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53-647: Space stations started appearing frequently in science fiction works following the release of the 1949 popular science book The Conquest of Space by Willy Ley , which deals with the subject. They serve several disparate functions in different works. Among these are industry, health benefits due to low gravity, prisons, and means to observe alien worlds. Several early works of the genre focused on space stations in Earth orbit or at Lagrange points as relay stations for interplanetary communication or transportation. Military uses for space stations appear, but being portrayed as

106-421: A boarding school for girls. In 1782, Mary Sr (the governess) married Joseph Day (1745–1811), a Birmingham merchant, and moved away. There was also a rumour that Darwin fathered another child, this time with a married woman. A Lucy Swift gave birth in 1771 to a baby, also named Lucy, who was christened a daughter of her mother and William Swift. It has been suggested that the father was really Darwin. However, it

159-425: A direct threat is comparatively rare. Occasionally, the space stations are connected to the planet they are orbiting via a space elevator , a concept which was introduced to science fiction separately by Arthur C. Clarke and Charles Sheffield in 1979. In fiction, space stations were largely superseded by space habitats in the final quarter of the 20th century. The first fictional space habitat proper (not counting

212-515: A letter to philosopher William Whewell , he wrote that the general public needed "digests of what is actually known in each particular branch of science... to give a connected view of what has been done, and what remains to be accomplished." Indeed, as the British population became not just increasingly literate but also well-educated, there was growing demand for science titles. Mary Somerville became an early and highly successful science writer of

265-476: A number of his family and derives from his ancestor Erasmus Earle , Common Sergent of England under Oliver Cromwell . His siblings were: He was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School, then later at St John's College , Cambridge . He obtained his medical education at the University of Edinburgh Medical School . Darwin settled in 1756 as a physician at Nottingham, but met with little success and so moved

318-407: A system of pathology and a chapter on ' Generation '. In the latter, he anticipated some of the views of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , which foreshadowed the modern theory of evolution . Erasmus Darwin's works were read and commented on by his grandson Charles Darwin the naturalist. Erasmus Darwin based his theories on David Hartley 's psychological theory of associationism . The essence of his views

371-453: A wide variety of problems with space habitats, including dilapidation while humans are still living there, vulnerability to sabotage, and the potential for a wealthy elite in space to exploit the inhabitants of Earth. A recurring theme in these works is tensions between the inhabitants of the habitats and planet-dwellers. Inasmuch as they provide opportunities for telling stories of isolated populations with diverse cultures, space habitats serve

424-452: Is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience . While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written by professional science journalists or by scientists themselves. It is presented in many forms, including books, film and television documentaries, magazine articles, and web pages. Before the modern specialization and professionalization of science, there

477-509: Is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion that one and the same kind of living filament is and has been the cause of all organic life: Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with

530-480: Is described in unflattering detail in his Biographical Memoirs, printed by the Monthly Magazine in 1802. Darwin, the description reads, "was of middle stature, in person gross and corpulent; his features were coarse, and his countenance heavy; if not wholly void of animation, it certainly was by no means expressive. The print of him, from a painting of Mr. Wright, is a good likeness. In his gait and dress he

583-511: Is more likely that this child was the legitimate daughter of Lamech Swift, at that time owner of the Derby Silk Mill and his wife Dorothy, who became a friend of the two Parker girls. Lucy Swift, later known as Lucy Hardcastle after her marriage, went on to be known as a botanist and teacher. In 1775, Darwin met Elizabeth Pole, daughter of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore , and wife of Colonel Edward Pole (1718–1780); but as she

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636-477: The struggle for existence . His poetry was admired by Wordsworth , while Coleridge was intensely critical, writing, "I absolutely nauseate Darwin's poem". It often made reference to his interests in science; for example botany and steam engines . The last two leaves of Darwin's A plan for the conduct of female education in boarding schools (1797) contain a book list, an apology for the work, and an advert for "Miss Parkers School". The school advertised on

689-482: The "three great objects of desire" for every organism: "lust, hunger, and security." A similar "survival of the fittest" view in Zoönomia is Erasmus' view on how a species "should" propagate itself. Erasmus' idea that "the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved". Today, this is called the theory of survival of the fittest . His grandson Charles Darwin posited

742-527: The English names of plants that we use today. Darwin then wrote The Loves of the Plants , a long poem, which was a popular rendering of Linnaeus' works. Darwin also wrote Economy of Vegetation , and together the two were published as The Botanic Garden . Among other writers he influenced were Anna Seward and Maria Jacson . Darwin's most important scientific work, Zoonomia (1794–1796), contains

