Abstracts of the History of Science Society 2004 Austin Meeting 18 ...

these diverse materials, Hardy constructed for his readership a complex new cosmological myth that expressed his perception of the
personal, social, and philosophical implications of his culture’s “place in the universe.” Hardy’s “novel” universe offers useful insights
into the formal possibilities of a more overtly literary history of astronomy that richly resonate with current trends expressed by the
publication of such works as Dava Sobel’s Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, as well as Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver.
Robert Goulding, University of Notre Dame (Goulding.2@nd.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom VI
How can Alexandria be Brought to Oxford? Henry Savile’s History of Mathematics and Institutional Reform.
Henry Savile’s 1570 lectures at Oxford on the Almagest were prefaced by a vastly detailed history of mathematics and astronomy, stretching
from Adam to Ptolemy himself. Savile’s principal (though unacknowledged) source for his history was Petrus Ramus’s Prooemium
mathematicum of 1567, which he supplemented by his own wide reading and study of manuscripts he found in Oxford. Although indebted
to Ramus, Savile’s understanding of the nature and purpose of the sciences is entirely opposed to that of the French educator. I
examine how Savile reconstrued Ramus’s historical researches in order to advance his own theoretical and educational goals.
Joel Hagen, Radford University (jhagen@runet.edu)
Thursday, 18-Nov-04, 5:00 - 7:00 PM - Texas Ballroom II
Fossil Proteins, Chemical Paleogenetics, and the Early Development of Molecular Systematics
During the early 1960s Nobel laureate Linus Pauling and his younger colleague Emile Zuckerkandl proposed a field of study that they
dubbed “chemical paleogenetics.” This new field would supplement, and in some cases supplant, traditional paleontology by bringing
the rigorous tools of biochemistry to bear on the study of extinct life forms. It would also require advanced methods drawn from computer
science and computational biology to test amino acid sequences for homology, construct hypothetical phylogenetic trees, and evaluate
alternative trees statistically. Although the term “paleogenetics” didn’t catch on, the analogy between proteins and fossils was widely
employed during the early years of molecular evolution and molecular systematics. By reconstructing phylogenies of proteins and
the organisms that possessed them, practitioners hoped to infer the structure and function of ancestral molecules. This, they hoped,
would lead to a better understanding of extinct species and might even have practical applications for medicine. This paper examines
the tension between traditional natural history and paleogenetics during the 1960s. It explores the promises and limitations of the analogy
between fossils and macromolecules, the methods of representing phylogenetic relationships among related proteins, methods of
statistically evaluating alternative phylogenetic hypotheses, and the implications of these methods for the early development of what has
become a burgeoning field of molecular systematics.
Alexander J. Hahn, University of Notre Dame (hahn.1@nd.edu)
Saturday, 19-Nov-04, 3:30 - 5:30 PM - Big Bend A, B, & C
Discorsi and Experiment in Conflict: Galileo’s Folio 116v and his Resolution of the Mirandum Paradox
It is generally accepted that the time in Padua from 1604 to 1610 is the primary period of formation of Galileo’s final account of
motion. Leaving behind his earlier attempts (still based on the concept of impetus and its consequences), he develops the axiomatic theory
of uniformly accelerated motion that would comprise the discussions of the third and fourth days of the “Discors” published in
1638. With this account Galileo establishes himself as the discoverer of some of the fundamental facts and insights of what would
later become the classical theory of motion in the hands of Newton. In particular, Galileo realizes that horizontal motion is conserved,
elevates uniformly accelerated motion to a status of central importance, conceptualizes it as an amalgam of a horizontal and a vertical
component, and derives the parabolic trajectory (at least in the case of a horizontal projection). A matter of considerable discussion by
historians of science is the role that experiments played in Galileo’s process of the discovery and confirmation of his insights. Some
historians have asserted that Galileo generally trusts the conclusion of a proof of a proof that resides within a consistent theoretical
framework - more than an outcome of an experiment that deviates from such a conclusion. It is the primary purpose of the proposed
paper to illustrate this point with a comparative study of Galileo’s folio 116v and the “Mirandum Paradox.” For a related article, see
Hahn, Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 56 (2002), 339-361.
Michael Cory Halliburton, Independent Scholar (mhallibu@midsouth.rr.com)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Hill Country D
Paul Kammerer, Immortal Suicide
While alive, Paul Kammerer was a controversial figure. Since his suicide in 1926, he has remained controversial and lived on as a symbol—as
one of the undead in other people’s ideological wars. Arthur Koestler used Kammerer’s Neo-Lamarckianism as an example of
the methods that materialistic Darwinists would use to destroy their enemies. Creationists have also found a niche for Kammerer in
their contemporary struggle against everything evolutionary: Kammerer’s failure proves the impossibility of any alternatives to
Darwinian evolution. However, the case of Kammerer still has historical interest. The morphologists at the University of Vienna and
Hans Przibram’s “Vivarium” in the Prater still had their evolutionary options open. In the early years of the twentieth century anything