Scientists and the Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britian

这个项目是在这样一种背景下发展起来的：科学史家们越来越认识到，科普必须被视为一种自上而下的过程，在这个过程中，科学作家（他们可能是科学家，但肯定与科学家有联系）提供科学研究的简化说明，供公众被动消费。关于19世纪大众科学的大量研究表明，普及行为不仅塑造了公众对科学的看法，而且塑造了科学本身，因为从事科学研究的人试图控制人们对他们的工作的看法，并应对公众反应带来的挑战。当前的项目集中在20世纪初，因为这是一个时期，科学的专业化最终或多或少地完成。从这个意义上说，情况与维多利亚时代相比发生了重大变化，我们应该期待看到科学家与公众之间的这种关系的起源，这种关系一直持续到现在。这个项目是为了质疑一种普遍表达的观点，即当科学界在1900年左右变得完全专业化时，它开始与公众的任何参与保持距离。研究表明，事实上有很多科学家为非专业观众写作（后来广播给非专业观众），只有少数情况下，专业人士对此表示反对——通常是当一个人被认为为了普及而放弃研究时。这项工作的目的是阐明在职科学家和受过一些科学训练的科学家在提供非专业和通俗科学文献方面所起的作用。他们为什么愿意这样做，他们希望达到什么目的？他们为什么寻求与公众接触，他们想要展示什么样的科学形象？出版商在很大程度上是与公众接触的守门人，他们如何了解出版商真正需要什么？该项目还与出版商的参与有关。为什么他们认为科普书籍和杂志的市场在不断增长，他们的目标人群是什么？他们如何设法以一种吸引人的方式展示他们的出版物？特别是，该项目确定了一大批出版物，在这些出版物中，材料必须来自权威来源，即专业科学家。只有在最普遍的层面上，人们才会认为专家过于专业，无法胜任这项工作。这项研究展示了出版商如何与科学家互动，以便让他们为大众消费提供合适水平的文本。他们也探索实际机制的委托，编辑，生产和广告产生的书籍和杂志。

This project has been developed in the context of a growing appreciation among historians of science that popular science has to be seen as something more than a top-down process in which science writers (who may be scientists, but are certainly in touch with scientists) provide simplified accounts of scientific research for passive consumption by the public. Extensive work on nineteenth-century popular science has shown how the act of popularization shapes not only public perception of science, but also science itself, as those who practice science seek to control how their work is perceived, and respond to challenges arising from the public response. The current project focusses on the early twentieth century because this was a period in which the professionalization of science had at last become more or less complete. In this sense, the situation changed significantly from that obtaining in the Victorian era, and we should expect to see the origins of the kind of relationship between scientists and the public which has continued through to the present.The project was developed in order to question the commonly-expressed view that when the scientific community became thoroughly professionalized around 1900, it began to distance itself from any involvement with the general public. The research shows that there were in fact very many scientists writing for (and later broadcasting to) a non-specialist audience, and only a few cases where the profession expressed disapproval of this- usually when an individual was thought to have given up research for popularization. The work is intended to throw light on the role played by working scientists, and by those with some scientific training, in providing non-specialist and popular literature on science. Why were they willing to do it, and what did they hope to achieve? Why did they seek to engage with the public, and what image of science did they want to project? How did they learn what was actually needed by the publishers, who were very much the gatekeepers to actual contact with the public?The project has also been concerned with the involvement of the publishers. Why did they believe there was an increasing market for popular science books and magazines, and what were their target groups in the population? How did they seek to present their publications in a way that would be attractive? In particular, the project has identified a large group of publications where it was seen to be important that the material came from an authoritative source, i.e. a professional scientist. Only at the most popular level was it thought that the expert was too specialized to do the job properly. The research shows how the publishers interacted with scientists in order to get them to produce texts at the right level for popular consumption. They also explore the actual mechanics of commissioning, editing, producing and advertising the resulting books and magazines.