Monday, December 05, 2005

A palaeontologist's view of manuscripts

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Can a palaeontologist really work out how many copies of a work there have been? Has anyone looked at Cisne's work?

1 comment

  1. Cisne, J. 2005. How science survived: Medieval manuscripts' "demography" and
    classic texts' extinction. Science 307(Feb. 25):1305-1307. Available at
    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5713/1305

    Well, call me an old sceptic, but I don't think this is going to help anybody.


    The modelling is both too complicated and too simplistic. It is too complicated in the general sense that it involves mathematics (something I repented of long ago). It is too simplistic in the sense that it transposes population growth assumptions onto the manuscripts (e.g. each manuscript is equal in its ability to reproduce - something that I doubt is true).

    I suppose it is worth thinking about what variables to input into the modelling. The response article has some useful reflections:

    Gilman, S.L., and F.E. Glaze. 2005. Enhanced: "How science
    survived"-medieval manuscripts as fossils. Science 307(Feb. 25):1208-1209.
    Available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/307/5713/1208


    Thanks to Wieland Willker for posting the titles to the textualcriticism email group.

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