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

science education, and science policy. The continuing controversies over creation and evolution provide a challenging test case for this
endeavor. This paper will review recent developments in the creation-evolution debates, such as the rise of the Intelligent Design movement,
and explore whether and how historians can make a positive contribution to a field where pitfalls abound and nuanced analysis
is often trampled.
Kevin Lambert, University of Califorina, Los Angeles (lambertk@ucla.edu)
Thursday, 18-Nov-04, 5:00 - 7:00 PM - Texas Ballroom V
George Boole in Ireland: The Reasoning Self and The Claims of Science
This paper will look at Boole’s formulation of the laws of a universal and absolute reason in the context of the attempt to provide a
secular education in Ireland. Going to Queens College Cork as the first professor of mathematics in 1849 was a considerable achievement
for George Boole. He had learned his mathematics without any formal university education and his appointment underscored
the high regard with which his work on mathematics and logic was held in mid-nineteenth century Britain. However, Boole’s enthusiasm
for his new post would soon become muted as Queen’s College Cork became embroiled in religious controversy between Catholics
and Protestants and involving a close friend of Boole’s called Raymond de Vericour. Boole’s work on his laws for a universal and
absolute reason would offer solace and hope for the intractable problems he saw surrounding him in Cork. Boole’s reasoning self would
find its clearest expression in his “Claims of Science,” delivered as a lecture to Cork University in 1852, and his most well known work
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought. His work on logic was directly related to the philosophy of “le moi,” described by Jan
Goldstein in her article, “Mutations of the Self,” which described a formulation of this bourgeois self in the “moi-centered” post-revolutionary
French philosophy associated with Victor Cousin and François Guizot. Indeed, Boole had recommended works by Guizot
to members of his Mechanics Institute back in Lincoln and de Vericour was Guizot’s nephew. It was de Vericour’s book that first
involved Boole in the controversy at Cork.
Hannah Landecker, Rice University (hll@rice.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom III
What Cells Might Be: Cell Fusion and the History of Biotechnology
When biological things that operate in predictable repetitive cycles are taken apart or radically rearranged, their cyclical trajectories
become dislodged and though they continue to live and reproduce, they spiral into novel forms that are unexpected, not predicted or
even caused by the original intervention. Such is the history of cell fusion experiments in the 1960s in the US and UK that merged
cultured cells from different species into novel forms such as heterokaryons, synkaryons, and cybrids, and led to the generation of
classes of fragmented or reconstructed cells such as microcells and recons. This paper examines changes in the practices and concepts
of “foreignness” and homology that result from the creation of hybrid cell lines, with particular focus on the technical depiction of the
reconfiguration of the interior landscapes of cells through physical merger with foreign nuclei and cytoplasm. Inevitably the disruption
of predictable reproduction, in this case through the development of so-called “parasexual” techniques of fusing somatic cells, also
disrupts settled narratives of what living cells are and what they could be in the future. This specific case study of narrative disruption
in scientific explanation is linked to the constant production of biotechnical utopias and dystopias over the course of the twentieth century.
Maria Lane, University of Texas, Austin (marialane@mail.utexas.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom III
Wonderful, Terrible Martians: Geographic Representations of the Red Planet, 1894-1916
This paper investigates the ways in which scientific and popular portrayals of the planet Mars’ geography between 1894 and 1916 both
encapsulated and engendered profound ambiguities regarding the ideal relationship of the Western metropole to alien or exotic landscapes
and peoples. Specifically, the research project uses archival and interpretive methods to examine textual, cartographic and other
visual representations of Mars and Martians that were produced by British, Italian, and American astronomers and science writers in
the late nineteenth century. In popularizing and legitimizing detailed claims regarding Mars’ climate, vegetation, topography and inhabitants,
I argue, many writers and artists assessed/challenged dominant geographic discourses of modern Western superiority by representing
the red planet as a utopian landscape inhabited by beings with superior engineering and organizational skills. Archival investigation
of astronomers’ publications as well as other genres in which astronomical claims were repeated, modified and developed (textbooks,
media reports, science fiction, etc.) focuses on characterizing their contribution to wider debates about cultural hierarchy, imperialism,
and the rise of technology. The scientific representation of Mars as a canal-covered landscape and Martians as desert-bound
irrigationists, for instance, spurred a spate of popular writing on the subject of imagined interplanetary encounters, the colonization of
the Earth, and the technological modification of Martian landscapes. To evaluate whether such representations functioned as alternative
or utopian discourses, this inquiry investigates three specific controversies in the representation of Mars: over (1) the nomenclature
assigned to its geographical features, (2) the mapping of canals on its surface, and (3) the interpretation of such canals as the work of
intelligent beings.
Thomas Lassman, Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics (tlassman@aip.org)