Radically reorienting our understanding of the Enlightenment, this book explores the complex relations between -enlightened- values and the making of scientific knowledge. Here monsters and automata, barometers and botanical gardens, polite academies and boisterous clubs are all given their due place in the landscape of enlightened Europe.
The contributors examine the production of new disciplines through work with instruments and techniques; consider how institutions of public taste and conversation helped provide a common frame for the study of human and nonhuman natures; and explore...

Experiment is widely regarded as the most distinctive feature of natural science and essential to the way scientists find out about the world. Yet there has been little study of the way scientists actually make and use experiments. The Uses of Experiment fills this gap in our knowledge about how science is practised. Presenting 14 original case studies of important and often famous experiments, the book asks the questions: What tools do experimenters use? How do scientists argue from experiments? What happens when an experiment is challenged? How do scientists check that their experiments are...

Individually excellent and scholarly essays... most illuminating and thought-provoking. A conspicuous feature of the collection is the heterogeneity of the scientific topics discussed.' ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Essential reading for all students of Hooke and of the context of Restoration science.' Stephen Pumfrey BRITISH JNL FOR HISTORY OF SCIENCERobert Hooke (1635--1703) is best known for his Micrographia, which combined an exposition of the findings of the microscopewith speculations on a variety of scientific topics. He also made major contributions to an astonishing range of subjects,...