Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science

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Background
History of science

Theories/sociology
Historiography
Pseudoscience
By era
In early cultures
in Classical Antiquity
In the Middle Ages
In the Renaissance
Scientific Revolution
By topic
Natural sciences
Astronomy
Biology
Chemistry
Ecology
Geography
Physics
Social sciences
Economics
Linguistics
Political science
Psychology
Sociology
Technology
Agricultural science
Computer science
Materials science
Medicine
Navigational pages
Timelines
Portal
Categories

This is the page for the History of Science WikiProject. If you would like to participate, add your name to list of participants below. Be sure to check out the discussion page as well.

Shortcut: WP:WPHOS

History of science Portal

1 Project overview
2 To do
3 Participants
4 Current goals
5 Possible projects
6 Categorization and media
7 Writing and Editing
8 Related Pages
9 Votes, Polls and Candidacies
- 9.1 Collaborations
- 9.2 Featured content

[edit] Project overview

This project focuses on creating and improving content related to the history of science. This will include (historical aspects of) the philosophy of science, as well as history of technology, mathematics and medicine. The project will also work on improving the categorization of History of Science-related articles and maintaining Portal:History of science.

Child project: Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Biology

[edit] To do

The current History of Science Collaboration of the Month is Sociology of science.

No current announcements

Select future "selected articles" and create summaries for the History of science portal.

Identify unmarked history of science stubs and add {{sci-hist-stub}} to them, or expand history of science stubs into full articles.

Grab your favorite reference work and identify missing articles on notable scientists for the Missing scientist articles list, and/or create articles for them.

Improve this page and make it more useful for potential history of science editors and project members.

Invite active editors who write for history of science-related articles to join the project.

Add the project template {{HistSci}} to the talk pages of history of science articles, and modify the template if you feel it can be improved.

This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.

See also:

