The human and its environment. The Fifth Norwegian conference of the history of science, January 24 – 25, 2013, Bergen

Session

Internationalism and state loyalty in 20th century Scandinavian science and humanities

This session explores the pursuit of internationalism and national interests across time and in different fields of enquiry in Scandinavian sciences and humanities in the years following the two world wars of the twentieth century. Furthermore, it highlights how international organisations became sites where the scholars and scientists strived to achieve a unification of these seemingly paradoxical objectives. In particular, this session explicate the possibilities and the limitations of scientific internationalism in the aftermath of the two world wars, periods which traditionally have been associated with a dismantling of internationalist ideologies. Based on the idea that science produce universally valid knowledge, science has often been depicted as a neutral international sphere where scientists from all nations contribute to the scientific mapping of the world. Since the late nineteenth century, a growth in the number of international scientific organisations was often infused with aspirations of scientific internationalism. In parallel, science also became more important to the nation states, as technological and industrial development became intertwined with the growth of scientific knowledge. Tensions between internationalism and nationalism have also characterized the arts and humanities. The historical disciplines have been important for the development of national identities and national pride, and for legitimizing national interests. International scholarly cooperation has been advocated as a way to counteract national particularism and overcome international antagonism by turning politically charged historical issues into objects of international academic debates, by developing internationally accepted standards for historical and cultural research, and by turning the scholarly attention away from the nation and towards universal aspects of human culture and human history. While many historical and social studies of science have been eager to reveal how national priorities and local circumstance would trump the perceived shallowness of the rhetoric of internationalism, this session will focus on how scientific internationalism as an ideology have been combined with the practice of science under national patronage and in international organisations. As such, this session contributes to our understanding of how the apparently contradictory commitments to international cooperation and nationalistic attitudes often were reconciled and combined, a concern that has attracted considerable attention in the history of science in recent years. Four papers are presented in the session, combining research on the sciences and the arts and humanities. Jon Kyllingstad reviews how Scandinavian humanities scholars acted on the breakdown of scientific internationalism after the First World War, on two international arenas; The International Historical Congresses and the Union Academique International. Vera Schwach studies the The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), and how Norwegian marine scientists tried to reconcile national priorities and internationalist ideologies in the ICES. Poul Duedahl presents work on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and reviews how Scandinavian scientists after World War II were influenced by, and tried to influence, UNESCO’s work. Following this, Gard Paulsen will present a paper on UNESCO’s calls to international cooperation on the computer and computer science in the 1950s and 1960s and the responses among Norwegian scientists and administrators. The overall aim of the papers is to investigate the many ways scientists and scholars have combined apparently conflicting principles, when they made decisions, developed projects and did their research at the crossroads between state loyalty and internationalism. The session discusses the main differences between the aftermath of the World War I and the World War II in terms of how the scholars of the humanities and the natural scientists shared ideologies and practices?

Individual papers Internationalist nationalism: How Scandinavian humanities scholars responded to the breakdown of academic internationalism after World War I.

Jon Kyllingstad, Norwegian Museum of Technology, Science and Medicine. This paper studies how Scandinavian humanities scholars, in particular the historians, responded to the breakdown of academic internationalism after World War I. After the war, the victorious nations tried to isolate the German-speaking scholarly community. This posed a challenge for the academics in the neutral states, threatening to destroy their multilateral international networks, but it also opened up a window of opportunities. By turning themselves into havens of international scientific cooperation, neutral nations could counteracting the boycott of Germany and enhance international understanding, and at the same time strengthen their own position in the international scholarly world, and help branding the Scandinavian nations as peace-loving, morally and culturally superior and scientifically advanced nations. Academic internationalism was fuelled both by national interests and international idealism, and the Scandinavian actors did not necessarily see any contradiction between these motifs. By comparing Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the paper explores how geopolitical situations and foreign policy, national identities and national historiographic traditions, and varying relations between political and academic elites influenced on the how humanities scholars in the three nations navigated in the treacherous waters of international academic cooperation in the early interwar years, and how they combined national and internationalist ideals and interests.

