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A few weeks ago, three of the four of us (Hank, Joanna, Lukas) spent a week together on Ischia, an island off of Naples. We were there for the The Twelfth Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, sponsored by the Wellcome , the MPIWG , and the Stazione Zoologica . Lukas, Helen, Joanna, and Hank (poolside) Here's a description of the event. This year's theme was " Biology and the Public: Participation and Exclusion from the Renaissance to the Present Day," which was relevant to each of our projects in different ways. We had a great time–inside and outside the seminar room–and decided to do a three-part report for the blog. Each of us will pick an interesting theme from the week's conversation and run with it (briefly). I'm kicking things off, so here goes: "Biology and the Public" vs. Biology and "the Public" One thing I kept jotting down in my notes was that we spent way more time interrogating the category of "t

Science scenesters, we need your help! We just launched a Kickstarter campaign to jumpstart "Secret Science Club: Season Five" and to help make it our most creative and mind-blowing season ever. And here's the cool part: There are awesome rewards for your Kickstarter pledges. We've got T-shirts , tickets to upcoming special events, and other swag (plus, we'll be adding new items periodically). The Secret Science Club is serious and passionate about science communication and building bridges between science, the humanities, and the arts. As we approach our 5th anniversary , we're committed to keeping our regular monthly events free, and we're also determined to expand our low-cost programming to feed the need for more public science events. Failure is not an option! To make a pledge, learn more about our secret mission, or just check out the rewards, visit us on Kickstarter . And thanks for your support! Meanwhile . . . stay tuned for information ab

I just got back from a week in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I spent about five days at the archives, in addition to attending talks at this year's ISHPSSB conference.  (For the uninitiated, that's: International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology).  I then spent a long weekend hiking in the Uinta mountains, which is a pretty spectacular place to go! ISH is unique and different from other conferences insofar as it tries to bring together an interdisciplinary bunch of people, all of whom share an object of study in common: the life sciences.  That's the idea, anyway.  But, in recent years, it has become increasingly dominated by philosophy.  This is not a bad thing per se -- philosophers have a lot to offer those of us who are interested in writing critical intellectual history.  But why aren't the historians showing up? If indeed we are seeing a resurgence in philosophical issues among young historians of science, this seems like an excellent pl