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The recent chatter here , and elsewhere , about Bill Cronon’s blog, Scholar as Citizen , has gotten me to thinking about another thread that’s been running through our discussions.  That is: how we ought to approach the communities whose historical antecedents we study. As some of you will recall, Hank took issue with a sentiment that Betty Smocovitis voiced in her interview with Megan Raby (available here ).  The point of disagreement was whether we should strive to craft historical narratives that scientists themselves will be able to read, such that they recognize themselves (or their forebears).  To paraphrase somewhat, Betty and Megan’s sentiment was, “I want my own work to be able to be read by scientists, and they can ... learn something.”  A scientist should not come away from having read a piece of historical writing and think “that doesn’t look like me at all,” that “it’s offensive or insulting.” If I understood him correctly, Hank thinks that it should not matter one way or

What follows is the second in a pair of posts on the recent events involving William Cronon, Wisconsin Republicans, and the intersections between historical scholarship, public engagement, and current politics. Yesterday , Lukas focused on the paradoxical relationship between the legal apparatus of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Academic Freedom; below, Hank proposes a distinction between Cronon's use of historical methods and historical knowledge , and the role of each in the the present controversy. Part II: Hank: Methods and Knowledge in Public History This whole thing has really taken off. According to Bill Cronon's most recent blog post , he's now had over 2,000,000 hits in the wake of uptake by media outlets like the New York Times, whose recent editorial ( "A Shabby Crusade" ) comes down unequivocally for "academic freedom." No matter what happens as this proceeds, it seems like the Republican request has at least guaranteed a

What follows is the first of a pair of posts on the recent events involving William Cronon, Wisconsin Republicans, and the intersections between historical scholarship, public engagement, and current politics. Here, Lukas focuses on the paradoxical relationship between the legal apparatus of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Academic Freedom; tomorrow, Hank will elaborate on a distinction between Cronon's contributions of historical methods and historical knowledge , and the role of each in the the present controversy. Part I: Lukas: FOIA vs. Academic Freedom First some context & background on what appears to have happened here. I think it’s safe to say that Bill Cronon ranks among the country’s leading environmental historians so readers of this blog will no doubt be familiar with his scholarship. On March 15, he inaugurated a new blog— Scholar as Citizen —with a post on “Who’s Really Behind the Republican Legislation in Wisconsin" . In the post, he focuses on

Think fast! Every waking moment involves choice . Android or iPhone? Pancakes or waffles? Boxers or briefs? Time to call it quits, or time for another drink? My place or yours? What exactly goes on in our brains when we’re confronted with so many options? A leading pioneer in the new field of neuroeconomics, scientist and author  Paul Glimcher uses the latest technology to uncover how brain biology controls decision-making. He asks: Why do wrong decisions sometimes feel so right? Are other animals ever irrational ? Is money an outgrowth of our neural circuitry? What happens inside the brain when we choose to take risks? The author of Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis and Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain , Dr. Glimcher is professor of Neural Science, Economics and Psychology at New York University and director of NYU’s Center for Neuroeconomics. Before & After --Groove to synapse-stimulating sounds --Stick around for the cerebral Q&A --Try our dopamine

I'm in mourning over Michigan's State's very early exit from the NCAA tournament. Even so, here's a post in honor of March and all its Madness. [Note to self: next year, do a post during March Madness about the history of abnormal psychology.] I first encountered the history of basketball in a March Madness-honoring lecture by State's inimitable intellectual historian: Dave Bailey. I learned that James Naismith developed the sport in the winter of 1891/92 to keep his students at the YMCA's college in Springfield, MA physically, mentally, and spiritually pure during the frozen months when weather precluded other wholesome sporting. Basketball emerged from a particular approach to Christian practice that went light on theology and heavy on chaste but manly activity---it's often called muscular Christianity. I'll let Naismith give you a taste for the theory behind this peculiar (yet still thriving) conjunction of sport and faith: "The nearest to preac

David Brooks has a pretty distinguished resume for a journalist: reporter for the Wall Street Journal, senior editor at the Weekly Standard, commentator on National Public Radio, and, since 2003, columnist at the New York Times. However, while he spent the last two decades making his name as a conservative political analyst, Brooks has dedicated the last few months to reinventing himself - as a science popularizer. To those who've been paying attention, this shouldn't come as a surprise - Thomas Nagel, for example, describes Brooks with wicked ambivalence as a well-known "aficionado of research in the social sciences." More likely to raise eyebrows is the seeming rapidity with which Brooks has shifted the bulk of his attention to reading, aggregating, and promulgating such research: he's devoted most of his recent columns ( like one today ) to it, re-initiated his defunct blog to provide daily recourse for it, and, most significantly, dedicated a recent book to i

