220067 Seeing is believing? Images in the history of science (S) (WiSe 2024/2025)

Drawings of the Moon's surface as seen through a telescope, pictures of the Earth taken from space, movies featuring microbes, anatomical atlases, photographs of ectoplasms: these are all examples of images produced in the natural sciences, and in the last decades historians have devoted increasing attention to studying their role in scientific practices. What were the motives and methods for "making visible" natural phenomena? Were images a helpful, but mainly unnecessary illustration of scientific results, or did they contribute to shape and validate scientific knowledge? Can the saying that "seeing is believing" be applied also in the scientific field? In the course we will discuss these and other questions on the basis of case studies from pre- and modern times.