Abstract
WHY is it that, in a certain class of publication aiming at popularity, vagueness seems to be considered essential in attracting the interest of the general public ? It appears particularly in relation to geographical and ethnographical details. We have before us two small volumes from a series with many pleasing features, “Things Seen by the Camera”(London: George Boutledge and Sons, Ltd., price 2s. 6d. net each). Of these, each contains sixty-four photographic reproductions. One deals with China and the Chinese, and another with the natives of Africa. The latter is concerned exclusively with physical types and covers a fairly representative range, some evidently chosen to demonstrate peculiarities of dress or physical deformation, such as the distension produced by the woman's lip-ornament. The volume dealing with China, in addition to characteristic or peculiar types, includes scenes from Chinese life and examples of Chinese buildings and architecture. It often happens that material of this kind is collected by those who have lived in out-of-the-way parts of the world and are not in touch with scientific bodies. They put their material in the hands of agencies, which distribute it to the popular Press, but through inadequate description, material which might be of value to the scientific worker not infrequently loses its utility. In fairness to the two publications before us, it must be said that in most instances they give an approximate or precise attribution. But if in one case, why not in all ? “Witch-doctor from Central Africa”, “Native Girl from Rhodesia”, says little. The popular attraction of the picture could not possibly be affected by the addition or omission of the name of the tribe in brackets.
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Scientific Precision and Popularisation. Nature 129, 681 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129681a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129681a0