795-581: The Lichfield Botanical Society (despite the name, composed of only three men, Erasmus Darwin, Sir Brooke Boothby and Mr John Jackson, proctor of Lichfield Cathedral ) to translate the works of the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus from Latin into English. This took seven years. The result was two publications: A System of Vegetables between 1783 and 1785, and The Families of Plants in 1787. In these volumes, Darwin coined many of

848-788: The Lunar Society, and especially Darwin, opposed the slave trade . He attacked it in The Botanic Garden (1789–1791), and in The Loves of Plants (1789), The Economy of Vegetation (1791), and the Phytologia (1800). In 1761, Darwin was elected a fellow of the Royal Society . In addition to the Lunar Society, Erasmus Darwin belonged to the influential Derby Philosophical Society , as did his brother-in-law Samuel Fox (see family tree below). He experimented with

901-497: The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin . Popular science is a bridge between scientific literature as a professional medium of scientific research, and the realms of popular political and cultural discourse. The goal of the genre is often to capture the methods and accuracy of science while making the language more accessible. Many science-related controversies are discussed in popular science books and publications, such as

954-611: The broader world. An example is Susanna Wright , who was raised in Lancashire and became an American colonist associated with the Midlands Enlightenment. It is not known whether Darwin and Wright knew each other, although they definitely knew many people in common. Other women who received substantial education and who participated in the broader world (albeit sometimes anonymously) whom Darwin definitely knew were Maria Jacson and Anna Seward . These dates indicate

1007-576: The cosmological theories of the Big Bang and Big Crunch to the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Erasmus Darwin had speculated on these sorts of events in The Botanic Garden, A Poem in Two Parts: Part 1, The Economy of Vegetation, 1791 : Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time; Near and more near your beamy cars approach, And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; — Flowers of

1060-477: The course of the last Spring, from which, after repeated bleedings, by himself and a surgeon, he with great difficulty recovered." Darwin's death, the Biographical Memoirs continues, "is variously accounted for: it is supposed to have been caused by the cold fit of an inflammatory fever. Dr. Fox, of Derby, considers the disease which occasioned it to have been angina pectoris ; but Dr. Garlicke, of

1113-399: The daughter of Charles Howard, a Lichfield solicitor. They had four sons and one daughter, two of whom (a son and a daughter) died in infancy: The first Mrs. Darwin died in 1770. A governess , Mary Parker, was hired to look after Robert. By late 1771, employer and employee had become intimately involved and together they had two illegitimate daughters: Susanna and Mary Jr later established

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1166-415: The didactic poem " Phenomena " written a century later and commented on by Hipparchus . Explaining science in poetic form was not uncommon, and as recently as 1791, Erasmus Darwin wrote The Botanic Garden , two long poems intended to interest and educate readers in botany. Many Greek and Roman scientific handbooks were written for the lay audience, and this "handbook" tradition continued right through to

1219-411: The different and fuller theory of natural selection. Charles' theory was that natural selection is the inheritance of changed genetic characteristics that are better adaptations to the environment; these are not necessarily based in "strength" and "activity", which themselves ironically can lead to the overpopulation that results in natural selection yielding nonsurvivors of genetic traits. Erasmus Darwin

1272-409: The first sentence of the 1818 Preface to Frankenstein to support his contention that the creation of life is possible. His wife Mary Shelley in her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein wrote that she overheard her husband talk about Darwin's experiments with Lord Byron about unspecified "experiments of Dr. Darwin" that led to the idea for the novel. Contemporary literature dates

1325-729: The following year to Lichfield to try to establish a practice there. A few weeks after his arrival, using a novel course of treatment, he restored the health of a young fisherman whose death seemed inevitable. This ensured his success in the new locale. Darwin was a highly successful physician for more than fifty years in the Midlands . In 1761, he was elected to the Royal Society . George III invited him to be Royal Physician , but Darwin declined. Darwin married twice and had 14 children, including two illegitimate daughters by an employee, and, possibly, at least one further illegitimate daughter. In 1757 he married Mary (Polly) Howard (1740–1770),

1378-466: The invention of the printing press, with much later examples including books of secrets such as Giambattista Della Porta 's 1558 " Magia Naturalis " and Isabella Cortese 's 1561 " Secreti ". The 17th century saw the beginnings of the modern scientific revolution and the consequent need for explicit popular science writing. Although works such as Galileo 's 1632 " Il Saggiatore " and Robert Hooke 's 1665 " Micrographia " were read by both scientists and

