“The disadvantages of a defective education”: identity, experiment and persuasion in the natural history of the salmon and parr controversy, c. 1825–1850

Journal article

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an argument raged about the identity of a small freshwater fish: was the parr a distinct species, or merely the young of the salmon? This “Parr Controversy” concerned both fishermen and ichthyologists. A central protagonist in the controversy was a man of ambiguous social and scientific status: a gamekeeper from Scotland named John Shaw. This paper examines Shaw’s heterogeneous practices and the reception of his claims by naturalists as he struggled to find a footing on the “gradient of attributed competence” (Rudwick 1985). The case demonstrates the context-specific nature of expert-lay boundaries and identities and explores a range of material and linguistic resources available for negotiating them. Arguing for a view of Shaw’s trajectory as simultaneously one of being a “practical man” and of becoming a naturalist, the paper explores both the permeability of social hierarchies in knowledge production and their effective role in the regulation of competency.

Authors: Message, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Science in Context
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 261-284
• Publication date: 2019-12-12
• Acceptance date: 2018-12-03
• DOI: 10.1017/S0269889719000255
• EISSN: 1474-0664
• ISSN: 0269-8897