The British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) was founded in 1947. It is Britain's largest learned society devoted to the history of science, technology, and medicine. The society's aim is to bring together people with interests in all aspects of the field, and to publicise relevant ideas within the wider research and teaching communities and the media. Its mission statements states the society will strive "to foster the understanding of the history and social impact of science, technology and medicine in all their branches in the academic and the wider communities, and to provide a national focus for the discipline."
Publications are a key feature of the Society's professional activity. Print publications include:
- The British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS): a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal, including articles and reviews of the latest books in the history of science, technology and medicine
- Viewpoint: newsletter of the Society, published three times a year and featuring news and views from across the field
- BSHS Monographs: work of lasting scholarly value that might not otherwise be made available, and aids the dissemination of innovative projects advancing scholarship or education in the field
Other publications are online, including the BSHS List of Theses, and the BSHS Guide to Institutions.
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“Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace.”
—Daniel Patrick Moynihan (20th century)
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
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“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)