Making sense of conflicts in science

The history of science is littered with fierce and bitter conflicts. Historians of science have generally shown a strong interest in such personal vendettas. This is not merely because they impart a human interest to their narratives, but also because of their revelatory nature. These clashes often bring into the open thoughts and feelings that otherwise remain unspoken. But although many books and papers have been devoted to scientific conflicts, few historians have tried to approach this phenomenon in a more analytical way. Just to be clear, I am not talking about controversies in the sense of mere disagreement about theories, methods or outcomes. Such controversies are the lifeblood of science. While such disagreement may lead to conflict, it does not have to. The difference between a disagreement and a conflict is that the latter tends to be personal and connected with negative emotions. It does not, moreover, require any substantive disagreement at all.

The main reason for addressing this topic is my study of (early) nineteenth-century geodesy, the study of the shape of the earth. I was struck by the number of conflicts, mostly among astronomers involved in geodetic research, as well as by their intensity. As I soon found out astronomical hostilities were not limited to geodesy. Especially in Germany, a strong personal dislike among the leading astronomers seems to have been rampant. These findings raised several questions. Were nineteenth-century astronomers more prone to conflict than other scientists at the time? And more in general, were scientists – or their predecessors: philosophers, naturalists, mathematicians – more prone to conflict than other members of society? Which contextual factors tend to promote or inhibit conflicts? These are very broad questions and I do not aim to discuss them all. I will simply use some of my findings regarding conflicts in nineteenth-century astronomy to address some of them in a rather explorative way.

What makes scientists prone to conflicts?

Which features of the world of science have the potential to stimulate and exacerbate conflict? Lacking comparative empirical studies about the prevalence of conflicts among scientists and other social groups, we can only make an educated guess at relevant factors. An obvious candidate is the reward system of science, based on the winner-takes-all principle: intellectual property is only and fully granted to those who first report a discovery. Indeed, a common cause of the most bitter controversies among scientists are priority issues. This is not surprising as discoveries boost the reputation of scientists. Besides caressing the ego, fame also brings patronage, career opportunities and positions of power. Priorities, however, are often hard to determine, partly because the notion of discovery itself is highly problematic. As Thomas Kuhn and others have argued, most so-called discoveries, on further investigation, turn out to be complex processes, that involve several contributors. The inclination to reduce such processes to a single event – the moment of discovery – allows one to pick a winner, but it makes the choice of the “true discoverer” – and therefore the allocation of intellectual property- somewhat arbitrary, thereby inviting challenges and disputes. A classic and notorious example is the priority dispute between Newton and Leibniz about the invention of the calculus.

Another possible cause for conflict is the profoundly anti-authoritarian ideology of science. This aspect was well-captured in the original motto of the Royal Society, “Nullius in verba”, which roughly translates as “take nobody’s word for it”. In this view, the credibility of the claim of an author is not based on the author’s social standing, reputation, or seniority, but merely on the factual evidence. And everyone who has carefully weighed the evidence is entitled to challenge such claims. Still, even if we disregard social hierarchies, some may feel to have much better credentials than others in certain fields of knowledge and dislike to be contradicted by their presumed inferiors. Newton, for one, strongly disliked being questioned by others. Such frustration can easily evolve into a personal dislike, the more so as questioning one’s results can easily be interpreted as questioning one’s competence. Differences in seniority often pose an increased risk in controversies. The situation is complicated, moreover, by the mismatch between the anti-authoritarian ideology of science and a social reality that often contradicts such ideals. For in every field of knowledge, there have always been intellectual hierarchies and authorities. Nobody can be an expert in every field of knowledge, and even within one’s own field of expertise, it is simply impossible to weigh every piece of evidence critically. In practice, we take a lot on faith, and we tend to trust authority figures more than others. The resulting ambiguity with regard to the role and place of authorities in science is in itself a liability.

