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

Snyder, Laura
E-mail Address: snyderl@stjohns.edu
The Science of the 'Dismal Science:' Politics, Economics and Science in 19th Century Britain
As is well known, there was much debate in 19th century Britain over the proper method of science.
What is not well known is that much of this debate was fueled by controversies of the time over political
and economic issues such as the repeal of the Corn Laws and the enactment of the New Poor Law of
1834. Indeed, discussion of the proper method of natural science was very much influenced by discussion
of the proper method of the economy. This is clearly seen in the work of Richard Jones, William
Whewell, and John Stuart Mill. Jones and Whewell oppose Ricardian economics and its deductive
methodology, in part because of its use in support of the New Poor Law legislation, which called for an
end to parish relief and added a workhouse requirement for the poor. Instead, Whewell and Jones
attempt to develop an alternative inductive political economy. This becomes part of a general project of
championing induction against the f thought. On the other hand, Mill and the philosophical radicals
were in favor of the New Poor Law amendment, and consequently Mill developed a deductivist,
Ricardian methodology of political economy in order to justify it. Mill tells us in his Autobiography that
he was motivated to write System of Logic by his desire to find a method which would cope successfully
in the social sciences, especially the science of political economy. Thus his view of a methodology
for the natural sciences was clearly influenced by his goal of developing a methodology suitable to lead
to the desired positions in political economy. The 19th-century discussion about science, then, was very
often at least subtextually a debate about politics and economics.
Stamhuis, Ida
E-mail Address: stamhuis@nat.vu.nl Genetics at the Beginning of the 20th Century
y the Mendelian C.B. Davenport contrasted the Mendelians with the biometricians in the beginning of
the twentieth century. However Mendelian genetics was the result of the introduction of probabilistic
and statistical methods in thinking on heredity. On the basis of a number of publications, of Johann
Gregor Mendel, Hugo de Vries, Wilhelm Johannsen and others, this paper will demonstrate that the
statistical approach played an essential role in the development of their ideas on heredity. As a result of a
probabilistic and statistical approach Mendel discovered, and De Vries rediscovered, Mendel’s laws.
Additionally, Wilhelm Johannsen discussed this approach in chapter after chapter of his book er
Exacten Erblichkeitslehre.ow it could happen that in the controversy between Mendelians and biometricians
differences of opinion on statistical modeling came to play such an important role.
Stapleford, Thomas
E-mail Address: tstaplef@fas.harvard.edu
"Workers and their families do not eat statistics": Econometrics from the "bottom-up" during
World War II
Fearing a repeat of the dramatic price increases that accompanied World War I, the US government
acted to prevent similar price escalation during World War II. As part of this effort, the National War
Labor Board used the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "cost-of-living" index to limit wage increases. In
response, organized labor attacked both the NWLB's decision and the index itself, charging that the BLS
was systematically underestimating the rise in the "cost of living." The battle led to several committee
reviews of the index, all of which generally exonerated the BLS over labor's objections. My paper
examines the dispute as a conflict between professional statisticians and a vision of econometrics built
from the "bottom-up." On an overt level, the debate covered a wide range issues: the meaning of "cost
of living," the purpose of the index, the role of the Bureau, the significance and utility of a "statistical