Arguments like this make me suspicious. Essentially, we've got no way of knowing how much Lady Ranelagh would have achieved if... so that leaves us free to speculate about how she was an unknown genius. There's an infinite supply of these figures for feminist academics to make hay with. Meanwhile, how many people can name an achievement of Robert Boyle, who actually was the greatest English scientist before Newton?
Maybe I'm wrong, and if I read the book I'd find convincing proof that she was a brilliant mind who could have made great discoveries. What's in the article doesn't seem much: she tested a cure for rickets, paid for her brother's lab, and wrote down somebody's experiment.
Maybe I'm wrong, and if I read the book I'd find convincing proof that she was a brilliant mind who could have made great discoveries. What's in the article doesn't seem much: she tested a cure for rickets, paid for her brother's lab, and wrote down somebody's experiment.