Historically, a divisive factor was the gradual divergence, especially during the nineteenth century, between social hierarchies and intellectual hierarchies. In the early nineteenth century learned societies were still dominated by members of the higher strata of society. As science offered little perspective for a professional career, only leisured gentlemen could afford to devote most of their time to scientific pursuits. To do so was not a requirement for membership, however. The overall majority of the more than six hundred fellows of the Royal Society had not published a single paper. Conversely, even if creditable researchers of a humbler origin would have been welcomed by the fellows, the required fee of fifty pounds would have sufficed to effectively bar their entry. Repeated calls for reform of the British world of science, partly inspired by lavish state support for science in France and the exclusive nature of the Paris academy, had some effect, but change was slow. In the second half of the century, Thomas Huxley could still complain of the strong position of the clergy and nobility in British science and the lack of career opportunities for those willing to devote their life to science. Meanwhile, collisions between reformers and conservatives were rampant. It was only by the late nineteenth century that a strictly defined scientific community had come into existence. Entry to this community required a university degree, which, by then, implied a specialized research-oriented training.

Astronomers at war

Do we find these general factors in the conflicts between nineteenth-century astronomers? Certainly, and I will discuss some examples shortly. But as we will see later on, there were also other contextual factors, more specific to early nineteenth-century astronomy. To start with the priority issue, the Paris astronomer Le Verrier was deeply offended when, in 1846, his British colleague John Herschel suggested that he might need to share the honor of the correct prediction of the position of the newly discovered planet Neptune with Herschel’s compatriot John Couch Adams. Herschel even stated that it was the congruence of the results of Le Verrier and Adams that had prompted astronomers to look for the new planet. In reality, the Berlin astronomer Galle had found the new planet solely on the basis of Le Verrier’s prediction. Le Verrier felt that the Britons were trying to steal his rightful claim to discovery, a view shared by many of his fellow countrymen. In a letter sent to the British Athenaeum, he chastised Herschel for his imprudence. Although Herschel quickly backpedaled, in his diary he complained of Le Verrier’s “savage letter”: “These Frenchmen fly at one like wildcats”.[1] Not much later, a French magazine published a cartoon depicting Adams’ “discovery”. The latter aimed his telescope at the memoir that Le Verrier had presented to the Paris Academy. Although this conflict soon fizzled out, the next year, the Harvard astronomer Charles Saunders Pierce added fuel to the fire by stating that the orbit of Neptune differed so widely from that calculated by Adams and Le Verrier, that Galle’s discovery was little more than a “happy accident”, thereby causing a new round of skirmishes.

“Mr. Adams discovering the new planet in the report of Mr. Le Verrier” in L’Illustration, Journal Universel 193 (1846) p. 156.

These quarrels, however, pale in comparison to the lifelong vendetta between the British astronomers James South and Richard Sheepshanks, also known as the “astronomers’ war”. Although in this case the conflict cannot be reduced to a single factor, the growing disagreement over the role and functioning of the Royal Society played a decisive role in the rapidly escalating fight. After marrying a wealthy heiress, James South had given up his work as a surgeon, to devote himself fully to his great passion, astronomy. Having bought an impressive collection of astronomical instruments, he joined John Herschel in the 1820s in the search for double stars. His observational work earned him a great reputation, the gold medal of the Astronomical Society, the Copley medal of the Royal Society, and eventually, in 1830, a knighthood and a handsome annual allowance from the British government. That same year, he joined Charles Babbage in the latter’s vituperative attack on the Royal Society. Like Babbage, he was particularly critical of the Society’s president and council. He presented a copy of his scathing pamphlet to the Society, which, to his chagrin, refused to acknowledge the gift.

The year before, South had been elected president of the Astronomical Society. This society, aware of his reputation as a loose cannon, had also appointed a secretary that could keep him in check, the Reverend Richard Sheepshanks. Sheepshanks, a former Trinity fellow and a talented mathematician, had taken Orders in the Church of England, but, like South, had taken up astronomy after inheriting a fortune, following the death of his father. He was at least as outspoken and pugnacious as South, but much more conservative in his political and religious views and he regarded South as something of an ignorant upstart. Likewise a fellow of the Royal Society, he clearly belonged to the opposite camp. After two years he had had enough of South, and he left the Astronomical Society’s Council. That same year, South retired as president and, as former president, was destined to become a member of the Council. Sheepshank announced that he would object to South’s re-election as Council member, on account of the latter’s “ignorance” and “infirmity of mind”. Fearing a scandal, the society tacitly withdrew South’s name from the Council, and Sheepshank took his place. Sheepshank’s victory, however, did not put an end to the hostilities. As he confided to Babbage that same year: “I am determined to put down Sir James South, and if you and other respectable men will give him your support, I will put you down.”[2]

