The issue of scientific heritage is today placed before the international community. It appears as a relatively new challenge, both for its definition and for its assessment criteria. It has become commonplace to recall that this heritage is today under-represented on the World Heritage List. Indeed, few cultural properties explicitly acknowledge this dimension as being dominant or simply even present in the analysis of their outstanding universal value. In fact, for ICOMOS, the concept of scientific heritage has so far only been one of the cultural dimensions associated with a cultural property, often a minor, even implicit, dimension.
Here a first observation can be made: if we want to promote this new category of heritage, we must review the cultural properties where it is already present, and explain how and why. There is no doubt much that can be done by simply taking a fresh look at already recognized heritage places. However, we can not do this alone; we must broaden the base of our expertise. Input from specialists on science is essential. In effect, the scientific world itself is increasingly concerned about these issues, particularly in Europe, for reasons which are interesting to explore. What is more, there are already scientific heritage specialists who share many of our concerns and our methods: the historians of science. Methodological questions will have to be examined thoroughly first so that we can work together. The need for this is evident; the methodological question must not be underestimated, as it raises complex questions both about the legitimacy of this approach as well as about the epistemological implications. Scientists are not necessarily best placed to study heritage places and they may end up "reinventing the wheel”, but on the other hand a heritage professional who uses scientific heritage as a pretext for simply re-serving us known concepts from the domains of urbanism or architecture is hardly credible either!
Plan of Ulugh Beg's Observatory, prepared in 1977-1979 by Prof. M.S. Bulatov
Another observation is necessary here: the scientific heritage has a close and rather strong link with the technical and industrial heritage, which should help us in relation to methodology, both practically and in terms of efficiency. In the field of knowledge, there is a strong link between science and technology, as is evident, but not exclusively, in the modern and contemporary world. Any technological practice employs comparison, classification, as well as trial and error, and is based on Man’s rationality in the interaction with Nature. Besides, monumental technological properties, such as bridges, canals, factories, railways, mining, etc. are already inscribed on the World Heritage list. This must guide us, and we have already conducted effective operations together with specialists on industrial heritage and the history of technology. However, we have to remember the following important difference: Technology aims to produce material artefacts in the service of man (objects, production tools, infrastructure), that is to say heritage potentially falling under criteria (i) to (v) of the World Heritage Convention. This is not the case of science, whose aim is to produce knowledge, concepts and laws! Fundamentally, the scientific heritage, as the result of science, is intangible, that is to say, it falls under criterion (vi), which cannot be used alone in terms of the Convention! We must be aware of this particularity of the heritage field, while for the scientist; heritage forms an evident global entity.
Yet science is closely linked to the material, which is the basis of any heritage in terms of the World Heritage Convention: 1) its purpose, the study of nature; in this sense the field of science can offer significant heritage places linked to natural sites, 2) its tools, i.e. its instruments of observation and research sites, 3) its social gathering places and the places of its transmission, which are the cornerstones of its insertion into society. In any case, the analysis of the value of the cultural properties falling under these categories can only be made in close consideration of their scientific significance, which lies in the realm of the intangible.
Some further elements to complete this brief, therefore schematic, observation. Instruments are essential to the field of experimental sciences, but not to mathematics, which we should nevertheless not exclude a priori from our reflection on scientific heritage! Moreover, instruments are not always monumental in nature and not always immovable cultural properties. These are common heritage concepts, but they are unrelated to the scientific value: it is the quality of the instrument and its historic use which is the key factor. The concepts of integrity and authenticity will also have to be examined in the context of the scientific world, where an instrument, a laboratory, or a place are by nature intended to evolve, to adapt, to be supplanted by other facilities, other devices, and other sites better suited for research.
Michel Cotte
ICOMOS World Heritage Advisor
