2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

HSS Abstracts
ambivalence characterized each aspect of the triangular relationship between
Protestant missionaries, Western science, and their host cultures. The
missionary movement, while containing those eager to cultivate sciences such
as geography and medicine to facilitate evangelism, also contained pietists
who warned more scientifically-oriented colleagues against anything except
direct evangelism. Missionary suspicion of ‘godless’ Western science
burgeoned in the post-Darwinian era, as apostles of T.H. Huxley spread the
gospel of scientific naturalism. Ambivalence also characterized host cultures’
reception of missionary science. Many simply ignored or rejected the
missionaries and all their works. Yet even in the toughest mission fields such
as China and India, modernizing élites intent on strengthening their nation
embraced missionary science, and plenty of ordinary people found healing in
missionary medicine. Despite the ambivalence they encountered from
missionary colleagues and many of their hosts, Protestant missionaries played
a significant role in the globalization of Western science.
James␣ E. Strick Arizona State University
Cell Symbiosis Theory from Mereschkovsky to Exobiology
The concept of endosymbiosis as the origin of eukaryotic cells and/or their
organelles began around 1905 with theories of the Russian biologist
Mereschovsky. As Sapp, Khakhina and others have shown, numerous additional
contrib-utors, e.g. Paul Portier and Ivan Wallin, added observa-tions to support
this theory throughout the twentieth century. The concept ill fit existing cell
theory, however, until the establishment of the prokaryote/ eukaryote distinction
in the 1960s and the work of Lynn Margulis begin-ning in 1967. This
paper will bring up to date the status of endosymbiosis theory since Sapp’s
1994 account, focusing on the claims that are still not widely accepted such as
the spirochete origin of eukaryotic “flagella” (“undulipodia” of the Margulis
school), origin of centrioles and mitotic spindle apparatus, and origin of the
eukaryotic nucleus from fusion of multiple eubacterial and archaeal DNA units.
More importantly, I will show how integral endosymbiosis theory has become
to the entire new discipline of exobiology and how cell theory has changed in
fundamental ways since the 1960s, under the influence of exobiology generally
and cell symbiosis theory in particular.
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Alice Stroup Bard College
Duclos on Boyle:
A French Academician Criticizes ‘Certain Physiological Essays’
The two principal scientific societies of the late 17th century counted alchemists