Indeed, the battle continued and was fought on several fronts. Many other prominent British scientists were dragged in, among whom Babbage on the side of South and George Biddell Airy, the Royal Astronomer, on Sheepshanks’ side. In 1834 Sheepshank managed to hound South out of the Astronomical Society all together. That same year, Sheepshank supported Britain’s leading instrument maker Troughton in the latter’s conflict with South. Troughton had been commissioned by South to build the world’s largest achromatic refractor. As the latter found the result defective, he refused to pay Troughton. Troughton then sued South, encouraged to do so by Sheepshank, who acted as Troughton’s main scientific advisor through the whole affair. He even took the trouble to cross-examine South’s witnesses, among whom Babbage, doing his uttermost to discredit the latter. Once again, South lost.

A following incident concerned the discovery of Neptune. In December 1846, the astronomical society was to award its gold medal. Le Verrier was the most obvious candidate, but the Council, including Airy and Sheepshank, feared that granting a medal to Le Verrier alone, would amount to a dismissal of Adams’ claims as a co-discoverer. Both Babbage and Herschel urged the Council to either to award Le Verrier or award several medals, so as to avoid a scandal. The Council, however, refused to change its policy, or to award Le Verrier alone, and, much to Babbage’s chagrin, no gold medal was awarded that year.

South and Babbage’s revenge had to wait until the early 1850s. The first salvo was fired by Babbage. In his book on the Great Exhibition of 1851, he devoted a chapter to the “intrigues of science”. Here, he detailed Sheepshank’s attempts to intimidate him during the trial. A laudatory review of the book by an accomplice in The Mechanic’s Magazine was immediately followed by an indictment of Sheepshank from South. In the early 1820s Sheepshank had asked Troughton to clear a French instrument at the customs, as having been made by his own firm, to avoid duties. Although a trivial offense of thirty years earlier, formally, smuggling was seen to be a crime. At the next meeting of the Royal Society, Babbage alerted the Council to the charges made against one of the Fellows, pointing out that under the statutes they had a duty to eject this Fellow on account of his criminal behavior. He repeated this performance at a meeting of the Astronomical Society and at a meeting of the trustees of the Royal Observatory, who included both Sheepshank and Babbage himself. Although in all cases he failed to expel Sheepshank, it was an extremely painful experience for the latter. Meanwhile The Mechanic’s Magazine continued its fierce attacks against Sheepshank and Airy, provoking the former in 1854 into printing a 92-page defense. He would die the following year.

“A View of the Lots into which the same useless Twenty feet Equatorial invented by Troughton and Simms and cobbled by their assistants the REV. R. SHEEPSHANKS and MR G. B. AIRY was distributed, previous to its Sale by Auction on the 8th of July 1839”. Poster made by South.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Channel, Le Verrier was fighting his own wars. These conflicts had little to do with the British skirmishes, and much more with institutional rivalries. Le Verrier had been among the first to express his loyalty to the new emperor Napoleon III following the latter’s coup d’état in 1851. After the death of the staunch republican François Arago, Le Verrier accomplished his own coup. A favorite of the new government, he won the directorship of the Paris Observatory, now vested with unlimited powers. He had also managed to separate the Observatory from the Bureau de Longitudes that had controlled the observatory for more than fifty years. He expelled the astronomers who had worked with Arago and tried to curb the role of the Bureau as much as he could. An open war broke out between Le Verrier and the Bureau astronomers Charles Delaunay, Claude-Louis Mathieu and Hervé Faye, all of whom had previously worked at the Observatory under Arago. At the meetings of the Paris Academy, the main arena for the hostilities, they openly accused him of seeking the downfall of the Bureau and of encroaching on its territory, especially in the field of geodesy. Indeed, from the start, Le Verrier had actively involved the observatory in longitude measurements.

