defined as Humboldtian Science. Humboldt had the ability to combine the study of empirical data with a holistic view of nature and its aesthetically pleasing characteristics, which is now held to be the true definition of the study of vegetation and plant geography. Humboldtian science is one of the first techniques for studying both organic and inorganic branches of science. Examining the interconnectedness of vegetation and its respective environment is one of the new and important aspects of Humboldt's work, an idea labeled as "terrestrial physics," something that scientists who preceded him, such as Linnaeus, failed to do. Humboldtian science is founded on a principle of "general equilibrium of forces." General equilibrium was the idea that there are infinite forces in nature that are in constant conflict, yet all forces balance each other out. Humboldt laid the groundwork for future scientific endeavors by establishing the importance of studying organisms and their environment in conjunction .

Humboldtian science includes both the extensive work of Alexander von Humboldt, as well as many of the works of 19th century scientists. Susan Cannon is attributed with coining the term Humboldtian science. According to Cannon, Humboldtian science is, "the accurate, measured study of widespread but interconnected real phenomena in order to find a definite law and a dynamical cause." Humboldtian science is used now in place of the traditional, "Baconianism," as a more appropriate and less vague term for the themes of 19th century science.

Natural history in the eighteenth century was the "nomination of the visible". Carl Linnaeus was preoccupied with fitting all nature into taxonomy, fixated on only what was visible. Towards the turn of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant became interested in understanding where species derived from, and was less concerned with an organism's physical attributes. Next, Johann Reinhold Forster, one of Humboldt's future partners, became interested in the study of vegetation as an essential way of understanding nature and its relationship with human society. Proceeding Forster, Karl Willdenow examined floristic plant geography, the distribution of plants and regionality as a whole. All of these pieces in the history before Humboldt help to shape what is defined as Humboldtian science. Humboldt took into account both the outward appearance and inward meaning of plant species. His attention to natural aesthetics and empirical data and evidence is what set his scientific work apart from ecologists before him. Nicolson so aptly puts it as: "Humboldt effortlessly combined a commitment to empiricism and the experimental elucidation of the laws of nature with an equally strong commitment to holism and to a view of nature which was intended to be aesthetically and spiritually satisfactory". It was through this holistic approach to science and the study of nature that Humboldt was able to find a web of interconnectedness despite a multitude of extensive differences between different species of organisms.

According to Malcolm Nicholson, "Susan Cannon characterized Humboldtian science as synthetic, empirical, quantitative and impossible to fit into any one of our twentieth century disciplinary boundaries." A central element of Humboldtian science was its use of the latest advances in scientific instrumentation to observe and measure physical variables, while attending to all possible sources of error. Humboldtian science revolved around understanding the relationship between accurate measurement, sources of error and mathematical laws. Cannon identifies four distinctive features that marked Humboldtian science out from previous versions of science:

Humboldt was committed to what he called 'terrestrial physics.' Essentially Humboldt's new scientific approach required a new type of scientist: Humboldtian science demanded a transition from the naturalist to the physicist. Humboldt described how his idea of terrestrial physics differs from traditional "descriptive" natural history when he stated, "[traveling naturalists] have neglected to track the great and constant laws of nature manifested in the rapid flux of phenomena…and to trace the reciprocal interaction of the divided physical forces." Humboldt did not consider himself an explorer, but rather a scientific traveler, who accurately measured what explorers had reported inaccurately. According to Humboldt, the goal of the terrestrial physicist was to investigate the confluence and interweaving of all physical forces. An incredibly extensive array of precise instrumentation had to be readily available for Humboldt's terrestrial physicist. The expansive amount of scientific resources that characterized the Humboldtian scientist is best described in the book Science in Culture,

Thus the complete Humboldtian traveller, in order to make satisfactory observations, should be able to cope with everything from the revolution of the satellites of Jupiter to the carelessness of clumsy donkeys.

Just some of such instruments included chronometers, telescopes, sextants, microscopes, magnetic compasses, thermometers, hygrometers, barometers, electrometers, and eudiometers. Furthermore, it was necessary to have multiple makes and models of each specific instrument to compare errors and constancy among each type.