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

Childhood and the Reach of Reason in the World of Augustus and Sophia De Morgan
Both Augustus and Sophia De Morgan were Victorian radicals who were passionately committed to
the development of a rational society. For Augustus the essence of this rationality was to be found in
mathematics: his life work was to understand and teach his subject in such a way that that it would serve
as a proper model for rational thought. Sophia was wholly supportive of her husband's efforts, but the
view of rationality she espoused rested on a more variegated base of medical/scientific theorizing and
was expressed in social outreach projects. Together the De Morgans raised seven children to be responsible
members of the rational society they were constructing. This paper will explore the views of
rationality the De Morgan's were developing in their public lives and the relation of those views to the
ways they approached the challenge of raising rational children.
Richards, Robert
E-mail Address: r-richards@uchicago.edu
The Erotic Sources of Goethe's Science
Goethe's morphological ideas have several sources: his empirical investigations of plant and animal
structures, his philosophical ideas (especially those drawn from Spinoza and Herder) and his conceptions
of previous scientific theories, and his erotic experiences in Italy. The first two kinds of sources
are standardly recruited by historians as the causal sources of particular scientific theories. The last sort
is usually viewed with suspicion. In this paper I will sketch the history of Goethe's initial formulation of
his morphological ideas and then consider the kind of justification that might be offered both for a causal
analysis of theories generally and for the quite personal--psychological--explanation I offer in my
historical sketch. Two dilemmas becomes immediately apparent. The more closely the historian ties a
causal analysis to particular times and situations, the less a universal application would seem possible
for that scientific theory---it would be just one more singular event. Yet scientific theories claim universality.
How to square these conflicting considerations? Moreover, psychological desires of a definitely
non-scientific sort would seem to have little explanatory value. What kind of evidence would recuperate
appeal to psychological causes of scientific ideas? Can poetry be mined for biographical information
and demonstration without violating modernist and post-modernist sensibilities?
Robert W. Smith ,Patrick McCray
E-mail Address: rwsmith@ualberta.ca
Seeing the Future: The Origins of the Next Generation Space Telescope
Even before the enormously complex and costly Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space in
1990, indeed even before the design of the Telescope was complete, astronomers were laying plans for
its successor. In this paper we explore the early history of what was to become known as the Next
Generation Space Telescope (NGST). We will analyze how different communities sought to cope with
the demands of making crucial scientific, technological, financial, and organizational choices in the face
of incomplete knowledge and uncertain political realities.
Rohde, Joy
E-mail Address: rohdejoy@hotmail.com
Coordinating the "Coordinating Science" for the New World Order: Physical and Cultural
Anthropologists in the Postwar United States
In 1945, Columbia anthropologist Ralph Linton echoed the widespread call for collaborative scientific
research among the social sciences. Linton and his colleagues claimed that anthropology would be
the ng scienceace, democracy and stability. With the formation of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), anthropologists stepped forward to apply their knowl-