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  • Professor Dietrich von Engelhardt “Goethe also made a great impression as a natural scientist”

    “Goethe also made a great impression as a natural scientist”

    In his new book, Dietrich von Engelhardt, a historian of science and member of the GDNÄ, documents the international response to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s scientific writings in the 19th century – and thus fills a gap in research.

    Professor von Engelhardt, your 670-page book “Goethe as a Natural Scientist in the Opinion of 19th Century Scientists and Doctors” was recently published. You are the editor of the book. What inspired you to do this work?
    I have been studying Goethe and his relationship with science and medicine around 1800 for decades. During my research, I noticed that the German and international reception of Goethe as a natural scientist in the natural sciences and medicine of the 19th century was not dealt with in research, with a few exceptions. This prompted me to address this reception and to document it with selected texts, some of which were found in remote locations. The 670 pages are due to the abundance of remarkable essays.

    Who is this volume aimed at?
    The work is aimed at Goethe researchers, historians of science and medicine, and anyone interested in Goethe’s contributions to the natural sciences and medicine.

    What criteria did you use to select the articles?
    The 48 essays by scientists, many of whom were members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, are intended to provide a representative international impression of the reception of the natural sciences and medicine in the 19th century. For reasons of space, I had to dispense with extensive monographic presentations, which I mention in the detailed introduction, and which are listed in the complete bibliography of 240 texts.

    The volume contains texts in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. Why did you decide on the original languages?
    I wanted to give an authentic impression in the languages that Goethe also understood. In addition, this approach allows foreign quotations to be cited directly from the texts and referenced bibliographically. Nowadays, anyone who wants translations can easily do so using the appropriate software.

    © SUB Göttingen Cod. Ms. Lichtenberg VI, 44.

    Goethe considered his theory of colors, symbolized in the color wheel, to be his most important work.

    Which texts would you recommend to the reader in a hurry? 
    For readers in a hurry, I would particularly recommend the articles by Carl Gustav Carus (first published in 1843), Hermann von Helmholtz (1853), Rudolf Virchow (1861), Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1882) and Ernst Haeckel (1882) – all of whom were members of the GDNÄ. Among the foreign texts, the remarks of Ernest Faivre (1859), François-Louis Hahn (1883), François-Jules Pictet (1838) and John Tyndall (1880) deserve special attention. The chapter on the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley is also very impressive – he was awarded an honorary membership of the GDNÄ at the 1877 meeting in Munich. Huxley opened the first issue of the now internationally authoritative science magazine Nature, published in 1869, with Goethe’s Aphorisms on Nature (see margin). 

    Intermaxillary bone, theory of colours, archetypal plant: the naturalist Goethe was involved in an impressive number of scientific topics. How did this come about? 
    Throughout his life, inorganic and organic nature, its phenomena, processes and developments were of great interest to Goethe – as such, but also in connection with science, art and human life. “Experience, observation, conclusions – connected by life events” – this is how he described his method in natural research. For Goethe, colours are not only mathematical and physical phenomena; for him, they also have ethical, psychological and cultural-historical meanings. The phenomenon of metamorphosis applies to plants and animals: “The doctrine of metamorphosis is the key to all signs of nature,” as stated in a posthumous text called Morphology. Goethe also published numerous scientific-theoretical writings, including The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject or Inventing and Discovering or Analysing and Discovering. Goethe’s scientific writings comprise eleven volumes in the Leopoldina’s critical scientific edition. 

    Goethe was a poet and a naturalist: did the one influence the other? 
    Despite all the differences, of which Goethe repeatedly reminds us, the connection between the two, or rather the four cultures, was extremely important to him. What is meant here is the cultures of the natural sciences, the humanities, the arts and life. This connection can be seen in both Goethe’s scientific and literary texts, as well as in his autobiographical writings Poetry and Truth or Italian Journey. One literary example is the novel The Elective Affinities, which corresponds with contemporary chemistry in both title and content and interprets the relationships between elements in analogy to the relationships between people. However, Goethe explicitly points out that people have the freedom and responsibility to resist sensual attractions. In his Theory of Colours, Goethe developed numerous ideas about the theory and practice of colours in painting. And the law of the primal plant, as Goethe recognised in Italy, “can be applied to everything that lives”.

    © Frithjof Spangenberg, Illustrationen & Kommunikationsdesign

    The illustration shows a sheep’s skull with a clearly visible intermaxillary bone (front right). This was the subject of a heated dispute between Goethe and the GDNÄ founder Lorenz Oken.