Writing and Editing needs

Other suggested projects

Open tasks

[edit] Participants

Ragesoss (talk • contribs) -- physical sciences, biological sciences, technology
dantheox (talk • contribs)
Xuanwu (talk • contribs)
Fastfission (talk • contribs) -- esp. modern physical and biological sciences
Linas (talk • contribs) -- limited to history of physics
Karol Langner (talk • contribs)
Pjacobi (talk • contribs)
Laurascudder (talk • contribs) -- history of physics and medicine
Heron (talk • contribs)
Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs)
Chaiken (talk • contribs) -- physics, materials science, electrical engineering
Kripkenstein (talk • contribs) -- history of philosophy and science in the Middle Ages
Eric Forste (talk • contribs) -- esp. chemistry, thermodynamics, biology
AppleRaven (talk • contribs) -- US Astronomy and Astronomical Observatories
deeptrivia (talk • contribs) -- mechanics, physics, engineering, thermodynamics, mathematics. I'll also help ensure that the perspective remains global rather than Eurocentric.
Tonymaric (talk • contribs)
DonSiano (talk • contribs) -- Industrial Revolution
Petaholmes (talk • contribs) -- biology esp. botany and genetics
Samsara (talk • contribs) -- biology, esp. translations of German articles
Joke137 (talk • contribs) -- cosmology, particle physics, general relativity. I don't know much, but I do what I can.
JackyR (talk • contribs) -- whatever I can remember from college HPS, but I might be good on local Cambridge stuff.
KSchutte (talk • contribs) -- history of natural philosophy, psychology, neuroscience
Peterlewis (talk • contribs) -- history of engineering
Lacatosias (talk • contribs) -- history of physics, math, logic.
Cugel (talk • contribs) -- psychology (anything to do with the scientific discipline)
Leinad-Z (talk • contribs) -- esp. medieval science, and the relationship between science and religion.
Sayeth (talk • contribs) -- biology, esp. neuroscience and molecular biology
Carboxen (talk • contribs) -- history of chemistry and geology, translations from German
Maestlin (talk • contribs) -- astronomy to Kepler/Galileo, Sci. Revolution, religion and science
Apwoolrich (talk • contribs) -- History and biography of historic mechanical engineering and invention; Industrial Revolution; Admin on Wikisource
Deditos (talk • contribs) -- Meteorology, climatology, oceanography and bits of other Earth science.
IanWills (talk • contribs) -- Engineering related including invention and the history of technology. Particularly interested in Edison and late nineteenth century American inventors.
Ricochet17 (talk • contribs) -- genetics, history of science 17th-19th centuries
SOPHIA (talk • contribs) -- History of astronomy, telescope manufacturers and astrophysics
Wijnand (talk • contribs) -- History of mathematics and its applications in technology, mainly 19th century
MikeMorley (talk • contribs) -- History of physics, mostly - will work elsewhere if can contribute. Undergrad Physicist, 'minored' in History and Philosophy of Science in 2nd year.
Beland (talk • contribs) -- Studied STS at MIT.
Dumarest (talk • contribs) -- M.D. Ph.D. biochemistry, research career in Sickle Cell Disease, now retired, and with time on my hands.
Sina2 (talk • contribs) -- Mathematics, Computing, Information
SteveMcCluskey (talk • contribs) -- History of Astronomy, Archaeoastronomy, Medieval Science
Goclenius (talk • contribs) -- natural philosophy, esp. 17th century and late Aristotelian; mathematics
General Eisenhower (talk • contribs)
Museumfreak (talk • contribs) -- HCI/informatics/history of computing, history of anthropology, science technology society, history of public health
Espresso Addict (talk • contribs) -- medicine esp. virology, microbiology; early British 19th C
TheGodEmperor (talk • contribs) -- limited mid-HS knowledge, but will help if I can
TedE (talk • contribs) -- PhD in statistics, currently teaching genetics.
Alexei Kouprianov (talk • contribs) -- PhD in History of Science, history of natural history, science in Russia. Background: M.Sc. biology.
Science History (talk • contribs)
WillowW (talk • contribs) -- Sincere dilettante; enjoys translating old texts
Bwi410 (talk • contribs)
Reswik (talk • contribs) -- science studies / sociology of science
Rusty Cashman (talk • contribs) -- Biology, Paleontology
hapagrrl1 (talk • contribs) -- MA in Victorian Studies
Curtius (talk • contribs) -- Ancients

[edit] Current goals

Current goals for the project include:

Identify and create missing history of science content
Organize and maintain the History of Science Collaboration of the Month
Improve the categorization and organization of history of science material
Gather interest and participation in a history of science community within Wikipedia, including a History of Science Collaboration project
Maintain and improve the History of Science Portal.
- Create summaries for biweekly selected articles.
- Find history of science related images for the weekly selected pictures.
- Update the Did you know? section with interesting history of science trivia.
- Create entries for the planned anniversaries section. Today's entry is Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/November 19.

[edit] Possible projects

Suggest something for participants to work on. Older suggestions will be archived; to see what work others have requested, go to the /Projects subpage.

I just started a child project, Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Biology to help sort out problems with articles like Monera and Ernst Haeckel. It seems that most of the participants in this current wikiproject lean toward history of the physical sciences, and it might be worthwhile to assemble a more focused group to help deal with problems in articles such as these two. --arkuat (talk) 03:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I have been working over the past couple of months to expand and organize the hypothetical astronomical objects category, especially hypothetical Objects of the Solar System. There is a lot of cleanup and sourcing that needs to be done, as well as research and general copyediting. It's a facinating study and it might warrent its own wikiproject. We need some help here, so anyone with a little time on their hands should visit these pages and check them out. Mrwuggs 21:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization and media

Wikipedia: Monitor the broad history of science categories and keep them clean by replacing overly broad categories with more specific ones.
Commons: Ensure that history of science-related images are properly categorized, especially in relevant history of science subcategories. Many history of science images are very poorly categorized, making it very difficult to find all the files on a given topic actually present.
Wikisource: Upload public domain content related to the history of science and ensure that existing content is properly categorized. There is currently very little marked history of science content on Wikisource.

