2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society
2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society
2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society
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<strong>HSS</strong> Abstracts<br />
charlatans, arguing that they misappropriated and attenuated what had been a limited<br />
and useful concept. Even popularizers, however, used the standardized and formal<br />
measurement <strong>of</strong> efficiency, the percentage, a standard mathematically precise and<br />
yet devoid <strong>of</strong> content. This measurement, the efficiency percentage, retained the<br />
technical features <strong>of</strong> the concept. This paper discusses the role <strong>of</strong> the efficiency<br />
percentage in two different and widely circulating journals <strong>of</strong> the early twentieth<br />
century: Engineering Magazine and The Independent. It argues that efficiency<br />
experts adopted the technical standardized measurement <strong>of</strong> efficiency and<br />
developed a precise and parallel social equivalent, which was neither a metaphor<br />
nor simply a rhetorical device. It takes exception to the prevalent emphasis on<br />
efficiency as a cultural artifact more expressive <strong>of</strong> the progressive social ethos<br />
than <strong>of</strong> its own scientific and technological heritage.<br />
46<br />
Stephen␣ G. Alter University <strong>of</strong> Notre Dame<br />
Unconscious Selection and Darwin’s Distribution Thinking<br />
This paper explores the nexus between Charles Darwin’s concept <strong>of</strong><br />
unconscious selection and what I call his “distribution thinking,” a subset <strong>of</strong><br />
Darwin’s population thinking as described by Ernst Mayr. Darwin never fully<br />
articulated the linkage between these two concepts, yet he increasingly<br />
connected them in his correspondence, in revised editions <strong>of</strong> the Origin <strong>of</strong><br />
Species, and in The Descent <strong>of</strong> Man. He did this, I argue, in an effort to<br />
compensate, by analogy, for his imperfect grasp <strong>of</strong> the normal distribution <strong>of</strong><br />
any given variation existing at a particular point in time. Although Darwin<br />
built his natural selection theory implicitly on the idea <strong>of</strong> a normal range <strong>of</strong><br />
variations, he undercut this theme by suggesting (Origin, ch. 4) that nature<br />
produced “favorable” variations only rarely. He then addressed this perceived<br />
obstacle by suggesting that the presence <strong>of</strong> a large population (analogous to<br />
the conditions producing unconscious selection) increased the chance <strong>of</strong> useful<br />
variations appearing at a given time. The real issue, however, was not the<br />
chance <strong>of</strong> useful variations arising at a given time—what Darwin misleadingly<br />
suggested—but the chance <strong>of</strong> their being included in a given population sample.<br />
Ideally, a full range <strong>of</strong> variations always exists, according to the distribution<br />
principle, yet it is not necessarily represented in every actual sample. Darwin<br />
was therefore right to emphasize large populations as a condition favorable to<br />
selection. Yet he was logically inconsistent in saying that the chance <strong>of</strong> their<br />
appearing could be increased even while affirming their inherent rarity. Darwin<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten responded to critics on this and related issues (A. R. Wallace, Fleeming<br />
Jenkin, and Moritz Wagner) with appeals to the unconscious selection analogy,<br />
for this, he felt, provided a gestalt picture <strong>of</strong> selection working on a large<br />
range <strong>of</strong> variations, even without the aid <strong>of</strong> geographic isolation. My paper<br />
builds upon yet differs from histories <strong>of</strong> these controversies written by Peter<br />
Bowler, Frank Sulloway, and Susan Morris.