Could Doing Things The Old-Fashioned Way Make Us Better Modern Scientists?

Today, we imagine lab experiments as part of a separate realm from fine arts like painting or trades like carpentry.

- Kate Baggaley

But artisans helped lay the groundwork for the scientific revolution. For the past five years, Pamela Smith, a historian of science at Columbia University in New York, has devoted herself to re-creating their long-forgotten techniques. “So much exploration, experimentation, and innovation happens in craft,” she says. “It’s the same as science; it’s the human exploration of the material world.”

Smith didn’t get into academia to spend her days gilding and mixing. “I’m not very handy,” she admits. Artisans caught her attention when she penned a dissertation on Johann Joachim Becher, a 17th-century writer who pondered the economics of alchemy and crafts. Then, while doing research for her 2004 book, The Body of the Artisan, she came across a 16th-century French manuscript containing nearly 1,000 sets of instructions, covering subjects from cannon casting to finding the best sand in Toulouse.