[edit] Writing and Editing

[edit] Articles in need of expansion

Timeline of scientific discoveries - needs a lot of expansion and improvement; each time you work on another subject, check to see if relevant discoveries are present in the timeline
History of materials science
Atomic theory
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Lise Meitner
Natural philosophy
History of optics - work in progress - needs medieval to modern coverage
Natural history - very bare, with some dubious information
History of biology - still needs work
History of genetics - expand timelines into prose
Heredity - is currently very poor, very short, and does not go back into concepts of heredity before the late 19th century in any appreciable sense.
Max Delbrück
History of zoology, post-Darwin - partly from EB 1911, in bad shape; needs copyediting as well. Now included in the Zoology navigation template; high priority, needs to incorporate the other good history of biology articles where appropriate
History of zoology (before Darwin) - partly from EB 1911, in bad shape; needs copyediting as well. High priority; in Zoology navigation template
The relationship between religion and science - partially historical. Needs a stronger framework, discussion of different models for the relationship (conflict thesis, NOMA, etc.) and either a link to a historical main article or a signficant expansion of the historical part.
science studies
Silent Spring - needs section on historical significance, and better description of its contents; the only two sections of prose after the intro are currently Criticism and Vindication?, neither of which has much, if anything, worth keeping.
History of science in the Renaissance (links from history of science box)
History of molecular biology (see also molecular biology and Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids
Conflict thesis (aka, warfare model, Draper-White thesis) - The idea of a war between science and religion, which common in the historiography of sciece from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries, and is still common among non-historians.
Henri Becquerel
Sofya Yanovskaya
History of paleontology - new article needs help from 19th century on

[edit] Requested Articles

Missing scientist articles

History of environmental science (links from history of science box)
History of geology and/or History of earth science
Patronage in the Renaissance (see Patronage)
Book of Nature
Aristotelian Physics

Would this be "Aristotle's views on what we today call physics"? We have an article on Aristotle's Physics but I'm not sure that's what is meant. --Fastfission 18:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As in (I assume), the system of physics based on Aristotle's work, that was common in some form basically until Newton. Natural motion, natural place and the elements, violent motion, etc.--ragesoss 21:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Aristotelian Mechanics (maybe just one of these, I'm not sure of the relationship)

Just one, I think; the main separation in Aristotle seems to be life sciences/physics Maestlin 08:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

If the distinction is between Aristotelian natural philosophy (based on the Physics, Generation and corruption, Meteora and the biological works) and the tradition based on the Problemata mechanica attributed to Aristotle (and the various pseudo-Problemata that appeared in the Medieval period), then I think that separate pages are historically justified. —Goclenius 03:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Gravity theory

I think we need to separate Gravity from Gravity theory, but I'm not at all an expert on this. KSchutte 19:14, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Tetrabiblos - There is a discussion right now on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities under "Ptolemy" about the fact that it was redirecting. A stub article is needed as a placeholder.
Mertonian norms
Orb (astronomy) - The clear spherical shells in which celestial objects are imbedded in pre-Keplerian astronomy

Try Sphere (geocentric) for a starting point. Maestlin 19:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Project Cosmic[1]

[edit] Articles in need of heavy copyediting

Gottfried Leibnitz - hagiographic, massively too big and still growing
Nuclear arms race
Scientific Revolution
Galileo affair
Genealogy of theoretical physicists, survived AfD, but needs work
John Harrison - lots of decent text, but needs structure
Islamic science
Galileo's Daughter - As of 30 May 2006, reads like a freshman book review
Nicole Oresme - Relies largely on one ~~self-published~~ source - see discussion
Alchemy - Quality varies widely; ignores much of the extensive literature on the History of Alchemy.