Museums that threw out meteorite collections in the late 1700s

[Ersby]

Hello. I recently found an answer to a question that I'd been wondering about for some time, and I thought I'd put it up here in case anyone else had heard of the same thing and wanted to know more too.

Several times over the years, I've read the claim that in the late 18th century the scientific establishment so comprehensively rubbished the eye-witness reports of meteorites, that museums across Europe threw out their collections of meteorie specimins. Two examples of this are:

“So great was the prestige of the committee and so convincing its arguments that museums all over Western Europe threw away their meteorite specimens.”
Chris Carter, “Parapsychology and the Skeptics”, 2007

“Museums all over Europe had thrown out their cherished meteorite specimens with the rubbish as humiliating reminders of a superstitious past. Today scarcely a single specimen is known that predates 1790, except for the 280-pound stone that fell in Alsace in 1492, that is kept in the town hall of Ensisheim, and that proved too heavy for even the Academie Fancaise to dislodge.”
Richard Milton, “Alternative Science: Challenging the Myths of the Scientific Establishment”, 1996

And this claim pops up on the occasional web site as an example of why mainstream science can't be trusted. It was such an interesting claim, that I wanted to find out more.

A reference, when one is given, points us to Paneth, “Science and Miracle”, Durham University Journal. Keen to find out more about this travesty of science, I paid for a copy of the paper, where I read:

“it is a sad reflection that in those days many public museums threw away whatever they possessed of these precious meteorites; it happened in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy and Austria.”

So, not quite “all over Europe”, but across five countries. But still quite an event.

Still wanting to know more, I kept searching periodically until recently I found this quote from the book “Cosmic Debris: Meteorites in History”, by John G. Burke (available on Google Books)

From Chapter 6:

“Chladni, in his Uber Feuer-Meteore (1819), decried the fact that some meteorites in collections were discarded in the eighteenth century, terming their removal “Enlightenment vandalism.” These acts, he wrote, occurred at five places: Dresden, Vienna, Copenhagen, Bern and Verone; and they involved meteorites from two sixteenth-century and four seventeenth century falls”

So the claim has changed from a mass deletion of data entailing museums from across Europe, to it happening in just five museums, concerning the collections from six falls. Not so dramatic. Burke goes on to explain that museums didn't really exist in the way we understand them in the late 1700s, and he points out some questionable aspects of these collections, before adding:

“Yet of the twenty seven falls in the eighteenth century that are now considered to have actually occurred, specimens of eighteen (two thirds) still exist in collections.”

So if you do find yourself faced with someone who uses this as an example of how dishonest science is in the face of new data, you can explain to them how it's an example of how lazy new age writers are in chasing up their references.

 

[MRC_Hans]

So if you do find yourself faced with someone who uses this as an example of how dishonest science is in the face of new data, you can explain to them how it's an example of how lazy new age writers are in chasing up their references.

Interesting. However, to people who try to judge modern science by 18th century events, I have a more general reply.

Hans

 

[Big Les]

Very interesting Ersby. I'm a museum curator myself, and would also point out that;

a) Very few museum objects that survive today have been in museum collections since the 1700s. I think you'll find that 'scarcely a single specimen' of virtually any category of object dates from pre-1790 (in terms of when it was collected obviously, not when it was made - in the case of meteorites this is more often going to be approximately the same date).

b) With no best practice, documentation, or standards of any kind, any museum could throw away, destroy, sell or exchange any object in its collection - and many will have done. Knowing whether a given meteorite specimen was disposed of at all is going to be next to impossible - let alone the reasons for doing so.

 

[Darat]

Fascinating post Ersby; interesting to see the process of Chinese whispers in action.

 

[Big Les]

Take the British Museum, and the Natural History Museum that spun off from it later (same geological collection).

The Natural History Museum in London houses one of the world's finest collections of meteorites, with around 2,000 individual specimens represented. The collection has grown from small beginnings: the first three meteorites were acquired by the British Museum in 1802, just as the general acceptance that meteorites were natural phenomena was gaining ground.

I think it's safe to say that the BM was a world-leading institution, and even it was little more than a cabinet of curiosities up to c1780 (with no bloody meteorites in the first place!).

 

[marksman]

I was initially astounded that it wasn't until the early 19th century that there was "general acceptance that meteorites were natural phenomena". Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1453. Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in 1632. But then I found (thanks to Wikipedia) that the astronomer Johann Daniel Titius von Wittenburg first observed the asteroid belt in 1760, and it wasn't until 1802 that William Herschel first coined the term "asteroid".

So it makes sense that people weren't saving rocks until the early 1800's. When did anybody even first hypothesize there were space rocks falling to Earth? Again, according to Wikipedia, it was Ernst Florens Chladni in 1794. 1794!

What did people think these rocks were before 1794? I presume, only weird looking rocks.

The fact that it took only eight years for science to accept this new theory of meteorites indicates that science is actually handling things pretty darn well.

