Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

appearances of comets, eclipses, earthquakes, unexplained fires, strange miasmas, and crop failures
alongside an increasingly agitated urban population. A cholera epidemic capped off the list of natural
traumas and, through the death of General Lamarque, set off a wave of violent rioting in Paris. In the
months that followed, the director of the Paris Observatory, François Arago, launched a massive campaign
to debunk old wives tales claiming that celestial phenomena could influence events on Earth. He
made no secret of linking the rioters’ disappointing behavior with the ignorant superstitions still pervasive
among certain segments of the population. This paper examines his two principal venues, free
lectures at the Observatory and a general audience almanac from the Bureau des Longitudes, as sites
where Arago sought to construct the properly reasoning public required by the fledgling constitutional
monarchy he helped construct in 1830. It intersects with themes on the popular representation of science,
efforts at public education, and the role of science in politics and civil society.
Lewis, Jeffrey
E-mail Address: lewis.317@osu.edu
Biochemistry with a License: Tobacco Mosaic Virus and the Start of Molecular Biology Research
in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1937-1965
Beginning in 1937, an interdisciplinary group of researchers was assembled in Berlin with the goal of
using viruses, particularly tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), as tools for solving basic problems such as
biological heredity. During the war the group was evacuated to the city of Tübingen, where they established
a research program that made significant contributions to molecular biology research. In the
fifties they discovered that TMV RNA transmits genetic information, not the protein that the TMV RNA
molecule is single-stranded and that specific, predictable mutations could be induced in TMV RNA
using nitrous acid as a mutagenic agent. All of this work contributed to the solving of the genetic code
in the early sixties. The importance of the German research was widely recognized at the time but it has
not been included as part of the history of molecular biology. This omission stems from the emphasis in
the historiography on DNA research, bacteriophages as experimental objects, and the importance of new
techniques from physics for approaching biological problems. Contrary to these trends, the Tübingen
researchers used RNA viruses and basic strategies from biology and especially biochemistry to make
their contributions. Their work stands as a counterexample to Erwin Chargaff's oft-cited definition of
molecular biology as the practice of biochemistry without a license. Therefore, attention to the German
research tradition in molecular biology produces a richer, more nuanced historical understanding of this
crucial field of modern science.
Lightman, Bernard
E-mail Address: lightman@yorku.ca
Scientists as Anti-Heroes: Materialism and Tyndall's Belfast Address
Before the Belfast Address, the physicist John Tyndall was usually cast in a positive light in the
periodical press, albeit with some reservations, and he was not labeled as a materialist. But after the
Belfast Address he was portrayed as an aggressive, dishonest, devious, and distinctly unBritish materialist.
Even in the 1870’s, the charge of materialism was a serious one. It grouped Tyndall together with
lower class atheists, casting aspersions on his status as a member of the intellectual elite. Moreover
Tyndall became a symbol of everything that was wrong with modern science and scientists in general.
By depicting the scientist as the most powerful embodiment of modern materialism, defenders of the
Christian establishment could use the periodical press to discredit the philosophical basis of scientific
naturalism, re-evaluate the cultural authority of Tyndall and his allies, and assign a more limited role to
scientists in modern culture. The controversy over the Belfast Address provided members of the Anglican
intellectual elite the opportunity to cleanse science of its materialism and reclaim it for Christianity.