Travel as scientific discovery

natural history and culture of precision

Abstract

Non-intentional connections of meaning between travel culture and scientific culture were beneficial to the consolidation of scientific systems of thought in the post-Renaissance context. The culture of curiosity and the cult of facts were elements of a social ethos that was shared both by traveling explorers and practitioners of natural history. Scientific expeditions conducted in the middle of the eighteenth century and promoted by the French and British scientific academies highlight the importance of travels to science. This article analyzes the formation of the culture of precision and curiosity through a historical-sociological survey of the relations between travel culture and scientific culture with an emphasis on the scientific expeditions of La Condamine, Bougainville, James Cook, La Pérouse, and Enlightenment thought.