Department of
Science and Technology Studies
HPSCGA40
Science in the 20th Century and
Beyond
Syllabus
Session
Term 2
Web site
See Moodle site
Moodle site
moodle.ucl.ac.uk
Timetable
www.ucl.ac.uk/timetable
Description
More science was done, and more scientists lived, in the twentieth century than in any other
century of human history. Furthermore, there were major changes in the framing ideas and
organisation of major disciplines. Physics, for example, grappled with the new ideas of quantum
theory and relativity. The life sciences responded to genetics and molecular approaches to life
science. Geology uncovered evidence for continental drift, while astronomy explored an
expanding universe. These intellectual developments were intimately connected to social,
economic, political and cultural trends and events, not least global conflicts, ideological clashes
and economic transformations. This course introduces and guides the student through accounts
of these changes produced by historians and other commentators.
Key Information
Assessment
50%
Essay 1
50%
Essay 2
Prerequisites
none
Required texts
readings listed below
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Module tutors
Module tutor
Professor Jon Agar
Contact
jonathan.agar@ucl.ac.uk | t: 020 7679 3521
Web
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/staff/agar
Office location
22 Gordon Square, Room 2.2
Office hours:
See days and times on door
and by appointment
Assistant
n/a
Contact
n/a
Office location
n/a
Office hours:
n/a
Aims and objectives
aims
Understanding of the history, and historiography, of science in the twentieth century
objectives
By the end of this module students should be able to:
•
•
Have an overview of main developments and themes of science in the twentieth century
Possess an understanding of the historiography of science in the twentieth century
Module plan
See below.
2
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Schedule
UCL Wk
Date
Topic
Activity
1
1
14.1
1900 as a Break
Read: Galison (2000)
Read: Brannigan (1979)
Primary Source: browse Einstein
(1905)
2
2
21.1
Science and Political Cultures
Read: Forman (1971)
Read: Graham (1998, excerpts)
Primary Source: none
3
3
28.1
Philanthropy
Read: Kay (1993, excerpt)
Read: Kohler (1999)
Primary Source: none
4
4
4.2
Pathological Science?
Read: Proctor (2000)
Read: Ball (2014)
Primary Source: Medvedev
(excerpts)
5
5
11.2
Second World War
Read: Hughes (1989, excerpt)
Read: Edgerton (2011, excerpt)
Primary Source: Einstein (1939)
Reading Week
no lectures
Cold War
Read: Capshew and Rader
(1992)
Read: van Keuren (2001)
Primary Source: Science, the
Endless Frontier (1945)
Sea Change
Read: Agar (2008)
Primary Source 1: Carson (1962,
excerpts)
Primary Source 2: browse Brand
(1969)
7
7
25.2
8
8
4.3
9
9
11.3
Entrepreneurial Science
Read: Kenney (1986, excerpt)
Read: Wright (1986)
Primary Source: US Patent
4,736,866
10
10
18.3
New Golden Age of Natural
History?
Read: Pace et al (2012)
Read: Merson (2000)
Primary Source: browse IUCN
Red List
11
11
25.3
Limits to Growth?
