Throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century, researchers became increasingly interested in explaining the ways in which mammalian teeth, especially molars, and their complex arrangements of cusps arose along both developmental and evolutionary timescales. By the 1890s, two theories garnered special prominence; the tritubercular theory and the concrescence theory. The tritubercular theory was proposed by Edward Drinker Cope in 1883, and later expanded by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1888, while the concrescence theory was developed by Carl Röse in 1892. (...) Reviews concerning the evolution of mammalian molar teeth tended to paint the two theories as occupying opposing sides, and debates arose between their main proponents; however, their tenets do not seem logically incompatible. Throughout this paper, I argue that the conflict that arose was due not to the content of the theories, but to a diverse array of commitments Cope, Osborn, and Röse held, which turned into background assumptions within the setting of these theories. This history traces the context in which Cope, Osborn, and Röse developed the tritubercular and concrescence theories, and the ways in which the assumptions that these investigators held influenced their perceptions of their theories. (shrink)

With the powerful analyses and resources they enable, digital humanities tools have captivated researchers from many different fields who want to use them to study science. Digital tools, as well as funding agencies, research communities, and academic administrators, require researchers to think carefully about how they conceptualize, manage, and store data, and about what they plan to do with that data once a given project is over. The difficulties of developing strategies to address these problems can prevent new researchers from (...) sticking with digital tools and flummox even experienced researchers. To help overcome the data hurdle, we present five principles to help researchers, novice and experienced alike, conceptualize and plan for their data. We illustrate the use of those principles with two digital projects from the history of science, the Embryo Project and the Marine Biological Laboratory History Project, and their associated HPS Repository for data. The principles apply beyond the digital realm, so those who collect and manage data by more traditional means will also find them useful. (shrink)