Le Verrier had many more enemies. Among them was the young astronomer Camille Flammarion, who had worked at the observatory, but was dismissed by Le Verrier in 1862. In a series of newspaper articles, Flammarion exposed Le Verrier as a tyrant: “this haughty scientist has placed himself above the Minister of Public Instruction, above the Emperor, above the law; these past fourteen years he has reigned as an autocrat, suppressing at his whim the salaries of his employees, opposing systematically all personal research.”[3] In an attempt to curb Le Verrier’s excesses, the Minister of Public Instruction appointed a supervisory committee, which included his archenemy Delaunay. Le Verrier, however, refused to attend its meetings. It was only in 1870, following the resignation of the majority of the Observatory astronomers, who could no longer stomach Le Verrier’s despotic rule, that the minister decided to relieve him of his duties. To add insult to injury, the minister appointed Delaunay as the new director. After the latter’s sudden death, Le Verrier was reinstated as director of the Observatory.

Geodesy, the state and international collaboration

The Le Verrier case immediately suggests an additional incentive to conflicts in science, one that may have been more prevalent in astronomy than in other fields: state involvement. Observatories are among the oldest research institutions. They have been supported by princely courts and modern states alike. Astronomers met several needs of ambitious states and these needs increased with the rise of the modern nation state. They were indispensable for navigation, timekeeping and for the production of accurate maps. Such maps served imperial, military and commercial interests, and were also useful for the levying of land taxes. In the nineteenth century, similar interests drove large-scale international projects in geodesy, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology. In general, such projects were initiated and dominated by astronomers and funded by the participating states. We do not find a comparable amount of state support in other disciplines in this period. As increasing state involvement implied large-scale funding and bureaucratic institutes, competition among scientists no longer focused primarily on prestige, but also on money and power.

As soon as the Paris Observatory and the Bureau de Longitude had been separated, they, or rather Le Verrier and Delaunay, became powerful rivals, each party fighting to maximize state support, often at the expense of the other party. Le Verrier’s leadership of the observatory illustrates another aspect of changing power relations. As social hierarchies became less important in the world of science, bureaucratic hierarchies started to take their place, especially in state funded institutions. Indeed, both Airy and Le Verrier ran their observatories as extensions of the state. They tended to focus on utilitarian projects and treated the staff of the observatory, including fellow astronomers, as subordinates who owed them strict obedience. In Paris, more than in London, such authoritarianism was seen to be contrary to the spirit of science. We find similar tensions at other observatories, such as Encke’s Berlin observatory. Galle had a hard time in gaining Encke’s permission to search for Le Verrier’s planet. Much earlier, Encke had suppressed Galle’s discovery of an inner ring of Saturn so as to highlight his own simultaneous observations on Saturn’s rings. Encke also had strained relationships with Friedrich Bessel in Königsberg and the Gotha astronomer Peter Andreas Hansen.

A final example that illustrates the thorny nature of large state funded projects concerns the European Grade Measurement, a large international geodetic project. It was initiated by Johann Baeyer. Baeyer had built up an impressive career as a geodesist in the Prussian army. As a young officer he had collaborated with Bessel in Prussian geodetic projects and he had fully internalized the high standards of Bessel’s methods and measurements. Eventually he would lead the geodetic department of the Prussian General Staff in the rank of a general. Frustrated by the lack of coordination – and the low standards – in Prussian geodesy, he would eventually leave the General Staff and continue his work in the service of the Prussian state. The Prussian government had meanwhile commissioned him to contribute to an international project proposed by the St. Petersburg astronomer Wilhelm Struve, by then Europe’s leading astronomer. It amounted to the measurement of the length of a parallel arc stretching from Ireland to the Ural. When Struve became ill and was succeeded by his son Otto, Baeyer and the young Struve immediately clashed. Whereas Baeyer had been willing to follow the lead of the venerated Wilhelm, it was different in the case of the less experienced son.

