OU History of Science

Doctoral Candidates Abstracts

Mark Eddy
Supervisors: Marilyn B. Ogilvie and Kenneth L. Taylor

Architects of the Self: Social Scientists and the Construction of the Individual

in Postwar America

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the careers of three prominent American social scientists in the mid-twentieth century and their attempts to redesign human personality and human nature in an atmosphere of accelerated social change after the Second World War. Professional social science experienced unprecedented institutional growth during this period as a result of the increased need for human resource management in governmental, military, corporate, and educational institutions. As scientists were enlisted to help produce social technologies for a society struggling to adjust to new patterns of work, domestic life, and community, scientific representations of the individual underwent reassessment and modification. The tremendous expansion of science and technology during this period also catapulted individual scientists beyond the academy into new positions of social authority. This dissertation focuses on the social theories of three such scientists and their contrasting visions of the individual as either an efficient automaton or a multidimensional whole. The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, the behaviorist psychologist Burrhus F. Skinner, and the personality psychologist Gardner Murphy all made central contributions to American social science and the scientific construction of human personality in the twentieth century. Mead, Skinner, and Murphy each crafted a unique vision of humanity and applied it to their respective critiques of American culture and American science. Their social theories were shaped not only by scientific research and experimental methodology but also by the expectations of public constituencies that placed different demands on individuals and groups in American society. By examining the reciprocal exchange and appropriation of social scientific and popular images of the individual, this project will contribute to an emergent but growing canon in the history of science that addresses the cultural history of American social science.

Tofigh Heidarzadeh
Supervisor: Peter Barker

Cometary Theories from Newton to Laplace

ABSTRACT

The topic of my dissertation is the post-Newtonian cometary theories. Based on definitions and physical explanations of the comets in history of astronomy, I have divided my dissertation into three main chapters:

1) Comets as meteorological objects (from Aristotle to Brahe)

2) Comets as celestial objects with (or without) a cosmological role (17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, in the period following Newton’s theory of comets)

3) Comets as "regular" objects in the Solar System (from the early 19th century, following the passage of Halley in 1835)

I will concentrate mostly on transition of the cometary theories from the second to the third period (above). Therefore, the first chapter will provide a general background, while chapter 2 and especially chapter 3 will seek those factors that caused a drastic change in our understanding of the comets. To demonstrate this change, I will try to show the interaction between observation, instrumentation and calculation in cometology of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Maureen A. McCormick
Supervisor: Marilyn B. Ogilvie and Gregg Mitman

Cold War Conservation: International Science, National Resources, and Reproductive Limits

ABSTRACT

This dissertation principally explores unexamined aspects of the history of biological determinism in the twentieth century through a focus on postwar international conservation and its influence upon land-use planning and human population control. International post-war conservation efforts asserted a primary role for the biological sciences in matters concerning human welfare, suggesting a revised relationship between the biological and social sciences. Frank Fraser Darling, Julian Huxley, Fairfield Osborn, and William Vogt claimed biology must be the arbiter of the social order if the human species is to survive. Environmental determination of a population's optimum density meant that only biologists could judge what constituted a quantitatively and qualitatively appropriate population. These four international figures were ardent conservationists who participated in the founding of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a non-governmental organization recognized by UNESCO. A study of IUCN initiatives in the 1950s will reveal much about the significance and influence of biological and political concerns regarding reproductive limits and resource scarcity on land-use planning and population control during the Cold War.

Katherine A. Tredwell
Supervisor: Peter Barker

The Exact Sciences in Tudor England

INTRODUCTION

An adequate study of the exact sciences in Tudor England has yet to be written. I do not aspire to make my dissertation into such a study, which would require comprehensiveness as well as depth. However, I do hope to provide a substantial contribution towards understanding Tudor science in the light of modern approaches to the history of science, particularly the nuanced approach to connections between science and religion that has emerged in recent years.

England was prominent in the development of science during the Middle Ages, and it would be again in the seventeenth century--one need only think of the historiographical prominence of Roger Bacon and the Oxford Calculators on the one hand, and the Royal Society, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton on the other. In comparison, English scientists of the sixteenth century are little remembered for the most part, perhaps not entirely without cause. Early in the century, the level of mathematical knowledge available in locally printed books was low in comparison with the Continent; for example, England appears never to have had its own version of Georg Peurbach’s Theoricae novae, a standard Renaissance astronomical textbook. One of the main tasks for English scientists consisted of assimilating the knowledge available from continental Europe in order to make the country competitive in the sciences.

At the same time, the accomplishments of Tudor scientists should not be minimized. By mid-century, England had established a distinctive textbook tradition, with some works in the vernacular, and was capable of producing figures like John Dee and Thomas Digges, important scientists in their own day although they have not been fitted into the overarching narrative of early modern science. England had also developed a distinctive national approach to science, emphasizing the practical application of exact science in pursuits such as instrument-making, surveying, and navigation, and a continuity of interest in the “mathematicall” sciences amongst practitioners of diverse backgrounds(1).