ICES: the fishing resources and the strength of internationalism

Vera Schwach, NIFU, Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education

Interrelations between explicit national interests and nationalism on one hand, and a scientific and political motivated internationalism in marine science on the other hand, is the focal point of this paper. The case is the Norwegian marine scientist’s involvement in The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), in the aftermath of World War I and after World War II. ICES was established in 1902 as a governmental, regional body aimed at the management and applied scientific investigation of the fishing and marine mammal resources and the natural conditions of the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Its starting point was shared concerns in European countries on the state of the fishing resources, and the obvious fact that the sea and the fishes know no national boundaries. The establishing was also influenced by the turn-of-the-twentieth-century political internationalism, a broad movement aimed at erasing national barriers in order to promote wealth, civilization, knowledge and peace. The paper reviews how Norwegian scientists involved in ICES, with Johan Hjort (1869–1948) as a prominent example, negotiated between nationalism and internationalism in a field where important and mixed economic, political and scientific interests were at stake. It also examines how and why the First World War confirmed and strengthened the internationalism of Hjort and his colleagues, an approach reinforced with the Second World War. The paper contributes first to knowledge about nationalism and internationalism in an applied scientific context, and second to nuance the insight in scientific and political crossing points in the midwar years.

Airy dreams or scientific mega-project? Fridtjof Nansen and the Aeroarctic Society 1924-1930

Kari Aga Myklebost, Senior Research Fellow, Department of History and Religious Studies, University of Tromsø, [email protected]

In 1924, Fridtjof Nansen was appointed president of the newly established Aeroarctic society (The International Society for the Study of the Arctic by Means of Airship, Internationale studiengesellschaft zur erforschung der Arktis mit dem luftschiff), founded on the initiative of German engineers and natural scientists. Aeroarctic’s primary objective was to conduct a transpolar zeppelin flight from Europe to America, and to conduct a broad geophysical research program during the expedition. There were also detailed plans to establish a circumpolar network of meteorological stations which could serve as platform for increased international cooperation in geophysical research in the Arctic. In Nansen’s biography, the 1920s have been described as a decade when he let go of his scientific ambitions and concentrated on political and humanitarian issues. Nansen’s own Aeroarctic archive gives us a quite different story: During the last six years of his life, Nansen laid down a considerable amount of work in both the logistical and the scientific plans of the Aeroarctic society. Nansen used his international reputation to draw leading natural scientists from the Fenno- Scandinavian countries, the Soviet Union and the USA into the project, and in the late 1920s the society had members in 21 countries. Aeroarctic organized congresses and published the journal Arktis , and as the organization grew a number of scientific sub-commissions were established. The paper discusses Nansen’s scientific and political ambitions and motivations for taking a leading role in the society, which was set back by economic problems and internal conflicts. In Mid War Europe, Nansen as president of Aeroarctic together with a number of profiled members voiced the re-establishment of scientific internationalism, hoping to bridge the mutual ill-will and skepticism between scientists and politicians from Germany and the allied countries that had emerged during WW1. At the same time, a substantial part of the German contingent saw the zeppelin (built in Friedrichshafen am Bodensee under the leadership of Aeroarctic member Hugo Eckener) as a symbol of German national resurrection, technologically, culturally and politically. Eventually, the conflict between national and internationalistic ambitions drove the Aeroarctic project into a dead end.

Calls and responses: Unesco, Norway, the advent of the computer and its sciences

Gard Paulsen, Department of History and Classical Studies, NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology This paper investigates two Unesco-led calls towards international cooperation and their responses among Norwegian scientists and administrators: First, it looks into the establishment of the Unesco International Computation Centre (ICC), an international laboratory that in the early 1950s aspired to make the newly invented computer available to all nations. Secondly, it accounts for a series of initiatives towards cooperation among computer scientists, under the auspices of the UNESCO-affiliated International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), in the 1960s. Both initiatives were steeped in internationalist ideologies, although with varying degrees of commitment and aspirations. Furthermore, the paper reviews the reactions and responses to the ICC and the IFIP by Norwegian scientists and science administrators. This will contribute to the study of two general historical concerns: First, it will add to our understanding of the conditions and limits of scientific and technological internationalisms. Second, it will add a nuance to the history of the computer and its sciences. The received view on the advent of the computer and computer science has been to strongly relate it to cold war research and industrial policies, devoid of internationalist ideologies, despite the universalistic claims regarding the technology and its related sciences. This paper teases out an understanding of a period where internationalist projects and initiatives were not discordant to such contexts, but also explicates its limits. The Environmental Antagonist at the Center Stage?