In order to take back control and to strengthen his position in Prussian geodesy Baeyer proposed a much grander international project, the Central European Grade Measurement. It aimed at a connected network of triangulations covering large parts of Europe and sought to offer a better view of the shape of the earth. Several European states accepted the Prussian invitation and delegated astronomers and military officers to contribute to the project. On Baeyer’s proposal a permanent committee was instated as well as a Central Bureau in Berlin, which he himself would head. He managed to persuade Hansen to take up the presidency of the Grade Measurement’s permanent committee. Although the deliberations initially went smoothly, things turned sour when Baeyer tried to use this international collaboration for his private war with the Prussian army. He convinced the other delegates to formally disapprove of the Prussian triangulations, judged to be useless to the project’s aims. When the General Staff objected to the dismissal of their work by the Grade Measurement, Hansen offered to mediate.

However, having studied the Prussian measurements, Hansen could not find fault with them. In a letter to the General Staff he praised their work and distanced himself from Baeyer. When this letter became public, Baeyer felt betrayed. A pamphlet war between Bayer and Hanssen followed. Baeyer openly accused Hansen of ignoring the resolutions of the Grade Measurement. He also strongly criticized Hansen’s evaluation of the Prussian measurements and questioned Hansen’s own geodetic methods. In return Hansen criticized Bayer’s haughtiness, pointed out that he was not in the service of the permanent committee and, after a lengthy technical rebuttal, concluded that Baeyer’s unfounded imputations against both his own work and that of the Prussian army did not serve the cause of the Grade Measurement. As the next meeting of the Permanent Committee was scheduled to take place in Hansen’s Gotha, Baeyer decided to boycott this meeting and he expected the other members to do likewise, including the young Wilhelm Förster, director of the Berlin observatory and Baeyer’s collaborator in the Grade Measurement’s Central Bureau. When the conflict averse Förster tried to mediate between Baeyer and Hansen, and announced his intention to attend the Gotha meeting, Baeyer insisted on Förster’s unconditional loyalty. His lack of pliability resulted in another break and Förster eventually left the Bureau. Ultimately, the project survived these clashes, partly because Hansen withdrew from the permanent committee.

This final example, meanwhile, reveals another complicating factor: large scale collaboration. The members of the republic of letters mainly exchanged information and specimens, but rarely collaborated with each other in large projects. Such collaborations required agreement on methods, standards and leadership. Those who were used to being in charge might find it difficult to compromise or give in to the demands of others. Such large sale collaborations were typical of the time in what we have come to denote as the Humboldtian sciences, those fields that studied the distribution of natural phenomena at the surface of the earth. It would be interesting to look at twentieth century big science projects from this particular point of view. To offer one example, in LIGO, the project that resulted in the discovery of gravitational waves, cooperation between pragmatic managers, focusing on cost and time schedules, and visionary and demanding scientists and technicians proved extremely problematic. More than one protagonist was withdrawn from the project due to irresolvable conflicts.

Broader perspectives and future prospects

For now, these examples must suffice. No doubt, many more can be found. It seems that rivalry and jealousy were rampant among the leading astronomers of the period. Bitter conflicts can be found in all fields at all times, however, so much more can and needs to be said about this topic. An interesting question is how these conflicts were enacted in different times and disciplines. In the examples above, learned societies, journals and pamphlets were the main arenas of the battling scientists. This will have been different in other periods. As this essay is meant as an exploration and a discussion piece, I welcome suggestions for other relevant factors – notions of masculinity, codes of honor -, also in other fields of science, as well as interesting case studies suggestive of such factors. After all, given the ubiquity of conflicts in science, we are familiar with the topic. The more science is based on collaboration, the more we need to study those factors that interfere with – or hamper – a productive relationship between scientists. So, let’s work together to deepen our historical understanding of conflict and its role in science.

Some sources:

Michael Hoskin, “Astronomers at war: South v. Sheepshanks”, Journal for the History of Astronomy 20 (1989) 175-212.

James Lequeux, Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer (New York: Springer 2013). Ernst Buschmann (ed.), Aus Leben und Werk von Johann Jacob Baeyer (Frankfurt aM: Verlag des Instituts für angewandte Geodäsie 1994).


[1] Nicholas Kollerstrom, “John Herschel on the discovery of Neptune”, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 9 (2006) 151-158, quotation on 152.

[2] Michael Hoskin, “Astronomers at war: South v. Sheepshanks”, Journal for the History of Astronomy 20 (1989) 175-212, quotation on p. 181.

[3] James Lequeux, Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer (New York: Springer 2013) p. 174.