I've been thinking about Japan a lot in the last few days. A horrible history is unfolding and, as an academic, I'm grasping for ways to express emotions that might be easier to suppress. So, I'm following Lukas' current events lead here in hoping that we can get a discussion going about how history of science and science studies are relevant to both making sense of and intervening with technological catastrophes of unfathomable magnitude. I'm by no means an expert on nuclear disaster, but historian Susan Lindee's 1994 _Suffering Made Real_, on American scientists' engagement with the survivors of Japan's previous atomic tragedy has been on my mind. As has anthropologist Adriana Petryna's 2005 _Life Exposed_, a study of the ways in which the Chernobyl meltdown mutated bodies as well as ideas about citizenship in post-Soviet Ukraine. Lindee's book tracks the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, wherein hybrid forms knowledge production and anxiet

"Weird." That was my reaction to Morris' ashtray story when I first heard it in on a Princeton University podcast. Lukas has since offered his own reaction ---one that's much more sophisticated than mine, in which he argues that the positivists and truth seekers care about the limits and limitations of language too. Sad. That's how I feel now that I've finished reading Morris' expansion on that story in the NYT Opinionator Blog. More on why in a moment. Pleased (to have anyone talking about philosophy). That's the consensus over at "Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog." There's some fascinating debate in the comments, with varied points of view, but I stand by my characterization. I see their point: I knew nothing about Kripke before this. Laudatory. That's the dominant feeling of the comments following Morris' blog. One gets the sense that most commenters were just happy to have something that challenged them to think a bit, eve

In keeping with my interest in archives, last week I interviewed Audra Wolfe about her experiences cataloging the papers of geneticist Bentley Glass which are held at the American Philosophical Society. This work is funded by a National Science Foundation Scholar's grant. Audra is a historian and editor based in Philadelphia. When not knee-deep in other people’s manuscripts, she’s working on a textbook on Cold War science for Johns Hopkins University Press and is also a food blogger and canning expert ( see here ) ---- RADIN: Why Bentley Glass? WOLFE: Bentley Glass is one of those people who shows up as a bit player all over the history of the Cold War. I first noticed him in his role as chair of the Biological Sciences Curriculum study, one of the major post-Sputnik attempts to reform American science education. But once I knew the name, I started seeing references to him in the oddest places: the nuclear test ban debate and fallout, Pugwash, debates over civil liberties and a

Errol Morris published the fourth installment of his five-part personal essay on Kuhn in today’s NY Times.  All of it is worth reading (except perhaps part III , which drags on somewhat), and I definitely encourage everyone to take a look! What is Morris’ beef with Kuhn?  In a nutshell, he thinks that Kuhn provided volatile ammunition for “postmodernists” (that’s Morris’ term): people who want to deny there is a truth (rather than many truths), a real world (rather than multiple realities), and a compelling distinction between ethical and unethical actions (rather than just social mores).  Now, I suspect that Morris is mostly tilting at windmills here, or, at the very least, that his argument is about ten years behind the times.  But for historians of science, I think, it is worth thinking about what’s got him so upset.  Morris’ central objection centers on the relationship between paradigms and incommensurability.  What is a paradigm and what does it mean for two paradigms to be inco

Let me use this post to follow up on "The S cience (Studies) Wars: Daston v. Jasanoff" by linking it up with a few different conversations that have taken place at Princeton over the past couple weeks. First up was a discussion with Jim Endersby on 23 February about a pre-circulated paper called "Of Fleas and Whales: Turning History of Science Inside Out." Much of the colloquium was devoted to what exactly Endersby meant by turning our histories "inside out," since his emphasis shifted between aims like reaching wider audiences, tackling larger-scale problems, integrating with history departments, and saving the humanities and democracy itself. While Endersby's concerns certainly resonate with the Daston/Jasanoff debate I summarized last week, he didn't put his paper into dialogue with them. Had he done so, I think he'd have aligned himself with Daston - though where Daston looks ahead from a history/history of science marriage to further lia

Kick it into warp drive! The Secret Science Club is heading out—way out.  The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, a ginormous subterranean machine that sends subatomic particles smashing into each other at incomprehensible speeds. The resulting explosions mimic conditions just moments after the Big Bang . Theoretical physicist Matthew Strassler of Rutgers University lectures on how this phenomenal new experiment could unveil the fundamental building blocks of the universe and transform our understanding of matter, space and time , and the cosmos. Before & After --Groove to high-energy tunes --Stick around for the quantum Q&A --Try our quarky cocktail of the night, the elusive Dark Matter -- Plus! Science rapper Zach Charlop-Powers live. Oh, yeah! The Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, March 16 @ the Bell House , 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn, p: 718.643.6510 Subway: F to 4th Ave; R to 9th St; F or G