Peder Anker, New York University

The work of the geologist Ivan Th. Rosenqvist undermined in the opinion of Gro Harlem Brundtland efforts to halt European industrial pollution of sulfuric acid, some of which ended up as acid rain in her native Norway. His research made him in the 1970s into an anti- environmentalist in the eyes of his opponents. Yet he claimed he cared for nature and that his scientific work was in the world’s best interest. To him the ecological debate was an issue of which rationality and whose knowledge one should trust in efforts to protect nature. This paper will lay out the scientific background and Marxist perspective of Rosenqvist, followed by a discussion of how he and some of his colleagues understood nature and its resources. These views will be placed within environmental debates in Norway and beyond, arguing that his alleged anti-environmentalism should be understood within the context of competing socialist styles of reasoning as well as the disunities of sciences. This paper will reverse the current mood of environmental history writing by letting a key anti-environmentalist take the lead while a series of environmentalists will emerge in his shadow. Will placing the antagonist at the center stage enrich our perspectives on environmental affairs? Shifting relations between meteorology and economic interests in Norway 1860-1900

Yngve Nilsen (University of Bergen) In Norway, modern meteorological science can be traced back to the 1860s, with the establishment of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, NMI, in 1866 as an important milestone. Its first leader was Professor Henrik Mohn (1835-1916), who held this position until 1913. Even from the earliest years, economic interests played an important role for founding an academic and research oriented national meteorological institution in Norway. My paper will present the relations between the NMI and different economic branches during the institution´s first 40 years, and discuss how these relations may have affected the scientific focus of Norwegian meteorology. The relationship between can be divided into two distinct phases. From the early 1860s until about 1880, the activity at NMI was primarily oriented to the needs of the maritime interests, shipping and fishery. Most of the meteorological stations were placed along the west coast. In addition, Mohn built an extensive network of sailors, lighthouse wardens, [loser] and naval officers to provide him with meteorological data, both for maritime climatology and for research on storms. In this period, he developed his thermal cyclone model, which was among the most important achievements in theoretical meteorology in the 19th Century. During the 1880s and 1890s, a much wider range of clients established contacts with the NMI, like agricultural organizations, watershed users, mines, railways, insurance companies and hospitals. In this period, the MNI became more oriented towards climatology, especially inland statistics on rainfall. The institution became much more of a climatological consultancy agency, even though it kept its position as a public and non-commercial body. In this period, much of the Norwegian research on storms and cyclones stagnated, not to be revitalized before the physicist Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862-1951) took the lead on the field in 1917.

Geological survey as practice Anne Kristine Børresen, Department for History and Classical Studies, NTNU [email protected]

The heart of natural history survey, is often said to be the expedition or fieldwork itself; the small group of individuals who went forth into the inner frontiers to collect and observe and by doing so, started the process of exploring new territories and arranging the land. How were these ventures organized? What customs guided their makeup and activities? And how were they transformed into geological maps and science?

This paper will explore the practice of geological surveys in Norway from the 1850’s to 1875 and the variety of scientific work it consisted of. A guidance on how to do geological mapping made by the first director of the Norwegian geological survey, Theodor Kjerulf (1825–1888), will be presented and used as an introduction to a discussion on the social and political contexts of geological mapping. Invisible Lives: Epidemiology, microbiology and environment, 1850-1950

Anne Hardy, Centre for History in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, [email protected]

Viruses and bacteria are invisible inhabitants of Earth’s environment, sharing its air, social and water with the planet’s visible life forms and inhabiting them, sometimes benign, sometimes hostile. Humans have long sensed invisible forces both benign and dangerous in Earth’s environment, whether gods and spirits, or in the case of decomposing organic matter, foul smells thought to induce disease. The realisation that the natural world teemed with living being invisible to the naked human eye came with the invention of the first microscopes, but it was only with the coming of improved microscopes in the 1830s that knowledge of the existence and habits of these minute life forms began to accumulate and achieve the standing of a science. The science of bacteriology has often been viewed, in the older literature, as a pursuit in itself and one with consequences for the management of human, animal and plant diseases. The image of Louis Pasteur at his microscope is iconic to the history of the science. Yet, as this paper will argue, microbiology developed alongside – even in the wake of – new approaches to the study of disease in the 19th century. Field observations of human infectious disease by 19th century epidemiologists raised questions which the new microbiology was brought in to answer, bringing the realisation that earth’s environment and other living creatures are actual and potential reservoirs of living agents that are far from benign, and that human activity has the potential to increase or decrease the risks which these constitute to human life. The search for the causal organisms of human disease did not end with their identification, but necessitated acquiring knowledge of how their lives were lived and ended in the wider environment.