    To what extent was Goethe a child of his time as a natural scientist?
    Goethe was very knowledgeable about the natural sciences and medicine of his time. He was influenced by the state of science, maintained connections with many natural scientists and physicians of the time, but also considered the historical development of the sciences and individual researchers of the past. The Theory of Colours is a prime example: Goethe dedicated an entire book to it, describing its history from antiquity to the present day. 

    How did Goethe’s contemporaries react to his work?
    As can be seen in the present work, the spectrum of reactions among scientists and physicians of his time and up to the present day was diverse and varied according to scientific discipline. The reactions in physics were extremely critical. There was approval in geology, botany and anatomy. According to Nees von Esenbeck, member of the GDNÄ and president of the Leopoldina from 1818 to 1838, Goethe was the first to organise the plant world according to “scientific principles” and to introduce it philosophically. Overall, Goethe the naturalist made a strong impression on his contemporaries. It would be necessary and informative to compare this with the reactions in the humanities and arts from the 19th century to the present day – a task I would like to leave to other researchers. 

    What was Goethe’s relationship with the GDNÄ?
    Goethe took an interested and approving part in the meetings of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, founded in 1822, and wrote a study of the GDNÄ that was not published in his time but was later printed several times. He particularly welcomed the new research society’s aim of bringing scientists into personal contact, while noting that its members were not the “least bit” like him. In his speech at the Berlin conference in 1828, Alexander von Humboldt referred to Goethe as a “patriarch of patriotic fame”, whose literary creations did not prevent him from “plunging the researcher’s gaze into the depths of natural life”. 

    What was Goethe’s relationship with Lorenz Oken, the founder of the GDNÄ?
    The relationship was ambivalent on both sides. A plagiarism dispute between Goethe and Oken triggered the discovery of the cranial vertebra, which Oken described in a publication in 1807 and also sent to Goethe. He was very impressed by the study. He invited Oken to Weimar and supported his appointment to the University of Jena, for which Oken was extremely grateful. In 1823, Goethe claimed the discovery for himself in the Heften zur Morphologie (notebooks on morphology). He said that he had made the discovery in 1790 on the basis of a sheep skull found on the dunes of the Lido of Venice, and although he did not publish it, he reported on it several times in letters from Italy to Germany. Many scientists participated in the controversy and repeatedly took Oken’s side. In other areas, Goethe and Oken were quite close. Despite differing political views and although he described the ban of Oken’s journal Isis in Thuringia, Goethe called the GDNÄ founder “genius”. 

    Do you still perceive an interest in Goethe as a naturalist today?
    A new interest can be observed in the present, especially in Goethe’s theory of colours. There are attempts to understand Goethe’s research, observations and views in this area in the context of his holistic understanding of nature, which contrasts with the objective or experimental-statistical concept of science in modern times. This is very evident in Goethe’s psychological-cultural interpretation of colours, which is usually neglected by physicists, and in his concept of metamorphosis and morphology in the organic sciences.

    To what extent can Goethe contribute to a growing together of cultures in science and art?
    Goethe’s significance undoubtedly also lies in his contribution to overcoming or, better said, alleviating the separation of the two or four cultures. Goethe was particularly concerned with a mutual connection and communication between these cultures, which is a challenge for natural sciences and medicine. Conversely, however, the arts and humanities would also have to recognise their scientific basis or dependence on nature – arguably an even greater challenge. Goethe describes how worthwhile the effort can be: “It is a pleasant business to explore nature and oneself at the same time, without harming either nature or one’s mind, but rather to balance the two through gentle reciprocal influence.”

    Saarbrücken 2018 © Robertus Koppies

    © Institut für Medizingeschichte und Wissenschaftsforschung Lübeck

    Prof. Dr. Dietrich von Engelhardt

    © J.B. Metzler, Heidelberg 2024

    About the person

    From 1983 to 2007, Dietrich von Engelhardt was a full professor of the history of medicine and the general history of science at the University of Lübeck. His main research interests include natural philosophy, natural sciences, medicine in idealism and romanticism, and European scientific relations. In 1997, Professor Engelhardt organised a major symposium in Lübeck to mark the 175th anniversary of the GDNÄ. He is the editor of the GDNÄ’s anniversary publication Research and Progress and the publication series on the meetings of German natural scientists and physicians. Dietrich von Engelhardt is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and has been a member of the GDNÄ since 1981. In 2016, he received the GDNÄ’s Alexander von Humboldt Medal.

