Science for All
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Recent scholarship has revealed that pioneering Victorian scientists endeavored through voluminous writing to raise public interest in science and its implications. But it has generally been assumed that once science became a profession around the turn of the century, this new generation of scientists turned its collective back on public outreach. Science for All debunks this apocryphal notion. Peter J. Bowler surveys the books, serial works, magazines, and newspapers published between 1900 and
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This historical study challenges the persistent myth that professional scientists abandoned public outreach after the Victorian era, offering a comprehensive survey of popular science publications from 1900 onward. Bowler meticulously documents how scientists continued writing books, magazine articles, and serial works designed to engage general readers with scientific developments and their societal implications. The research reveals that scientific communication evolved rather than disappeared as the field professionalized, providing crucial historical context for understanding science's relationship with the public.
Bowler's archival work uncovers a vibrant ecosystem of early twentieth-century science writing that will particularly interest historians of science and anyone curious about science communication's origins. By demonstrating how professional scientists actively participated in public discourse through periodicals and popular books, this study reframes our understanding of scientific outreach during a critical transitional period. The evidence presented here fundamentally reshapes the narrative about when and why scientists began speaking to broader audiences.
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