Wallpaper and washing machines: the scientist in the polar environment, 1952-1958 Scientific expeditions in hostile environments pose physical, psychological and logistical challenges far beyond those encountered in more tame scientific settings. Indeed, such expeditions -- whether to the polar regions, deserts, or the bottom of the ocean -- place the scientist in a complex and often combattive relationship with his surrounding natural environment. This paper aims to explore this relationship in the context of postwar scientific expeditions to the polar north. By looking at two case studies from the 1950s -- the American Jello expedition to central Greenland and the French Expéditions Polaires Françaises expeditions to the same island -- I aim to illuminate the psychological relationship between the scientist, his work, and his living experience in a harsh natural environment. Rather than drawing broad conclusions, I will explore concrete examples of how, where and when expeditions plans were made, changed, and rejected because of this psychological relationship. How did expedition planners aim to keep the scientists in good spirits (and, indeed, of sound mind) through months of darkness and isolation? How did these plans play out on the ground, and when and why were they changed? By looking at examples including the creation of an impromptu postal service for personal mail on the American expedition, the careful rationing of fresh fruit and wine on the French expedition, and the requests of scientists for amenities such as washing machines and wallpaper, this paper offers both a colourful portrayal of daily life on scientific expeditions to the polar world, as well as insights into the relationship between scientists and the harsh environment they encounter on such expeditions.

------Dr. Janet Martin-Nielsen, Department of Science Studies / Institut for Videnskabsstudier Aarhus University / Aarhus Universitet

Email: [email protected]

Points, lines and parallel lines: some definitions of fundamental concepts in geometry textbooks in norway in the first half of the 19th century

ANDREAS CHRISTIANSEN, Stord/Haugesund University College, Faculty of Teacher and Cultural Education ([email protected])

Bernt Michael Holmboe (1795–1850), mathematics teacher and textbook author, was one of the most influential persons in the development of school mathematics in the first half of the 19th century in Norway. His way of presenting the subject matter was, however, challenged by his colleague and former mentor, Christopher Hansteen (1784–1873). Holmboe’s textbook in geometry came in four editions, 1827, 1833, 1851 and 1856, and they were used by nearly all the learned schools in Norway in this period. Holmboe’s presentation of the subject matter was traditional and Euclidean, and Hansteen wrote a geometry textbook in 1835 where he challenged this way of presenting the subject matter. Holmboe’s textbooks where the first Norwegian textbooks that were used in the learned schools, butwe knowthat textbooks by theDanish mathematics teacher,Hans Christian Linderup (1763–1809) were used in Christiania Learned School prior to Holmboe’s. I will give a presentation of the geometry textbooks by Linderup, Holmboe and Hansteen, and their ways of presenting the subject matter with special focus on fundamental concepts like point, line, straight lines and parallel lines. I will also try to present these textbooks way to present the parallel axiom from the Elements by Euclid. By this I will try to describe how geometry teaching traditionally was done in this period, and how it was challenged.

Networks of Oceanographic Knowledge: the role of J.N. Carruthers in ‘re-connecting’ European Oceanographers after World War II During the Second World War, British oceanographer J.N. Carruthers acted as a ‘living’ encyclopaedia of international oceanographic knowledge. Working within the Royal Navy Hydrography Office Carruthers ‘worked up’ published scientific works from across the globe to answer strategic and scientific questions submitted to the office. After the war Carruthers argued that many of the failings in mining and anti-submarine warfare efforts by the Royal Navy off the Norwegian coast could have been avoided if British oceanographers had assimilated the data contained within the existing Norwegian literature. Carruthers’ post-war career focussed on addressing the perceived deficiency in oceanographic knowledge, producing a detailed report on studies conducted in Nazi Germany, whilst simultaneously undertaking research into ocean currents. This paper will argue that Carruthers’ international outlook, rather than solely national perspective, positioned him as a key disseminator of foreign oceanographic studies to British academia. Histories of Cold War oceanography often overlook the significance of the informal networks that co-existed alongside formal international co-operation committees or bodies (NATO). This paper looks beyond the hegemony of Anglo-American histories, revealing a rich history of informal Anglo-European oceanographic networks.

