Science: A Peculiar History

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Science: A Peculiar History

A podcast about strange, amusing and intriguing episodes from the history of science.

Episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or most places you can get podcasts

09/02/2026

In 1925, the Tennessee State Legislature passed the Butler Act, banning public schools from teaching the Theory of Evolution. With the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, who wanted to create a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act, and several notables from Dayton, Tennessee, who wanted to bring press coverage to their obscure town, the Dayton schoolteacher John Scopes admitted to teaching evolution.

At the trial, the defense attempted to introduce expert witnesses testifying that the Theory of Evolution was correct (and thus that the act violated Scopes's academic freedom), but the judge ruled them inadmissible. The result was that the trial ended up dominated by two celebrity lawyers - Clarence Darrow for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution - arguing about the merits of the Theory of Evolution (which the judge considered to be completely irrelevant to the case).

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. The ACLU appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, who overturned the conviction on a technicality.

03/02/2026

In my research for the next episode, I've stumbled upon this truly splendid Wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-linguistic_onomatopoeias

01/02/2026

A comparison of human and bird skeletons, with letters marking corresponding parts between the two skeletons, from Pierre Belon's 1555 Ornithological volume 'L'Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux'.

27/01/2026

NEW EPISODE

The Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great's conquests led to him ruling most of the Indian Subcontinent - and he became obsessed with learning everything he could about the various religions practiced in his Empire. But amid his religious enquiry, he's said to have conducted another, more sinister investigation, into the mechanisms of language acquisition.

The 5th episode of the current miniseries introduces the last of the four experiments that this series is covering.

The image, from an early 19th century Persian manuscript, shows Akbar the Great conversing with his vizier Abul Fazl, the author of the Emperor's authorised biography, the 'Akbarnama'.

26/01/2026

Ah me, for I am much deſirous to know anon yͤ Pleaſures of yͤ Female S*x withoute yͤ Marital Sheets. But alas! For methinks perchance twere a moſte ſinfull Acte & to do thus were to forſake my Soule to yͤ Fires of Eᴛᴇʀɴᴀʟ Dᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ. I ſhall ſeek Guidance in yͤ righteous Commands which yͤ Lᴏʀᴅ did beſtow unto Mᴏꜱᴇꜱ atop Mᴏᴜɴᴛ Sɪɴᴀɪ & examine yͤ Text of yͤ Hᴏʟʏ Bɪʙʟᴇ, faithfully rendered in yͤ English Tongue during yͤ Reign of yͤ late Kɪɴɢ Jᴀᴍᴇꜱ by yͤ moſte expert Scholars & Divines in yͤ Realm.

Yͤ Lᴏʀᴅ be thanked that I did of late acquyre yͤ new Edition, late issued forth from yͤ Preſs of Robert Barker & Martin Lucas in yͤ Yeare 1631. I have no doubt that theſe eſteemed Printers have taken yͤ utmoſte Care to enſure that not a ſingle Word is miſplaced, leſt yͤ ſlighteſt Error corrupt yͤ Wᴏʀᴅ ᴏꜰ Gᴏᴅ & cauſe Godly Folk, ſeeking guidance in yͤ Ways of Righteouſneſſe, to be inſtead led in the Path of Wickedneſſe, that leadeth unto Dᴇᴀᴛʜ.

23/01/2026

An authentic reconstruction of what Adam and Eve might have said to each other in the Garden of Eden (Goropius Becanus, 1569).

18/01/2026

In 1896, just weeks after Wilhelm Röntgen announced his discovery of X-rays, Austrian photographers Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta published a remarkable series of X-ray photographs, mostly of various animals, titled "Versuche über Photographie mittelst der Röntgen'schen Strahlen" - "Experiments in Photography using Röntgen Rays". Pictured are a Moorish idol fish (Zanclus cornutus) and a grey-head surgeonfish (Acanthurus nigros).

