Ether Wave Propaganda

A quick note to direct attention to Jon Agar’s rapid-fire series on science in 2008-2009 over at UCL’s STS Observatory.  The blog was extremely quiet over the summer, so if you’re not a regular visitor, it’s worth checking back in.  Essentially, Agar (who just took over editing the British Journal for the History of Science, by the way) is testing out material for the end of his new book on Science in the Twentieth Century (see his intro post here).  It’s a useful exercise to see what one might imagine constitutes a snapshot of “science” at a point in time at this point in history.  Early posts focused on headline-grabbers, but the last couple of posts are taking a bit more of a systematic or nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject matter.

I’ve been past due in revising this blog’s mission in light of better articulations of what it is I want to achieve with it and why, and why I’m critical in the ways that I am.  Not mentioned is that the blog is intended mainly to revise my own thinking in a way that if others are interested in what I’m thinking about, they can have access to it.  But, hey, aim high, right?  Also, there is now no mention of the blog dealing with the concerns of early-career scholars, nor who can be a contributor (seeing as we have not exactly been flooded with requests!).  The new “manifesto” with updated contributor biographies can be found in the About tab.

A couple of weeks ago, I approved of outgoing HSS president Jane Maienschein’s desire to put more science back into the history of science, while suggesting that the difficulties in doing so were more deep-seated than is perhaps generally appreciated.  I thought it was odd to have to defend the idea that scientific ideas should be at the core of the history of science profession, but there are indeed opposing views.  Darin Hayton at PACHSmörgåsbord, the blog of the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science, offers one here.

Hayton’s position seems to be that because science is a cultural activity, and because “science” can only be defined epistemologically, a history focused around the history of “science” can only be defined around retrospective constructs of what properly constitutes scientific topics.  By insisting that science is culture, the knowledge of properly scientific cultures becomes just one kind of knowledge among many.  Thus, by including other cultures arbitrarily excluded in philosophical definitions of science, the discipline can be opened up to include such historically important but epistemologically unvalidated topics as astrology, demonology, and witchcraft.

I would like to respond with three observations.

First, Hayton seems most exercised by the possibility that advocacy for intellectual aspects of history has consequences for valid subject matters of historical inquiry.  He therefore supports a definition of the history of science that opens the field up to practically any topic whatsoever.  (more…)

I generally don’t worry too much about contemporary science issues on this blog, but a recent poll from the Pew Research Center (pdf), in conjunction with the AAAS, brought to my attention by Physics Today, seems to bear relevance for issues pertinent to what the public objectives of science communication (including science studies work) ought to be, as well as on the problem of what tea leaves we can read to divine the character of the relationship between science and society.  The results are interesting.

First off: Americans like science!  Fully 84% of people surveyed think science has a “mostly positive” effect on society; and 70% think scientists contribute “a lot” to society’s well-being, behind only teachers (77%) and members of the military (84%).  No word on historians….

Interestingly, only 17% think that American science is the best in the world (relating to how frequently we’re told we’re falling behind?)  47% think American science is “above average”. (The numbers are rather higher when scientists themselves are polled.)  Since 1999 America’s achievements in science and technology has slipped from 47% thinking it is this nation’s “greatest achievement” to only 27%, but it still tops any other individual response.  Civil rights, incidentally, rose from 5% to 17%. (more…)

I’m off to Minnesota to visit family for a week, and will probably not be posting.  I think Chris has something planned for Hump Day History, which will probably go up later.

For any readers with an interest in science policy, the blog Prometheus is being discontinued.  I originally had Prometheus on the blog roll because I enjoyed David Bruggeman’s attention to a well-parsed variety of issues concerning science in the federal (and occasionally British) governments.  Bruggeman’s new blog is Pasco Phronesis, which takes Prometheus’ place on the blog roll.  Prometheus’s main contributor, Roger Pielke, Jr., is primarily intested in climate change issues, and he also has a new blog.  His analyses of policy issues and public pronouncements are detailed, frequent, and pointed, but are a little far afield of what we do here.  So no new link, but I encourage readers with any interest in the issue to check him out if they haven’t already.

Finally, I thought it might be interesting to do occasional “what am I reading?” posts.  I read different books in different ways.  Some books I read in detail from cover to cover.  For Hump Day History I read books in enough detail to do a competent summary of the subject matter, but don’t really absorb the whole thing.  A whole stack of others sit on my shelf or coffee table seemingly eternally half-read, and sometimes I actually finish them.  A couple selections I plan on taking to Minnesota with me, plus short commentary, after the jump. (more…)