Sam Robinson, University of Manchester [email protected]

The Bergen Current Meter and the dream of an exact science of ocean currents

In the decades surrounding the turn of the 20 th century, the study of ocean currents aspired to exact science. Crucial for these aspirations were certain new mathematical tools introduced by Scandinavian scientists. Measurements in the sea now became the basis not only for describing ocean currents, but also for calculating them. However, applying exact theory developed in a laboratory in the ocean turned out to be a great challenge. Measuring temperature, salinity, depth and other parameters in the sea became the greatest source of inexactitude in the new science of ocean currents.

From 1900 onwards, oceanographers in Bergen worked with the development of methods for reliable and exact measurement of ocean currents. In 1966, a self-registering current meter was constructed in Bergen which could measure these parameters with unprecedented precision and which could store huge amounts of data while operating in the sea for months at a time. With this instrument, an old dream was very close to realised. Where did this dream of an exact science of ocean currents come from? What implications did it have on ways of knowing about the ocean, and on the political and economic role of oceanography in the first half of the 20 th century?

Gunnar Ellingsen Department of archaeology, history, cultural studies and religion (AHKR), University of Bergen [email protected]

Submarines for science and security: bathyscaphes and oceanography in the 1950s

Oceanographic exploration has long been associated primarily with ships. Great voyages of discovery invariably traversed the oceans while only penetrating their depths remotely, a situation that changed only with the development of manned submersibles. In this paper I look at how the emergence of the bathyscaphe -- a type of submarine capable of reaching the greatest depths -- helped redefine marine exploration at a time when the days of great voyages of discovery were drawing to a close, and when feats of exploration possessed dual value as markers of specific geopolitical power in addition to more general human achievement. My primary focus is the early career of the bathyscaphe Trieste, a vehicle designed and built in Europe that became an object of American admiration and ultimately an asset in Cold War American oceanography. I trace the Trieste's acquisition through the Office of Naval Research and examine how its potential uses for scientific, military, and more purely exploratory ends were articulated. I locate these discussions within the broader context of American interest (even fear) over Soviet submarine technology, and also skepticism among oceanographers about the scientific value of bathyscaphes. I conclude with reflections on how the Trieste's successful descent into the Mariana Trench -- the marine equivalent of scaling Mount Everest -- functioned as an emblem for oceanography more than a contribution to oceanographic research.

Peder Roberts Post-doctoral researcher Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden [email protected]

Session

Russian attraction: Scientific exploration in Russia in the 18th and 19th century

The focus of the session is the various voyages of exploration and discovery in Russia during the 18th and 19th century in an international and transnational perspective. During this period, and for many different reasons, Russia emerged as a particularly interesting place for scientific journeys and expeditions. Institutionally, the establishing of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg in 1724 provided a base for scientific exploration in Russia. Temporally, during the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, the Russian empire became central due to its vast geographical extension and multiple sites for astronomical observation. Also geographically, from plant geography to the study of terrestrial magnetism, the Russian countryside offered insights and promises to a wide set of scientific questions and challenges. We want to explore this scientific exploration of Russia in relation to European history of science more generally.

Individual papers

From sea-charts with declination lines to charts with isodynamic lines: from Halley to Hansteen.

