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

Ronald Rainger, National Science Foundation (rrainger@nsf.gov )
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom III
Beyond Being Blue: The Expanding Domain of American Oceanography
Mid-twentieth century American oceanography was a creature of the Navy. During World War II new weapons systems, principally
sonar, and mission oriented objectives shaped scientific research. After the war America’s global military and geopolitical goals influenced
what kind of oceanographic work was done, with what tools, and where. But in the late 1950s, when government agencies asked
them to participate in studies of atomic radiation and maritime law, oceanographers grasped the opportunity to expand their domain.
In addition to requesting greater funding for research and education, they began to claim expertise in matters of international diplomacy,
natural resource management, and environmental policy. Oceanography remained closely tied to the Navy and continued to serve
the needs of national defense. Indeed increased fear of Soviet science and technology led to an expanded commitment to the science.
Oceanographers took advantage of the opportunity to obtain additional patrons. More importantly, they employed studies of pollution,
risk management, and other topics to expand their cultural authority.
Joan L. Richards, Brown University (Joan_Richards@brown.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom V
Parallel Universes: Visions of Reason in the De Morgan Household
The family of Augustus and Sophia De Morgan was arguably among the most diversely creative of the Victorian era. Agustus De
Morgan was the most prolific mathematician and logician of his generation; his wife, Sophia, was an early pioneer in the world of
Victorian spiritualism. Five of their seven children pre-deceased Sophia, but one of the survivors, William Frend De Morgan was
England’s most powerful ceramic artist; his wife, Evelyn De Morgan, was a passionate pre-Raphaelite painter. This paper will explore
the ways these apparently divergent interests were integrated and supported by an ideal of reason that permeated the family life of at
least two generations of De Morgans.
Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago (r-richards@uchicago.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom III
Haeckel’s and Miklucho-Maclay’s Polymorphous Demonstration of Darwin’s Theory,
or How to Deep-Six Your Graduate Student.
The German translator of Darwin’s Origin of Species, G. H. Bronn, added an appendix to the volume that argued Darwin had shown evolution
to be possible but he had no evidence that it was actual. Ernst Haeckel and his assistant Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay, who was habilitating
with Haeckel, traveled to the Canary Islands in search of the proof that Bronn demanded. They first stopped in England to visit
Darwin and other English notables, and then sailed to the Canaries. There they discovered some peculiar sponges that seemed to show
evolution at work. They believed the polymorphous sponges furnished the missing proof for Darwin’s theory. However, Haeckel and
Miklucho-Maclay had a great falling out, and Haeckel condemned his once favorite student. This talk will trace the course of events
that led up to the sponge work and reveal what the great issues were that caused this major breach between the professor and his assistant.
Jesse Richmond, University of California, San Diego (jbrichmond@ucsd.edu)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Hill Country B
The Art of Ancestral Identity: Pictorial Representation and the Marginalization of “Australopithecus”
The Taungs skull, unearthed in South Africa in 1924 and first described by Raymond Dart the following year, was the first specimen to
be classed under the extinct Primate genus “Australopithecus,” now considered by paleoanthropologists to be directly ancestral to modern
humans. However, while Dart argued in favor of such ancestral status in his initial report to Nature in 1925, a lack of support from
the most authoritative specialists in the field resulted in the marginalization of the Taungs skull, and of its primary spokesperson, for
the next several decades. Focusing on the pictorial representations Dart employed to try to persuade other interested scientists of the
Taungs skull’s ancestral identity, as well as on alternative representations cast by other actors involved in the dispute, I shall trace the
evolution of the skull’s cultural identity from its inception to its relegation to the borderlands of scientific interest. The resulting narrative
demonstrates the importance of the communicative practices of scientists in shaping the identity of evidential artifacts, and, due
to the particular aims of paleoanthropology, of our own identity as human beings.
Marsha L. Richmond, Wayne State University (marsha.richmond@wayne.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 3:30 - 5:30 PM - Texas Ballroom III