    © Chris Light

    In 1786, Goethe visited the botanical gardens in Padua. While looking at a fan palm, he had the idea that all plant species could perhaps have originated from one species. The tree, now called the Goethe palm, still stands there today and a plaque attached to the front contains the following inscription in Italian: “Johann Wolfgang Goethe, poet and naturalist, took from it the idea and evidence of his metamorphosis of plants.”

    Thomas Henry Huxley in der Erstausgabe von Nature, 1869

    „It may be, that long after the theories of the philosophers whose achievements are recorded in these pages, are obsolete, the vision of the poet will remain as a truthful and efficient symbol of the wonder and the mystery of Nature.“

    (in: Dietrich von Engelhardt: Goethe als Naturforscher, S. 291)

    Further reading
    Review in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung

    © Stadtmuseum Dresden

    The German polymath and painter Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) was closely associated with both Goethe and the GDNÄ.

    Confidence in climate research is increasing

    Confidence in climate research is increasing

    The credibility of science and research remains high. However, sceptical voices can also be heard among the German population. This is shown by the 2024 Science Barometer, a representative survey conducted by the Science in Dialogue organisation (WiD), in which the GDNÄ is involved as a shareholder. After ten years of regular surveys, long-term trends are now becoming visible.

    The level of trust that people in Germany have in science and research is stable. At 55 percent, more than half of those surveyed in the 2024 science barometer also stated that they had full or partial trust (2023: 56 percent). A significant change over the last ten years is reflected in the level of information: the proportion of respondents who feel they are not very or not at all informed about science and research has fallen from 35 per cent (2014) to 17 per cent (2024).

    Trust in statements from scientists on the topics of climate change and renewable energies has increased significantly. While only 37 per cent of respondents believed the statements on man-made climate change in 2014, this figure will have risen to 59 per cent by 2024. And while 65 per cent of respondents today trust scientific statements on renewable energies, in 2014 it was only 44 per cent. Taking political views into account, the current survey comes to an interesting conclusion: 41 per cent of people who would vote for the AfD trust scientific statements on renewable energies, but only 15 per cent believe statements on climate change. Such differences are not observed for other parties (with the exception of the FDP).

    © WID

    Seit einigen Jahren bewegt sich die Glaubwürdigkeit der Wissenschaft auf stabilem Niveau.

    For the first time, the 2024 science barometer also asked about attitudes towards scientific freedom. 45 per cent of people in Germany believe that scientific freedom in this country is either good or very good. An almost equally large proportion (39 per cent) believe that scientific freedom is a mixed bag.

    The respondents see potential dangers in the influence of business and politics on science: two-thirds believe that the influence of business is rather large or much too large, while 57 per cent say the same about the influence of politics on science. Due to their strong dependency, researchers are not trustworthy – significantly more people agree with this statement in 2024 than in previous years (2022: 56 per cent, 2023: 54 per cent, 2024: 62 per cent). 60 per cent consider it likely that journalists will distort research results.

    Two-thirds of respondents consider it important to involve citizens in deciding on new research topics (2017: 56 per cent). Interest in active participation is less pronounced: 43 per cent say they would like to participate in a scientific project and 40 per cent say they would like to discuss with scientists. The science barometer is a representative survey of the population that has been regularly conducted by the non-profit organisation Wissenschaft im Dialog (Science in Dialogue) since 2014 to determine attitudes towards science and research.

    Saarbrücken 2018 © Robertus Koppies

    © WID

    Titelbild der Broschüre Wissenschaftsbarometer 2024.

    Further information:

    Martin Lohse: “On placebos or therapy with nothing”

    On placebos or therapy with nothing

    Martin Lohse, professor of pharmacology and vice president of the GDNÄ, on the amazing effects of so-called sham drugs and how they can enrich medicine.

    Professor Lohse, at the GDNÄ meeting in Potsdam, you recently gave a lecture on placebos or therapy with nothing. But your profession as a pharmacologist is more about therapy with something. How does that fit together?
    At first glance, one might see a contradiction here. But placebo effects also accompany every drug therapy and other medical measures, and that is why they are part of it.

    The audience was enthusiastic about your lecture, applauded extensively and had many questions. Why is there so much interest in placebos?
    I think that many people are affected by it because they have experienced it themselves or seen it in others and have thought about it. The topic also brings together most diverse schools of thought – from scientific drug therapy to shamanism.

    How did you come across the topic?
    I have been covering it in my introductory pharmacology lectures for more than twenty years because I think that doctors and pharmacists should know about it. They all work, consciously or unconsciously, with placebo effects. These also include harmful effects, so-called nocebo effects. Over the years, I then delved deeper into the subject because I wanted to know what was actually proven in this field and what was just speculation. Just recently, I have come across many new results and some amazing things.