The chart of Edmond Halley published in 1701, played a main role in the history of geomagnetism: Halley presented a first magnetic world map with declination lines, but these were only designed on the oceans. It was Leonhard Euler who changed the view, he presented the first charts with declination lines in a stereographic projection (1753). However, it was as early as in the year 1712 that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had recommended to the Russian emperor Peter I., to organize land expeditions through Russia in order to observe the declination and inclination on the huge Russian territory. During the Kamtschatka-expeditions (1733-1743) geomagnetic observations were made, but they were not published. It was only in the second half of the 18 th century that charts with declination and inclination lines had been edited with the specialty that geomagnetic lines were not only shown on the oceans but also on the continents (Lambert, Wilcke, Kratzenstein). Global geomagnetic observations in Europe were first organized in Mannheim by the „Societas Meteorologica Palatina“, which was founded in 1780. The results, however, were published in form of tables and not graphically. During his expedition through south America in the years 1799 to 1804 Alexander von Humboldt not only observed declinations and inclinations but also the intensities; Humboldt was the one who made intensity lines popular among scientists. Nevertheless his first map with intensity lines, dating from 1804, is not very accurate and gives only a rough idea. Further extensive observations were necessary. In the years 1805/1806 the astronomer Friedrich Theodor Schubert in St. Petersburg was a member of a Russian expedition to China; Schubert made first magnetic observations in the far east of Russia, which were published and recognized by the scientific world. It was Christopher Hansteen, who had collected in a unique way all geomagnetic observation data, which were available and gave magnificent maps that allowed to study the changes of the magnetic magnitudes (1819). Hansteen edited lots of magnetic maps, especially his isodynamic maps were admired by the scientists of his time. From now on Russia became more and more important in the development of geomagnetism.

Prof. Dr. Karin Reich (University of Hamburg) [email protected] Dr. Elena Roussanova (Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig) [email protected]; [email protected]

Chappe d'Auteroche’s Journey to Russia for the 1761 transit of Venus Observation

Abbé Chappe d’Auteroche (1728-1769) was chosen by the French Academy of Sciences to travel to Tobolsk in Siberia to observe the 1761 Transit of Venus. Due to his experience in observing rare celestial alignments – he was among the 1753 observers of the transit of Mercury in the observatory of Paris – he was regarded as a person to whom one could entrust one of the most important observation places. Tobolsk was of prime importance because the transit time there would be the shortest. In addition to his excellent transit observations Chappe d’Auteroche published in the year 1768 an extensive travel account about his voyage through Russia. The paper will discuss the role this account played in Europe for the perception of Siberia/Russia compared to earlier accounts from European scholars, who were in Russian services like the one of Johann Georg Gmelin. In Russia Chappe’s ‘Voyage en Siberie’ was not appreciated because he described Russia in a very negative way and it was Empress Catherine II who published anonymously an answer to Chappe’s account. The result of Chappe’s negative statements about Russia was that France did not send observers to Russia for the 1769 transit. In 1769 the observations in Russia were made by Russian German and Swiss Scientists.

Dr. Gudrun Bucher Löwenstraße 22 63067 Offenbach. Tel. 069-885760 Mail: [email protected] Kamtschatka and Russian America in the travelogues of Adelbert von Chamisso and Otto von Kotezbue

From 1815 to 1818, Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), French born poet and natural scientist, participated in the second Russian circumnavigation which was led by the German- Baltic captain Otto von Kotzebue (1787-1846). The expedition spent to summers (1816/1817) on Kamtschatka and Russian Alaska. Both Chamisso and Kotzebue published travelogues after the expedition where they – amongst other things – presented the scientific (geological, botanical, zoological and ethnographical) outcome of their stay in this far eastern part of Russia. My presentation will focus on the difference between Chamisso’s and Kotzebue’s view which is expressed in their travelogues.

Marie-Theres Federhofer Department of Culture and Literature University of Tromsø [email protected]

Christopher Hansteen and the search for a magnetic pole in Siberia

In 1819, Christopher Hansteen published Untersuchungen über den Magnetismus der Erde where he suggested the existence inside the earth of two magnetic axes of unequal size and strength, and consequently four magnetic poles or points of convergence. One magnetic pole was located somewhere in North America, and according to Hansteen, another pole in the northern hemisphere should be somewhere in Siberia.

In 1828, Hansteen embarked upon a two-year expedition through Russia to locate (t)his second Siberian pole. Yet, the scientific results were inconclusive, and full publication of the scientific results was delayed for decades, partly due to Carl Friedrich Gauss who in Allgemeine Theorie des Erdmagnetismus (1839) dealt a death blow to Hansteen’s hypothesis. Consequently, and especially in Norway, Hansteen’s Russian expedition is usually treated with a sense of embarrassment: Hansteen didn’t find his Siberian pole and his four-pole theory was refuted.

