On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:50:28 -0400, Stephen Black wrote:
On 24 Aug 2008 at 13:47, Mike Palij wrote:
Thanks to Peter for pointing out the Wikipedia entry which
references the following article:
"Cyborgs and Space," in Astronautics (September 1960),
by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.
However, I was wondering if there was an earlier use of
the word cyborg prior to Clynes & Kline.
I find this an interesting question because it raises the issue of how
one could use Google (or any search engine) to limit a search to a
particular, usually early, time period. I have often wanted to do this
(e.g. for the notorious search for the iceberg analogy).
Although it might not be immediately obvious, this does not make
much sense because search engines for webpages would not extend
past 1991 which was the first year that the "World Wide Web"
(WWW)was released by Tim Berniers-Lee at CERN (see the internet
timeline:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ ).
As it turns out there is a database that does contain webpages
which can be searched but it of more interest to the internet
afficionado then people doing historical research pre-1990.
See the Internet Archive at:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
NOTE: it is not a complete database.
I've concluded it doesn't work for Google advanced search.
Given that Google searches its database for webpages and
webpages are not hard dated in the sense that journals and other
publications are (publication date helps to establish priority,
consequently traditional publications consider this key data),
I don't understand why one would want to do a date-based
search of webpages unless one wanted to locate a webpage
that one knew existed at a particular point in time. The
Internet Archive (aka Wayback Machine) does allow one to
do this but, again, what is one trying to establish?
In contrast, Usenet, the collection of newsgroups that has
been used as one form of online communication since 1979
does have "posts" dated according to when they were made.
In essence, newsgroups were like a mailing list (like TiPS) but
instead of sending out posts via email, they were collected
into a public repository (the newsgroup) which one could
read with a newreader. Usenet groups were first converted
into searchable databases, I think, by DejaNews whose
database was acquired by Google after Deja went out of
business. This is now available and extended in the form
of groups.google.com. But even though a number of
newsgroups were oriented towards scientific or educational
topics (e.g., sci.stat.edu) it is best thought of as a
recreational resource and less than a scholarly resource.
I then tried it for the limited access I have to JSTOR archives.
Databases that use publications, such as journal, newspapers,
books, etc., will all have publication data (unless the pub does
not specify a date) and will generally allow date-based searches.
Because of the time, effort, and cost of putting together such
publication databases, these have usually used a subscription
model to access them because they are a resource that people
will pay to use. Psychological Abstracts morphed from paper
form into a mainframe database to a CD-ROM version (anyone
remember Silverplatter?) to PsycInfo, a web-interfaced
proprietary database. There are many such databases now available
but their key feature is that their basic record consists of info about
a publication.
[snip]
Someone should see what the OED gives as the earliest use.
May 22, 1960.
Ah, I answer my own question. The Wikipedia entry mentioned by Peter
notes farther down the page that a New York Times article actually used
the term "cyborg" earlier than the previously cited use by Clynes & Kline
in September of 1960. According to the Wikipedia, the NY Times said five
months earlier,"A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the
control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs
or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment
different from the normal one."
The NY Times article (available through the ProQuest database)
has the following reference:
Spaceman is seen as man-machine. (1960, May 22). The New York
Times, p31.
The article defines the term cyborg and identifies Clynes and
Kline as the originators of the term but there is a critical paragraph:
|An advance account of their report was released by the
|Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, which is
|coordinating the symposium.
NOTE: Clynes and Kline first made a presentation at a
symposium and subsequently published it Aeronautics.
The paragraph above suggests that there may have been
a manuscript or some other written work that might have
been in circulation prior to the symposium, possibly
sent around to people to elicit feedback. This would
mean that work on the presentation/manuscript went on
for some time before May 1960 and there may be some
record of this (e.g., early drafts). So, though the NY Times
May 22, 1960 article appears to be the first published
used of the term, it is possible that it might have been in
use prior to that time, maybe even published in some
obscure journal or paper presentation. I guess someone
would have to examine Clynes or Kline's papers and
correspondence to see when they first used it. I don't
know if such things are available but given that Kline had
the Rockland State Hospital named after him -- it is
now known as the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric
Research -- it is possible that his papers are either there
or elsewhere.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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