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Without giving this sufficient thought I'd say we are becoming a society of what if's… let me think on this some and I'll try to make more sense.
It is impossible to completely remove our cultural filters, that is why it is imperative that research be peer reviewed (differing cultural filters), and tested through rigorous presentations of evidence along with thorough explanations. ....
Agreed; as long as we know we have a bias we can try to accomidate it and work around it, peer review is a good step too.
....I don't know. Some of this actually bothers me, although I think it's probably important to know the common "lenses" through which historical criticism is applied. Anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with this?
Thematic history is okay as long as one remembers the lens though which you are viewing event. I tell my students about the cultural filters we have (can't help it, just is the case) and as long as we understand they are likely to distort our view we can deal with them. FWIW.Wally
We have to defend even speech we don't like; simply put we can't judge what people say as long as it isn't inciting law breaking. [Devil's advocate here, FWIW.]
Gotta love the French! Right, Wally? 😀
Your reply came in as I was working on this but I'll post it as it seems to confirm what we're both finding... the French (and others) may have had too much time on their hands... 😉 According to O'Brien and Sibley (in The Photographic Eye; Davis Publications; 1995) the first prints appear between 1816 and 1840 although "[t]he first recorded discovery that certain chemicals turned black when exposed to light was made in 1725." This by Johann Heinrich Schulze [German anatomy professor].They go on that basic camera design has been around since [at least] the 1500's and that the Chinese had figured it out perhaps by the fourth century.Carl Wilhelm Scheele [Swede] gets credit for figuring out the basic process that allows us to "fix" the image... get rid of the excess light sensitive material to stablize and preserve the image. Over the next 40 or so years getting the image onto paper was the quest. Frenchman, Joseph Nicephon Niepce figures out emulsion when he creates a light-sensitive varnish out of an esoteric type of asphalt... used it to coat glass or pewter plates... first perminent images from a camera. Daguerre in concert with Niepce and later Niepce's son is the one that locks in on using silver in the emulsion. His claim to fame, the daguerrotype is the first photgraphic process that can be done outside of a laboratory (according to O'B and S; pg 12, TPE).By 1835, Brit, Henry Fox Talbot gets us on paper with the calotype or talbotype. Another Brit, Fredrick Scott Archer gives us the wet-plate process... an improvement that Talbot sued him over the proprietary rights and lost... the process became freely available to everyone, as Archer wanted.From there photography takes off.BTW; the deal with the recording just shows, again, it's the one with the PR that gets the credit. MacKenzie and his crew were the first across North America in the 1790's but Lewis and Clark get all the press, eh?Cheers,Wally
Wally got it!He was a genius, and not malicious. Well, except maybe a little towards France.
...what exactly does Wally have against France? ;D ;D ;D
Nothing really; they helped Italy and Egypt lots by selling them their surplus tanks... four speeds in reverse was an real asset for all involved methinks. 😉
