Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume I
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume I
- Part I Rethinking the Pacific
- Part II Humans and the Natural World in the Pacific Ocean
- 6 Indigenous Knowledge/Science of Climate and the Natural World
- 7 The Birth and Development of Pacific Islands to 1800 ce
- 8 Atolls, Experiments, and the Origin of Islands
- 9 Natural Hazards, Risks, and Peoples in the Pacific World
- Part III Deep Time: Sources for the Ancient History of the Pacific
- Part IV The Initial Colonization of the Pacific
- Part V The Evolution of Pacific Communities
- Part VI Europe’s Maritime Expansion into the Pacific
- References to Volume I
- Index
8 - Atolls, Experiments, and the Origin of Islands
Science as a Way of Knowing the Pacific since 1766
from Part II - Humans and the Natural World in the Pacific Ocean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2022
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume I
- Frontispiece
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Preface to Volume I
- Part I Rethinking the Pacific
- Part II Humans and the Natural World in the Pacific Ocean
- 6 Indigenous Knowledge/Science of Climate and the Natural World
- 7 The Birth and Development of Pacific Islands to 1800 ce
- 8 Atolls, Experiments, and the Origin of Islands
- 9 Natural Hazards, Risks, and Peoples in the Pacific World
- Part III Deep Time: Sources for the Ancient History of the Pacific
- Part IV The Initial Colonization of the Pacific
- Part V The Evolution of Pacific Communities
- Part VI Europe’s Maritime Expansion into the Pacific
- References to Volume I
- Index
Summary
This chapter focuses on the knowledge tradition known as science, as it was practised in the Pacific during the two and a half centuries following Bougainville and Cook’s voyages of self-consciously ‘scientific’ exploration in the late eighteenth century.1 Rather than trying to summarize the full breadth of scientific activities in the Pacific across more than 250 years, I will focus on one continuous tradition of research – studies of how islands were formed – that brings into relief three broader themes characteristic of scientific ways of knowing Oceania: the significance of typological (or taxonomic) thinking c. 1770–1850; a shift in the effects of long-distance travel on scientific practices and theories from about 1820 to 1920; and the tendency to view individual Pacific islands as ‘laboratories’ for the development of scientific ideas from the late nineteenth century to the present.
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- The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean , pp. 174 - 197Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023