Article ID: CBB001034614

Watching Exotic Animals Next Door: “Scientific” Observations at the Zoo (ca. 1870--1910) (2011)

unapi

Hochadel, Oliver (Author)


Science in Context
Volume: 24
Pages: 183--214


Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: “Lay Participation in the History of Scientific Observation”
Language: English

The nineteenth century witnessed the advent of the modern zoo. Nearly everyone who came to watch the exotic animals was a lay person in the sense that virtually none had formal training in zoology. This paper provides a typology of these observers: the zoo directors, assistants, keepers, animal painters, and the common visitor. What did they observe and what were their motivations? Did they pursue a certain agenda? What kind of knowledge, if any, did they produce? Soon the issue of the reliability of these observations emerged. Lay observers insisted on the veracity of their intimate and personal knowledge of animals while academics complained that their claims could not be generalized and were tainted by anthropomorphism. Hence the focus on the observations of these laymen will reveal contemporary assumptions on what may count as scientific. This is closely linked to the question of how far the zoo may qualify as a site of scientific investigation in the first place. The constraints on doing research on animals in a public space such as the zoo were numerous. Yet despite these obstacles the zoological garden contributed to the rise of ecological thinking as well as to the formation of ethology as a scientific discipline.

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Article Vetter, Jeremy (2011) Introduction. Science in Context (p. 127). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001034614/

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Authors & Contributors
Vetter, Jeremy
Larsson, Eleanor
Uwe Albrecht
Loskutova, Marina
Wessely, Christina
Schratter, Dagmar
Concepts
Natural history
Zoos
Science and society
Zoology
Amateurs
Popularization
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Places
London (England)
United States
Russia
Germany
Europe
Moscow (Russia)
Institutions
Zoological Society of London
Zoologischer Garten Berlin
Tiergarten Schönbrunn (Vienna)
United States. Weather Bureau
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