In my talk, based on a closer contextualization of core concepts like “magnetic poles” or “points of convergance”, on the one side, and epistemological notions like “theory” and “model”, on the other, I will challenge this established interpretation by arguing that Hansteen actually did find his fourth magnetic pole, but that his theory was nevertheless rejected both by himself and by Gauss.

Vidar Enebakk Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine Kjelsåsveien 143 0491 Oslo [email protected] Session

The penal code as a construction site

A penal code is a collection of rules that names punishable acts. It may also be seen as a “site of construction” or a “surface of emergence” of new concepts, subjects and objects (Davidson, Pottage and Mundy). Thus the code does not only name the acts to be punished but also the objects to be governed. The centre of attention for this session is the Norwegian penal code of 1902, often hailed as a milestone in the development of criminal law. This particular code has generally been understood on the backdrop of the “scientific” approach to crime and crime prevention that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century. “Scientific” in this context implied ‘based on knowledge’, but also ‘faithful to nature’. By 1902 “nature” had become highly relevant for criminal law and government. The code enabled the remaking of established juridical entities such as the child, the animal, the pervert and the prostitute Taking inspiration from historians of science who have studied the emergence of scientific concepts (Davidson 2001) or the biography of scientific objects (Daston (ed) 2000), the papers in this session will to start with the text and explore some of the objects that are to be found in the Norwegian criminal code of 1902, and how the law itself seeks to redraw the boundaries between nature and culture, science and politics

Individual Papers:

Kristin Asdal, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo

Svein Atle Skålevåg, University of Bergen History of Science as a Repository for Politics? Roger Strand, Senter for vitenskapsteori – Universitetet i Bergen E-mail [email protected]

Kjetil Rommetveit, Senter for vitenskapsteori – Universitetet i Bergen E-mail [email protected]

Andrea Saltelli, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen European Commission-Joint Research Centre1 E-mail [email protected]

“History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.” However, Kuhn (1962) failed to pursue the obvious questions to the famous opening passage of Structure: Who are we? What is to be done with our possession, and why? For what more is history a repository? Already before the publication of Structure, its apparently naïve epistemology was attacked by Feyerabend: “[Y]ou say you describe facts. I say you don’t as you introduce evaluations by the back door. And if you do, then you better introduce the values with which you agree rather than those with which you don’t agree. And this you can as the alternative description which results from the adoption of a different value system will also be factually adequate.” (Hoyningen-Huene, p. 617). Such historiographical questions, of the politics of history of science, are neither new nor unique to this subfield of history. Still, they are important in the daily practice of research. Our paper is a dialogue on the nature, role and purpose of history of science across the table of commissioned research: Two authors (Strand and Rommetveit) recently undertook the task of laying out the historical role of universalism in science, a task commissioned by the third author (Saltelli) in his capacity as advisor to the European Commission. What politics can be found in the history of science, what should be found and how is it searched for?

References

Paul Hoyningen-Huene (2006). “More letters by Paul Feyerabend to Thomas S. Kuhn on Proto- Structure”, Stud Hist Phil Sci, 37:610-632.

Thomas S. Kuhn (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.

1 The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the European Commission. Pro-German intellectuals in Sweden during the Third-Reich period

In 2013 a research project is launched that focuses on the intersection between knowledge and politics among Swedish intellectuals sympathetic to the ”new Germany”, or even to Nazism, during the Third-Reich period. The project will have three empirical foci: pro-German networks in the natural sciences, among journalists and publicists, and in medicine (in particular medical research). An empirical point of departure is lists of membership of a few pro-German organizations and networks among such members traceable through e.g. correspondence. Analytically the project will focus on the views on scientific and/or journalistic “objectivity” and “neutrality” among the German-friendly intellectuals. The project aims to investigate the “epistemic culture” of this group that, tentatively, is regarded as network based rather than institution or discipline based.

The session will consist of a presentation of the project and its subsections. It is hoped that this will inspire a general discussion about the historiographic problem of studying the approach among non-German intellectuals to Nazi Germany.

Sven Widmalm, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University [email protected]

Patrik Lundell, Department of Communication and Media, Lund University [email protected]

Maria Björkman, Department of Thematic Studies, Unit for Technology and Social Change Linköping University [email protected]

Olof Ljungström, Science Studies Unit, Karolinska Institute [email protected]