    What has amazed you the most?
    That the same brain centers are activated in the mind of the doctor as in the mind of the patient when it comes to placebo effects. This has been studied primarily in the treatment of pain. It seems that the doctor must first empathize with the patient’s pain. Then, with this idea, he can activate his own pain-suppressing systems, and that in turn is transferred to the patient. This ability of the doctor correlates closely with his ability to empathize, as can be measured in psychological tests. In my lecture, I went into more detail about the corresponding research results.

    Schema der Wechselwirkung zwischen Patienten und Ärzten bei der Schmerzunterdrückung

    Placebo effects in pain suppression result from the interaction between patients and doctors. Pain activates so-called pain centers in the brain (yellow star), as shown by functional magnetic resonance imaging. When empathic doctors come together with such patients, they in turn activate the same centers in the brain. However, they can also activate their own pain-suppressing centers in their brain (blue symbol). This is transferred to patients and leads to the activation of pain-suppressing nerves in them, which release endogenous opioids and other transmitters in the body and thus produce the pain-suppressing placebo effect. This effect occurs regardless of whether the drug administered to the patient contains an analgesic active ingredient or whether it is a pure placebo.

    What does this mean for medical practice?
    Doctors who are able to put themselves in their patients’ shoes can achieve a great deal with empathy in the reciprocal relationship. It would be good if we could use such placebo effects more systematically and on a reasoned basis, not just intuitively and based on personal experience. That’s why we should increase knowledge in this field and incorporate it more into the training of doctors and pharmacists. 

    Can empathy, which obviously plays a major role, be taught and learned at all?
    Some things are a matter of talent, but others can be learned. Since empathy is a core skill for therapists, it should be incorporated into the entire training program. The current courses in medical psychology for prospective doctors are a start. 

    How far has placebo research come?
    Compared to many other areas of medicine, it is still in its infancy. We have only been able to speak of serious, scientifically based placebo research for about three decades. It is an area where medicine, psychology and the new imaging techniques come together. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, in particular, gives us an idea of what is happening in the minds of patients and therapists. So, placebo research is making progress and Germany is playing an important role in it. Four years ago, for example, a national special research area was set up that has already led to a number of interesting results.

    Eröffnung der Büros Postplatz 1 © Paul Glaser

    © MIKA-fotografie | Berlin

    Great interest from the audience: After the lecture, there were many questions and comments on the placebo effect.  

    So far, placebos have mainly been used in drug studies to find out whether drugs work compared to them. Do we also learn something from this about how placebos work?
    Not really, because in such studies, the placebo arm only serves as a background against which the effect of a drug is to be shown. But treatment with placebos is not neutral. This is shown by studies with open placebos, in which patients know that they are receiving a placebo but still feel a healing effect. There are probably many types of placebo effects – just as there are countless drugs. In the future, we should characterize these in detail and examine their interactions.

    A few more words about drug trials: it is rare for a verum to be tested against a placebo alone. If an effective drug already exists, giving a dummy drug is prohibited on ethical grounds. In these cases, the standard treatment plus a placebo is tested against the standard treatment plus a new drug. This makes it more difficult for new drugs to gain market approval: they not only have to work themselves, but also have to provide an additional benefit to standard therapy. 

    Let’s take a closer look at the placebo effect: what do we know about its psychological and biological basis?
    Psychologically, the expectations of patients are important. Both positive and negative expectations have a strong influence on the success of treatment – therapy with nothing, so to speak, is based on our expectations. We still know very little about the biological processes involved. What we do know is that placebos increase the activity of certain brain regions. For example, when it comes to pain suppression, placebos activate precisely those regions and neural pathways in the brain that are responsible for controlling pain perception. 

    Do you need pills for the placebo effect or is positive expectation enough?
    Pills, with or without active ingredients, or other specific measures such as acupuncture have a placebo effect. The best approach is a good medicine combined with positive expectations. Most studies show that a medicine plus placebo works twice as well as a placebo alone. 

    For which illnesses is the placebo effect greatest?
    The effect has been well studied for pain, especially for migraine, for functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, and in general for disorders with a strong psychosomatic component. Even depression can often be alleviated with placebos. This effect has been convincingly demonstrated and it is what makes studies on antidepressants so difficult. 

