Wonderful column on this most important subject. The connection between the aunt and Herschel was unknown to me and it is a really interesting one. I was well aware of Darwin's meeting and his thinking on these issues, but these links are new to the aunt are new to me.
In some ways it adds to discussions regarding hidden actors in history. I think that often the role of women has been ignored (from Franklin crystallography, to women doing computing, etc) and now there is yet another avenue open to ever more discovery-- the role of women in nurturing thinking about nature and understanding the world.
Wonderful column on this most important subject. The connection between the aunt and Herschel was unknown to me and it is a really interesting one. I was well aware of Darwin's meeting and his thinking on these issues, but these links are new to the aunt are new to me.
In some ways it adds to discussions regarding hidden actors in history. I think that often the role of women has been ignored (from Franklin crystallography, to women doing computing, etc) and now there is yet another avenue open to ever more discovery-- the role of women in nurturing thinking about nature and understanding the world.