Read: Greenhalgh (2008,
excerpt)
Read: Kevles (1997)
Primary Source: IPCC website
3
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Reading list
General Agar, Jon (2012) Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity. Krige, John and Dominique Pestre (eds) (1997), Science in the Twentieth Century, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press See also volumes 5 (physical), 6 (life), and 7 (social) in the Cambridge History of Science series Readings for Classes Agar, Jon (2008) ‘What happened in the sixties?’, British Journal for the History of Science 41(4), pp. 567-­‐600 Ball, Philip (2014) ‘Epilogue: “We did not speak the same language”’ in Serving the Reich: the Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 251-­‐
267. Brand, Stewart (ed.) (1969) Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools. Fall 1968. Menlo Park: Portola Institute. Brannigan, Augustine (1979) ‘The reification of Mendel’, Social Studies of Science 9, pp. 423-­‐
454. Capshew, James H. and Karen A. Rader (1992) ‘Big Science: Price to the present’, Osiris, 2nd Series, 7, pp. 2-­‐25 Carson, Rachel (1962) Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Edgerton, David (2011), ‘Boffins’, in Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War. London: Allen Lane, pp. 233-­‐271. Einstein, Albert (1905) ‘On the electrodynamics of moving bodies’, (the English translation of his original 1905 German-­‐language paper ‘Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper’, in Annalen der Physik (1905) 17, p. 891, which appeared in The Principle of Relativity, London: Methuen and Company, 1923. Einstein, Albert (1939), letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Copy here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein-­‐Szilard_letter Forman, Paul (1971) ‘Weimar culture, causality, and quantum theory, 1918-­‐1927: adaptation by German physicists and mathematicians to a hostile intellectual environment’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 3, pp. 1-­‐115 4
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Galison, Peter (2000) ‘Einstein's clocks: the place of time’, Critical Inquiry, 26(2), pp. 355-­‐389 Graham, Loren R. (1998) ‘Chapter 1: Is science a social construction?’ (part), ‘Chapter 3: How robust in science under stress?’, in What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1-­‐17, pp. 52-­‐73. Greenhalgh, Susan (2008) ‘Chapter 6: The scientific revolution in Chengdu’, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 193-­‐231. Hughes, Thomas P. (1989) ‘Chapter 8: Tennessee Valley and Manhattan Engineer District’, in American Genesis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 353-­‐442. IPCC. ‘Preparation of the IPCC reports’, under ‘Reports’ tab found here: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtml IUCN Red List. http://www.iucnredlist.org/ Kay, Lily E. (1993) The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. TBC Kenney, Martin (1986) Biotechnology: the University-­‐Industrial Complex. New Haven: Yale University Press Kevles, Daniel J. (1997) ‘Big Science and big politics in the United States: reflections on the death of the SSC and the life of the Human Genome Project’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 27(2), pp. 269-­‐297 Kohler, Robert (1999) ‘Moral economy, material culture, and community in Drosophila genetics’, in Mario Biagioli (ed), Science Studies Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 243-­‐257. Medvedev, Zhores A. (1969) The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. v-­‐xii, pp. 103-­‐140, pp. 244-­‐253. Merson, John (2000) ‘Bio-­‐prospecting or bio-­‐piracy: intellectual property rights and biodiversity in a colonial and postcolonial context’, Osiris, 2nd Series, 15, pp.282-­‐296 Pace, Norman R., Jan Sapp, and Nigel Goldenfeld (2012) ‘Phylogeny and beyond: Scientific, historical, and conceptual significance of the first tree of life’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ary 24, 2012 | vol. 109 | no. 4 | 1011–1018 Proctor, Robert (2000) ‘Nazi science and Nazi medical ethics: some myths and misconceptions’, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43(3), pp. 335-­‐346 5
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Science, the Endless Frontier. A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. Copy here: https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent no. 4,736,866. Search via: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm van Keuren, David K. (2001) ‘Cold War science in black and white: US Intelligence Gathering and its scientific cover at the Naval Research Laboratory, 1948–62’, Social Studies of Science 31(2), pp. 207–229 Wright, Susan (1986) ‘Recombinant DNA technology and its social transformation, 1972-­‐
1982’, Osiris 2, pp. 303-­‐360 6
HPSCGA40 Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
2014-15 syllabus
Assessment
summary
Description
Deadline
Word limit
Essay 1
24 March 2015
2,500
Essay 2
11 April 2015
2,500
coursework
Choose among the essay titles below.
1) Critically assess the development of the historiography of quantum physics.
2) Outline the scope of the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation. To what extent should
we accept Kay’s conclusions about the influence of the social interests of the Rockefeller
Foundation’s trustees?
3) In the sense used in sociology of scientific knowledge, to what extent can or should we
account for EITHER Nazi science OR Soviet science ‘symmetrically’?
4) To what extent were Second World War projects, such as the atomic bomb and/or radar,
the work of academic science and academic scientists?
5) Why, and with what consequences, has twentieth century life science focused
predominantly on a restricted set of model organisms?
6) How did science change before and after the End of Empire?
7) To what extent was ‘Big Science’ the distinctive form of scientific organization of the Cold
War?
8) To what extent should the social movements of the long 1960s that involved science be
understood as global phenomena?
9) What difference did computers make to science?
10) Compare and contrast the relationships of twentieth century university chemistry and
university biotechnology with extramural industry and commerce.
11) How might a historian account for scientific disciplines or specialties that ended in the
twentieth century?
12) Sketch how a new edition of Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond might
adequately extend its treatment of ONE of the following subjects:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Science education
Experimental protocol and method
Science and the media
Citizen or amateur science
st
21 century science
7