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER OUTLINE AND PLAN

The chapter outline proposed below is strictly preliminary.
1. Introduction
2. Background on the Reformation in Germany and England
3. The Lutheran Reform of Astronomy
4. Earlier Tudor Science
5. Later Tudor Science
6. John Dee
7. The Exact Sciences in Early Stuart England
8. Conclusion

Introduction. The introduction will indicate the subject matter of the dissertation and give a literature review. Material in this paper will provide the basis for a draft of the introduction.
Background on the Reformation in Germany and England. Chapter 2 will provide the historical context for the dissertation. Religious reform took very different courses in Germany and England, with the result that confessional allegiance is generally less certain among English than German figures. Nevertheless, the English had a strong interest in religious concerns, which should be reflected in their science. The religious dimension of science in sixteenth-century England is not as well understood as that of Germany, where we know, for example, that university reform provided a place for a distinctively Lutheran science.
The Lutheran Reform of Astronomy. This chapter will extend the work done in my thesis as a background for a consideration of the English adoption, and possibly modification, of Continental astronomy. The approach developed at Wittenberg emphasized the use of Copernicus in order to reform traditional Ptolemaic astronomy, although not necessarily accepting his heliocentric cosmology. By sending out students to become professors elsewhere, Wittenberg introduced its characteristic astronomy to other Lutheran universities. Erasmus Reinhold and Michael Maestlin, two major figures in the Wittenberg tradition, had a definite influence on Tudor astronomical literature. Reinhold’s student, Caspar Peucer, published (and possibly reworked) some of his teacher’s work posthumously. All three will be discussed in this chapter as examples of Lutheran astronomy.
Earlier Tudor Science. The level of information on the exact sciences available in English printed works in the late 15th and early 16th centuries was generally not high. The first major English printer, William Caxton, had translated an introductory work, the Mirrour of the World, in 1481, and another basic work, the Kalender of Shepherdes, was translated several times in the early 1500s. However, England lacked a prominent scientific printer. As a result, those interested in advanced mathematical studies inevitably turned to books imported from the Continent, while the only English author to be read abroad was Cuthbert Tunstall. This changed in the 1540s, when Robert Record began publishing his English-language textbooks that helped establish a local tradition in the exact sciences.
Later Tudor Science. Naturally, English practitioners continued to pay attention to developments outside their own country, including the work of Copernicus and his promoters. Historians have remarked that English authors were reading and reacting to Continental works, but they have not realized the potential importance of the fact that many of the references are to Lutheran authors. These Lutherans had a distinct approach to astronomy connected to religious concerns; they did not just happen to be good astronomers. Did English authors pick up on this distinct approach, and did they assimilate an interest in the religious aspects of the exact sciences along with their understanding of the science itself? It would be interesting to see whether they express, for example, similar ideas about the possibility of knowledge about the celestial realms. This may also afford an opportunity to consider the common claim that the English are characteristically more practical in their science. Do English mathematical textbooks focus more on the utility of their teachings than do comparable German Lutheran ones?
Authors that might be discussed in this chapter include Thomas Digges, John Blagrave, and Thomas Blundeville. It is important to bear in mind, however, that this is a neglected episode in the history of science. Promising books cited in the secondary literature might prove to have less relevance than an overlooked author.
John Dee. John Dee is an exception to the general disinterest in Tudor science, but he is usually treated as an aberration, a Renaissance magus performing curious and dubious acts, possibly under the influence of a charlatan. I propose to look at him, instead, as a participant in the growing Tudor interest in the exact sciences. An important aspect of this is his involvement in the translation of Euclid’s Elements, a standard mathematical work which would have helped bring English mathematics up to Continental standards. Does his “Mathematicall preface” to this work express a conception of the exact sciences similar to those of his contemporaries? How does it compare to his involvement with other publications by his contemporaries, including preface-writing? Another work that might bear re-examination is his Propaedeumatica Aphoristica, which should be compared with current knowledge of sixteenth century astrology. Patronage is also an important aspect of Dee’s career. How does he fit in with recent studies of patronage in early modern science?
The Exact Sciences in Early Stuart England. The cutoff date for the main focus of this dissertation is 1603, the year of Elizabeth’s death. The change in dynasties, and the resultant change in potential patrons, would have had an impact on who was doing science and how it was done. While a full investigation is beyond the scope of a single chapter, I would like to indicate some of the shifts that occurred at this time. One example is James’ well-known suspicion of magic and witchcraft, which would have discouraged the Hermetic activities associated with Elizabethan times.
Conclusions.

(1) The designation of “mathematicall” for this sort of interest is a sixteenth-century one; see Stephen Johnston, “Mathematical Practitioners and Instruments in Elizabethan England,” Annals of Science 48 (1991): 519-44.

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