1431-1054: The last page is the one he set up in Ashbourne, Derbyshire , for his two illegitimate children, Susanna and Mary. Darwin regretted that a good education had not been generally available to women in Britain in his time, and drew on the ideas of Locke , Rousseau , and Genlis in organising his thoughts. Addressing the education of middle-class girls, Darwin argued that amorous romance novels were inappropriate and that they should seek simplicity in dress. He contends that young women should be educated in schools, rather than privately at home, and learn appropriate subjects. These subjects include physiognomy, physical exercise, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, and experimental philosophy . They should familiarise themselves with arts and manufactures through visits to sites like Coalbrookdale , and Wedgwood's potteries; they should learn how to handle money, and study modern languages. Darwin's educational philosophy took

1484-473: The long-running debates over biological determinism and the biological components of intelligence, stirred by popular books such as The Mismeasure of Man and The Bell Curve . The purpose of scientific literature is to inform and persuade peers regarding the validity of observations and conclusions and the forensic efficacy of methods. Popular science attempts to inform and convince scientific outsiders (sometimes along with scientists in other fields) of

1537-542: The nineteenth century. Her On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), intended for the mass audience, sold quite well. Arguably one of the first books in modern popular science, it contained few diagrams and very little mathematics. Ten editions of the book were published, and it was translated into multiple languages. It was the most popular science title from the publisher John Murray until On

1590-423: The obdurate beauty move With soft attentions of Platonic love. Darwin's final long poem, The Temple of Nature , was published posthumously in 1803. The poem was originally titled The Origin of Society . It is considered his best poetic work. It centres on his own conception of evolution . The poem traces the progression of life from micro-organisms to civilised society. The poem contains a passage that describes

1643-410: The power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end! Erasmus Darwin also anticipated survival of the fittest in Zoönomia mainly when writing about

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1696-461: The public, Newton's 1687 Principia was incomprehensible for most readers, so popularizations of Newton's ideas soon followed. Popular science writing surged in countries such as France, where books such as Fontenelle 's 1686 Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds were best-sellers. By 1830, astronomer John Herschel had recognized the need for the specific genre of popular science. In

1749-514: The rest of his Cities in Flight series—where they are cities roaming through space. Space habitats featured only intermittently in science fiction until 1977, when Gerard K. O'Neill 's speculative nonfiction book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space was published and went on to inspire numerous authors. The works inspired by O'Neill range from utopian to dystopian ; the latter foresee

1802-776: The results. Statements in the scientific literature are often qualified and tentative, emphasizing that new observations and results are consistent with and similar to established knowledge wherein qualified scientists are assumed to recognize the relevance. By contrast, popular science often emphasizes uniqueness and generality and may have a tone of factual authority absent from the scientific literature. Comparisons between original scientific reports, derivative science journalism, and popular science typically reveals at least some level of distortion and oversimplification . Erasmus Darwin Erasmus Robert Darwin FRS (12 December 1731 – 18 April 1802)

1855-542: The rolls of the Lodge but it is very possible that he, like Francis, was a Mason. Darwin died suddenly on 18 April 1802, weeks after having moved to Breadsall Priory , just north of Derby . The Monthly Magazine of 1802, in its Biographical Memoirs of the Late Dr. Darwin, reports that "during the last few years, Dr. Darwin was much subject to inflammation in his breast and lungs; he had a very serious attack of this disease in

1908-484: The same function in space that islands serve on Earth in earlier speculative fiction , though some science fiction works such as the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 take the opposite approach of portraying space habitats as multicultural centres where members of different spacefaring civilizations coexist peacefully. Popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci )

1961-646: The same place, thinks this opinion not sufficiently well founded. Whatever was the disease, it is not improbable, surely, that the fatal event was hastened by the violent fit of passion with which he was seized in the morning." His body is buried in All Saints' Church, Breadsall . Erasmus Darwin is commemorated on one of the Moonstones , a series of monuments in Birmingham . Darwin formed 'A Botanical Society, at Lichfield' almost always incorrectly named as

2014-417: The same! Darwin was the inventor of several devices, though he did not patent any: he believed this would damage his reputation as a doctor. He encouraged his friends to patent their own modifications of his designs. In notes dating to 1779, Darwin made a sketch of a simple hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine , with gas tanks connected by plumbing and pumps to an elongated combustion chamber and expansion nozzle,

2067-434: The scientific literature. Some usual features of popular science productions include: The purpose of scientific literature is to inform and persuade peers regarding the validity of observations and conclusions and the forensic efficacy of methods. Popular science attempts to inform and convince scientific outsiders (sometimes along with scientists in other fields) of the significance of data and conclusions and to celebrate

2120-431: The significance of data and conclusions and to celebrate the results. Statements in the scientific literature are often qualified and tentative, emphasizing that new observations and results are consistent with and similar to established knowledge wherein qualified scientists are assumed to recognize the relevance. By contrast, popular science emphasizes uniqueness and generality, taking a tone of factual authority absent from