 

[blutoski]

To be frank, I have a different approach to the "Galileo Gambit^WP"

I would turn it around: how does this person know that it was wrong to throw out alleged meteorites? Is he saying that meteorites are not really from outerspace?

The claim is self-contradictory: either he thinks science is capable of constructing reliable knowlege about the universe (in which case, it was a shame that meteorites were thrown out) or science isn't capable of constructing reliable knowlege about the universe (in which case, maybe those were just rocks after all, so it's a bad example).

ie: fish or cut bait

 

[ThePoliteSkeptic]

Way to deflate an extreme exaggeration. Now, I hate to break it to you, but this is not the end of the story of museums throwing away all of their meteorites.

It's just the beginning...

 

[Ersby]

Well, don't stop there.

 

[RationalVetMed]

So if you do find yourself faced with someone who uses this as an example of how dishonest science is in the face of new data, you can explain to them how it's an example of how lazy new age writers are in chasing up their references.

Excellent bit of detective work - well done Mr Poirot!

Yuri

 

[cj.23]

Yes, I read an article on this in last month's Fortean Times. The author of this only found one museum that threw meteorites out - but sets the whole business in context. Worth reading it may actually still be the current issue, if not I might be able to get it to you Ersby

cj x

 

[paiute]

Bookmark this site for use as an emergency emetic:

http://www.chabadsrilanka.com/page.asp?pageID={AF695233-2BD7-4F58-ABEE-C33FDA39EE70}&displayAll=1

 

[Ersby]

Yes, I read an article on this in last month's Fortean Times. The author of this only found one museum that threw meteorites out - but sets the whole business in context. Worth reading it may actually still be the current issue, if not I might be able to get it to you Ersby

cj x

I had a quick look. It's on the site.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/4009/meteor_man.html

While the point is done and dusted, I'd be interested in knowing what the 1968 reference for this myth was.

 

[Ersby]

Bookmark this site for use as an emergency emetic:

http://www.chabadsrilanka.com/page.asp?pageID={AF695233-2BD7-4F58-ABEE-C33FDA39EE70}&displayAll=1

"Two thousands meteors thunderously pummeled the French countryside"? Hmmm. Bit of an exaggeration. Mind you, I've seen one author on the internet boldly state that a meteor hit the headquaters of the French Academy of Science itself!

 

[Ersby]

Way to deflate an extreme exaggeration. Now, I hate to break it to you, but this is not the end of the story of museums throwing away all of their meteorites.

It's just the beginning...

Oh, and once last thing, while I'm bumping this thread to the top. When I read this post, I thought the Polite Skeptic had more examples of museums throwing out meteorites, but he hadn't. I asked him on his blog, and he explained. It seems that when he wrote "this is not the end of the story..." he meant "this is not the end for the story", meaning that this tale of bad science will continue to be told, despite evidence to the contrary.

 

[Rodney]

“Yet of the twenty seven falls in the eighteenth century that are now considered to have actually occurred, specimens of eighteen (two thirds) still exist in collections."

Which still means that nine genuine meteorites were thrown out, presumably because they weren't deemed politically correct by the scientific establishment.

 

[rjh01]

Which still means that nine genuine meteorites were thrown out, presumably because they weren't deemed politically correct by the scientific establishment.

No. Could have been sold or lost in error.

 

[Ersby]

Which still means that nine genuine meteorites were thrown out, presumably because they weren't deemed politically correct by the scientific establishment.

Perhaps. But compare that to the idea of museums everywhere throwing out all of their meteorites, which is what the original story said, and which is what you posted a couple of days ago.

What do you know think of the source that told you this story? Do you think it can be trusted? Aren't you annoyed that it passed incorrect information to you? Does it bother you at all?

 

[Gilmar]

Very nice research, Ersby, and blutoski makes a great point.

 

[Rodney]

Perhaps. But compare that to the idea of museums everywhere throwing out all of their meteorites, which is what the original story said, and which is what you posted a couple of days ago.

What do you know think of the source that told you this story? Do you think it can be trusted? Aren't you annoyed that it passed incorrect information to you? Does it bother you at all?

Apparently, this story originated with Richard Milton's book Alternative Science (Fourth Estate, 1991): "Milton told me he can no longer recall the source that he got it from – which is fair enough 18 years after he wrote it." See http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/4009/meteor_man.html Obviously, Milton should have documented his source, but it's quite clear from a number of sources that meteorites were long discounted by the scientific establishment:

"Isaac Newton and other savants in the 1600s were well aware of the myriad reports throughout history of stones falling from the sky, but summarily dismissed them as folk tales and so much 'vulgar superstition'. They would not gainsay 2000 years of the wisdom of their hero Aristotle who had decreed that no small bodies exist in space beyond the Earth and her Moon, and that the Earth is at the center of the solar system." See http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=452