13/01/2026

The 16th-century Flemish anatomist Andries van Wenzel, better known by his Latinised name Andreas Vesalius, is best known for his series of anatomical illustrations in his 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica' - 'On the Fabric of the Human Body'. These are far from the dry schematics we're used to now. Vesalius gives us detailed illustrations of skeletons and flayed cadavers in artistic poses, showing the muscular and skeletal systems as if in life, as if someone's skin just momentarily disappeared while they were going about their day without them realising. Mostly later in the book, when Vesalius illustrates the digestive, urinary and reproductive systems, the illustrations show not tidy diagrams like we're often used to seeing, but lifelike illustrations of what these organs would actually look like to someone dissecting a cadaver (albeit often with the artistic flourish of making the rest of the body resemble a broken classical statue).

Until the 16th century, European medical knowledge mostly depended on the Roman physician Galen. The problem was that he never carried out human dissections, which were illegal under Roman Law, and the closest he came was dissecting monkeys. Human dissection was rare (although not unheard of) in Medieval Europe, but by the time of Vesalius it was becoming increasingly normalised, and through conducting human dissections, in front of gruesomely fascinated spectators, with bodies brought straight from public executions, Vesalius was able to identify a range of errors made by Galen.

In the time of Vesalius, the physical work of dissecting cadavers was usually seen as beneath the dignity of medical doctors themselves, and it was generally left to barber-surgeons to do the actual cutting, while the doctors watched. But Vesalius insisted on doing dissections himself, and you can tell from his work that this is a man genuinely passionate about the craft of human dissection, fascinated by the human body as a messy, tangible, physical system.

09/01/2026

NEW EPISODE

Following on from the last episode, about James IV of Scotland's rumored language deprivation experiment, this episode attempts to address the question of why someone in the 16th Century might have thought it was plausible that children raised without exposure to language might end up spontaneously speaking Hebrew, meeting a range of colourful characters from the world of Renaissance linguistics on the way, including a linguist who thought a Venetian nun was the female equivalent of Christ, and another who claimed Adam spoke an early form of Dutch.

Pictured: the frontispiece of Guillaume Postel's 1538 work "Introduction to 12 Languages with Characters in Different Alphabets", featuring (what I think is probably) the motto "in great things, to will is enough" in Samaritan, Chaldean, Arabic, Hebrew, Ge'ez, Armenian, Greek and Latin

29/12/2025

A bit of news about the next episode (about James IV of Scotland's supposed linguistic experiment in the context Renaissance ideas about the origins of language).

I know it's been ages, but it is coming. I lost a couple of weeks recovering from surgery, which took longer than I anticipated, and that meant that by the time I'd finished writing it I had run into Christmas (and I'm not going to record and release entirely non-Christmas-related content on Christmas Day). I was planning on recording it today but now I've got a cold and my voice is very rough, so if I were to record it now it would just sound bad. But I have finished writing it, and I guess I can get a head start on writing the next episode while my voice recovers to an acceptable quality, and then I'll record it as soon as I can.

The image is a postcard, c. 1906, depicting a group of monkeys celebrating Christmas, toasting a portrait of Charles Darwin.
Source: darwin-online.org.uk (as part of a whole, fascinating collection of satirical depictions of Charles Darwin: darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_Caricatures_of_Darwin.html)

04/11/2025

“The November Meteors”, from The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, 1882.

More of Étienne Léopold Trouvelot's wonderful images here: https://buff.ly/2ENtY5g; and if you fancy some on your walls check out the Trouvelot prints in our shop here: https://buff.ly/2t0nVrg

03/11/2025

Happy Jellyfish Day! The oceans are increasingly full of these gelatinous invertebrates, provoking a range of responses in humans, from disgust to awe. The biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel was definitely in the latter camp. See more of his exquisite jellyfish illustrations and read about his fascination (and the tragedy that underpinned it) here: https://buff.ly/3q2G03j

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