    For which diseases should the placebo effect not be relied upon?
    Whenever you know that there are drugs with a good verum effect, whose ingredients have been shown to help against a specific disease. In this case, you have to use the verum – knowing that its effect will be supplemented by placebo effects. If you don’t do that as a doctor, for example in cancer therapy, it becomes dangerous. This is also the strongest criticism of controversial forms of therapy such as homeopathy. 

    More than a few patients report amazing healing successes with homeopathic remedies. What is your opinion on this?
    Good homeopaths know how to use placebo effects efficiently. The effect of homeopathy is based on this, and not on the almost infinitely diluted medicines that are used. I think it is nonsense to ascribe verum effects to these remedies. 

    What is the future of the placebo effect?
    I expect to see a lot of new findings soon. And I hope that we will identify and understand very different placebo effects and mechanisms, and that we will be able to draw practical conclusions for training and therapeutic practice.

    Heribert Hofer © MIKA-fotografie | Berlin

    © MIKA-fotografie | Berlin

    Placebo or therapy with nothing: Pharmacologist and GDNÄ Vice President Martin Lohse gave the public Leopoldina Lecture 2024 on this topic.

    This is how medicines work: A temporary, self-healing illness causes symptoms such as fever or pain for a while – this describes the bell-shaped outer curve.

    This is how medicines work: A temporary, self-healing illness causes symptoms such as fever or pain for a while – this describes the bell-shaped outer curve. If an effective medicine is given at the peak of the symptoms, such as one that reduces fever, the symptoms quickly subside. Two components contribute to this: the placebo effect (blue area) and the effect of the drug, also known as verum (red area).

    About the person

    Martin Lohse is a professor of pharmacology and toxicology, managing director of the Bavarian research company ISAR Bioscience in Martinsried and vice president of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ). As their president from 2019 to 2022, he shaped the 200th anniversary of the Society of Natural Scientists in Leipzig with the conference theme “Images in Science” . He is the editor of the commemorative publication “Wenn der Funke überspringt” (When the Spark Leaps Over), published for the occasion. He has received the highest German science award, the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation, and many other honors for his research on G-protein coupled receptors.

    Detailed curriculum vitae for download (PDF)

    Further information

    Welcome to Potsdam

    Potsdam

    Dear members and friends of the GDNÄ,

    Welcome to the 133rd Assembly of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians from 12 to 15 September in Potsdam. Science characterises our lives today and science will continue to have a strong influence on our lives in the future. In Potsdam, the focus will therefore be on “Science for our lives of tomorrow”.

    Since 1822, our society has been bringing together scientists and those interested in science for interdisciplinary dialogue. The GDNÄ promotes this dialogue between the public and the natural and life sciences, medicine and technology. In times when fake news and populist movements are calling science into question, it is particularly important to allow scientists to have their say.

    Direct access to science is particularly important and helpful for young people. Since 2004, we have therefore been inviting students to visit our collections and engage in dialogue with the speakers. Thanks to the generous support of the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation, the AKB Foundation, the Bayer Foundation and the Family Business Foundation, we are once again able to invite 150 young people. Some of them will be on stage during the sessions this time.

    Dealing with the topics at the centre of our conference requires an understanding of the insights of the natural and life sciences and enthusiasm for medicine and technology. We hope that the opportunities and new possibilities of science will be utilised for the well-being of people in the future. We say this with hope and confidence at a time when Russia’s unspeakable war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for more than two years and Israel is fighting in Gaza against Hamas, which has murderously invaded Israel. Both wars bring endless suffering to many people.

    In the 202 years since our society was founded, science has helped to improve people’s lives in many areas, be it medicine, nutrition, mobility or communication. But science also allows us to understand what mankind has done to planet Earth, the animal and plant world. It shows us what we can do to shape a better future, in the spirit of “responsible” science. We also want to talk about this in Potsdam. We look forward to seeing you.

    Heribert Hofer, Präsident der GDNÄ

    Heribert Hofer, President of the GDNÄ

    Campus Griebnitzsee der Universität Potsdam © K. Fritze

    © MIKA-fotografie | Berlin

    Prof Dr Heribert Hofer, President of the GDNÄ and Director of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.

    Current program change

    The Leopoldina lecture by Professor Liane Benning “The Great Melting” on Saturday, September 14, has unfortunately been canceled. Instead, GDNÄ Vice-President Professor Martin Lohse, Leopoldina member and pharmacologist, will speak about drugs of the future and the impressive power of placebos. All interested parties are cordially invited to the public lecture from 5:30 to 7 pm.

