Dr Allan Chapman: "For the Glory of God, and for the Relief of Man's Estate": What motivated Robert Boyle to become a great experimental scientist?
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Dr Allan Chapman, University of Oxford |
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| Robert Boyle came to science largely through his religion, and the sense that Providence could be "tested". And like most of the early Royal Society Fellows, he subscribed to Sir Francis Bacon's vision of science as exploring God's Glory and improving the human condition - pure and applied science, as we would now say. Hence his particular concern with the usefulness of experimental science. |
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About the Speaker Allan Chapman is a historian of science and medicine at Oxford University. He is a native of Manchester, and studied first at Lancaster University and then at Oxford, where he took his doctorate and where he now teaches. His particular interests lie in the development of the technical aspects of science and in scientific biography, and his main areas of research and publishing are in the history of astronomy and the history of surgery. He receives invitations to speak from numerous scientific organisations and institutions: astronomers, physicians, surgeons, chemists, and engineers; and he is also active in the field of science and religion. In addition to lecturing, he broadcasts extensively on BBC TV and radio, and on independent TV, on science history subjects. He is widely published, with over eight books to his name, plus more than a hundred substantial academic papers and a great many articles in magazines, encyclopaedias, and newspapers. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate in science by two British universities in recognition of his work as a science historian: by the University of Central Lancashire in 2004 and the University of Salford in 2010. |