2173-452: The sky! ye too to age must yield, Frail as your silken sisters of the field. Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush, Suns sink on suns, and systems, systems crush, Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, And death and night and chaos mingle all: — Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form, Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and

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2226-514: The unintentional one in "The Brick Moon") was featured in the 1931 novella " The Prince of Space " by Jack Williamson ; it is a cylinder 1,520 metres (5,000 ft) long and wide which rotates to create artificial gravity . Besides cylinders, space habitats in fiction also come in the shapes of spheres, wheels, and hollowed-out asteroids, among others. A more unusual depiction is seen in James Blish 's 1955 book Earthman, Come Home —as well as

2279-627: The use of air and gases to alleviate infections and cancers in patients. A Pneumatic Institution was established at Clifton in 1799 for clinically testing these ideas. He conducted research into the formation of clouds, on which he published in 1788. He also inspired Robert Weldon's Somerset Coal Canal caisson lock . In 1792, Darwin was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia . Percy Bysshe Shelley specifically mentions Darwin in

2332-399: The view that men and women should have different capabilities, skills, interests, and spheres of action, where the woman's education was designed to support and serve male accomplishment and financial reward, and to relieve him of daily responsibility for children and the chores of life. In the context of the times, this program may be read as a modernising influence in the sense that the woman

2385-629: The year in which Darwin became friends with these people, who, in turn, became members of the Lunar Society . The Lunar Society existed from 1765 to 1813. Before 1765: After 1765: Darwin also established a lifelong friendship with Benjamin Franklin , who shared Darwin's support for the American and French revolutions. The Lunar Society was instrumental as an intellectual driving force behind England's Industrial Revolution . The members of

2438-534: Was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham , a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers. He turned down an invitation from George III to become Physician to the King . Darwin was born in 1731 at Elston Hall , Nottinghamshire, near Newark-on-Trent , England, the youngest of seven children of Robert Darwin of Elston (1682–1754), a lawyer and physician, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702–97). The name Erasmus had been used by

2491-579: Was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment , he was also a natural philosopher , physiologist , slave-trade abolitionist , inventor, freemason , and poet. His poems included much natural history , including a statement of evolution and the relatedness of all forms of life . He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family , which includes his grandsons Charles Darwin and Francis Galton . Darwin

2544-478: Was at least to learn about the "man's world", although not be allowed to participate in it. The text was written seven years after A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft , which has the central argument that women should be educated in a rational manner to give them the opportunity to contribute to society. Some women of Darwin's era were receiving more substantial education and participating in

2597-432: Was familiar with the earlier proto-evolutionary thinking of James Burnett, Lord Monboddo , and cited him in his 1803 work Temple of Nature. Erasmus Darwin offered the first glimpse of his theory of evolution, obliquely, in a question at the end of a long footnote to his popular poem The Loves of the Plants (1789), which was republished throughout the 1790s in several editions as The Botanic Garden . His poetic concept

2650-409: Was married, Darwin could only make his feelings known for her through poetry. When Edward Pole died, Darwin married Elizabeth and moved to her home, Radbourne Hall , four miles (6.4 km) west of Derby. The hall and village are these days known as Radbourne . In 1782, they moved to Full Street, Derby. They had four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and three daughters: Darwin's personal appearance

2703-442: Was often little distinction between "science" and "popular science", and works intended to share scientific knowledge with a general reader existed as far back as Greek and Roman antiquity. Without these popular works, much of the scientific knowledge of the era might have been lost. For example, none of the original works of the 4th century BC Greek astronomer Eudoxus have survived, but his contributions were largely preserved due to

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2756-581: Was rather clumsy and slovenly, and frequently walked with his tongue hanging out of his mouth." Darwin had been a Freemason throughout his life, in the Time Immemorial Lodge of Cannongate Kilwinning, No. 2, of Scotland. Later on, Sir Francis Darwin , one of his sons, was made a Mason in Tyrian Lodge, No. 253, at Derby, in 1807 or 1808. His son Reginald was made a Mason in Tyrian Lodge in 1804. Charles Darwin 's name does not appear on

2809-554: Was to anthropomorphise the stamen (male) and pistil (female) sexual organs, as bride and groom. In this stanza on the flower Curcuma (also Flax and Turmeric) the "youths" are infertile, and he devotes the footnote to other examples of neutered organs in flowers, insect castes, and finally associates this more broadly with many popular and well-known cases of vestigial organs (male nipples, the third and fourth wings of flies, etc.) Woo'd with long care, CURCUMA cold and shy Meets her fond husband with averted eye: Four beardless youths

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