    Registration

    GDNÄ President Hofer and his team have put together a rich scientific program. Registration for the entire conference or for individual days is easily possible on site at the conference box office.

    Photo Journal

    Impressions from Potsdam

    An illustrated diary of the GDNÄ meeting from 12-15 September 2024.
    more >>

    Newly elected

    Ferdi Schüth

    Max Planck Director is now part of the GDNÄ Executive Committee.
    mehr >>

    Honoured

    Eva-Maria Neher

    Alexander von Humboldt Medal for her great services to the GDNÄ.
    more >>

    Young GDNÄ

    Anne Marie Bobes

    The 18-year-old builds wind turbines for street lamps.
    more >>

    Media response

    Interest aroused

    The GDNÄ conference in Potsdam meets with a positive response.
    more >>

    Potsdam 2024

    An initial assessment

    Four days of fascinating presentations and discussions.
    more >>

    Livestream

    Be there in real time

    Click here for the broadcast of the GDNÄ meeting in Potsdam.
    more >>

    Young GDNÄ

    Paul Scholand

    He is 18, a GDNÄ student scholarship holder, and has big plans.
    mehr >>

    Opening ceremony

    The Lord Mayor of the Brandenburg state capital Potsdam, Mike Schubert, and the President of the University of Potsdam, Professor Oliver Günther, Ph.D., will welcome the guests at the beginning of the conference. The greetings from the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg will be conveyed by Steffen Weber, Head of the Science and Research Department. The meeting will be opened by GDNÄ President Professor Heribert Hofer and Professor Alexander Böker, GDNÄ Managing Director of Economics.

    Livestream

    If you are unable to travel to Potsdam, you can participate in the meeting via livestream. From September 12, you can access the free livestream via this page.

    Campus Griebnitzsee der Universität Potsdam © K. Fritze

    © K. Fritze

    The 133rd GDNÄ Assembly will take place in the main building of the Griebnitzsee campus of the University of Potsdam.

    Several interviews on this website provide insights into the preparations for the conference and information on individual presentations:

    Please note: The event will be filmed/photographed. It is therefore possible that participants may be recognisable on the film and photo material that is produced. The film material will be used in accordance with the objectives and purpose of the GDNÄ and placed for the purpose of event-related public relations for non-commercial use and for an unlimited duration in all dedicated online media as well as on all video platforms used by the GDNÄ on the Internet with all sharing functionalities provided by the video hosting provider.

    GDNÄ Meeting 2024: Young people and established science in personal dialogue

    GDNÄ Conference 2024: Young people and established science in personal exchange

    More than five hundred participants, including one hundred and fifty school and university students, high-level lectures on current topics in chemistry, biology, computer science, physics, engineering and medicine, plus a lively interdisciplinary, personal exchange – this is how the 2024 conference of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ) in Potsdam was assessed.

    From 12 to 15 September 2024, the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians met for its 133rd assembly at the Griebnitzsee Campus of the University of Potsdam. Many who could not be there in person participated via livestream. The conference focused on the topic “Science for Our Tomorrow’s Life”. The student programme with pupils from the region and university students has been a fixed part of the GDNÄ conferences for years. The establishment of the Young GDNÄ during the conference in Potsdam increases the importance of young people in the 202-year-old research society. At the 133rd meeting, the young people discussed with renowned scientists, including Nobel Prize winner Ben Feringa. 

    “I think it’s great how we young people are given a platform here. And that we are allowed to participate in the conference free of charge and with great appreciation – in the lecture hall, in panel discussions and in conversations on the side,” says Anne Marie Bobes. The 18-year-old high school graduate and future mechanical engineering student won the GDNÄ Science Slam “Science in 5 Minutes”. 

    Paul Mühlenhoff, the pedagogical director of the GDNÄ student programme, says: “This year, we had a particularly strong sense of cohesion and an enormous amount of enthusiasm in the group. The Young GDNÄ prepared intensively for all the lectures and was more integrated into the programme than ever. Chapeau!” 

    GDNÄ President Professor Heribert Hofer says: “The young people, our Young GDNÄ, find excellent science and interdisciplinary work and direct dialogue with the lecturers at our events. That is what makes the GDNÄ conferences so special. And anyone who missed the livestream this time can soon watch all the lectures as videos on our homepage.” 

    The 134th assembly will take place in Bremen in September 2026.

    Professorin Eva-Maria Neher © Universität Göttingen/Peter Heller

    © MIKA-fotografie | Berlin

    GDNÄ President Professor Heribert Hofer at the opening of the conference at the University of Potsdam.