Replication Studies in the Humanities? A Test Case Utilizing Jewish Receptions of Copernican Thought

Replication studies in the humanities is a new and burgeoning field (e.g. Aguinas & Angelo 2019, Holbrook et al. 2019, Peels 2019). Testing how best to define and implement replication studies in the humanities, both in terms of direct as well as conceptual replications, is currently a subject of research. This paper comes to describe a project at Virje University in which we are working to execute replications of a cornerstone historical study on the interaction of science and religion, specifically, chapter three of John Hedley Brooke’s 1991 book Science and Religion: some historical perspectives, “The Parallel between Scientific and Religious Reform.” In this presentation I will focus on the ‘conceptual replication’ of Brooke’s thesis that brings Jewish responses to Copernican thought to bear as ‘new data’ to supplement the findings obtained from the Protestant and Catholic responses that Brooke originally investigated. In parallel to this study a direct replication is also being carried out in which only Protestant and Catholic sources will be examined. It is hoped that by conducting both a direct and conceptual replication in parallel, new insights can be gleaned, both regarding the content of the studies, as well as regarding the process of replication studies in history. In terms of this latter topic, some of the questions include: what is the difference between a conceptual replication and comparative historical studies that occur organically within the discipline (e.g. Brooke and Numbers 2011)? Are there advantages to engaging in both types of studies, and if so what would these be? In the proposed paper I will give a mid-way report on the status of the research findings in both realms, with the hope that feedback to the presentation may assist in the second half of the project.