Blog about a classic science paper

Posted on May 7, 2008 by | 12 Comments

The challenge from skullsinthestars is up – pick up a very old, classic science paper and write a blog post about it. Put it in a proper historical, theoretical, methodological and philosophical context. You can always go back to blogging about the latest research or latest creationist idiocy tomorrow.

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12 responses to “Blog about a classic science paper”

  1. Coturnix's avatar Coturnix | May 7, 2008 at 12:48 pm |

    As Blake put it. It may even go into the Basic Concepts list afterwards, just tell John Wilkins.

  2. PalMD's avatar PalMD | May 7, 2008 at 12:50 pm |

    How old? Any guidelines?

  3. Coturnix's avatar Coturnix | May 7, 2008 at 12:55 pm |

    The original challenge says “before WWII”, but I think it all depends on the discipline, whenever the key classic papers were written.

  4. gg's avatar gg | May 7, 2008 at 1:07 pm |

    Coturnix: Thanks for mentioning the “challenge”! You’re absolutely right: I said “before WWII”, but it’s clearly discipline dependent. My personal goal was to seek out research that formed the foundations of a field, before the important concepts were taken for granted.

  5. bill's avatar bill | May 7, 2008 at 1:19 pm |

    What a great idea. Wish I had time to work up an entry. I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.

  6. Mary's avatar Mary | May 7, 2008 at 7:18 pm |

    Oh, man, what a very neat idea! There is a paper (actually, an original paper and then one that was more like a commentary on the first from the same author) that I have always loved. Perfect for this challenge. And I can’t believe it, but I found it available in PDF–I think. If I could find a copy of my thesis I could be sure. But I’m not quite sure where that is these days….
    Is there a date for this? I work better with deadlines 🙂

  7. gg's avatar gg | May 7, 2008 at 9:32 pm |

    Mary: I just posted a semi-official ‘end of May’ deadline for entries, just to keep people motivated! (I should have planned this at the beginning, but I wasn’t necessarily expecting anyone to do the challenge…)

  8. Mary's avatar Mary | May 7, 2008 at 10:03 pm |

    @gg: gotcha! I’m gonna do it. I found the paper I was remembering. Has lines like this:

    These studies have been interrupted by the war, but the initial results and the great utility of the method, should it be perfected, urge us to record the experimental data so far accumulated.

    I had forgotten how much I loved this paper; this post is practically coming out of my head fully formed. Thanks so much for the inspiration.

  9. Coturnix's avatar Coturnix | May 8, 2008 at 8:24 am |

    Update: the deadline is end of May.

  10. Mary's avatar Mary | May 8, 2008 at 10:01 am |

    I tried to use the track-back for this post on mine, but it gives me a 404. Am I doing it wrong?

  11. Coturnix's avatar Coturnix | May 8, 2008 at 10:03 am |

    Trackbacks are disabled on Sb.

  12. Barn Owl's avatar Barn Owl | May 8, 2008 at 1:12 pm |

    There’s a very sad note on a classic neural crest paper by Raven and Kloos, from the mid-1940s, indicating that Kloos had been shot and killed by the Gestapo. I make the point with the grad students that it’s important to maintain perspective, even when things seem really rough.
    I feel compelled to write a post on a favorite classic avian neurodevelopment paper from the 1930s, however…might have to be “neural connections week” on my blog.