Putting Science in Its Place science.culture A series edited by Steven Shapin Other science.culture series titles available: The Scientific Revolution, by Steven Shapin Putting Science in Its Place Geographies of Scientific Knowledge David N. Livingstone The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London David Livingstone is professor of geography and intellectual history at Queen’s University, Belfast. A Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Livingstone is the author of numerous books, including The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2003 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2003 Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0-226-48722-9 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Livingstone, David N., 1953– Putting science in its place : geographies of scientific knowledge / David N. Livingstone. p. cm. — (Science.culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-48722-9 (acid-free paper) 1. Science—Social aspects. 2. Science and civilization. I. Title. II. Series. Q175.5 .L59 2003 303.48؅3—dc21 2003001355 ø The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. For Frances Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi 1 a geography of science? 1 2 site: Venues of Science 17 3 region: Cultures of Science 87 4 circulation: Movements of Science 135 5 putting science in its place 179 Bibliographical Essay 187 Index 285 Illustrations 1 The Brazilian coast 9 2 View of Jaffa 11 3 “The Alchemist in His Laboratory” 18 4 Whitaker’s encampment in the Sahara 19 5 Museum of the apothecary Francesco Calzolari 20 6 Inner quadrangle of Glasgow College 28 7 Museum of Ferrante Imperato 31 8 The Outlook Tower 36 9 The Natural History Museum 39 10 Joseph Dalton Hooker in the Himalayas 46 11 The Garden of Eden 50 12 Plan of the botanical garden at Padua 53 13 Isidore Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire at the Jardin Zoologique d’Acclimatation 57 14 Plan of the Jardin Zoologique d’Acclimatation 59 15 A typical Nightingale ward 65 16 St. Thomas’s Hospital, London 67 17 Bedlam Hospital 70 18 The State Asylum for the Insane at Tuscaloosa 72 19 Frontispiece of Riccioli’s Almagestum Novum 95 20 Illustration of a New World medicinal plant 98 21 Gresham College 102 22 List of toasts to honor the British Association for the Advancement of Science 110 23 Cartoon depicting Thomas Wakeley as a jackdaw 112 24 Alexander von Humboldt in Venezuela 114 25 Caricature of William Robertson Smith 119 x illustrations 26 Cartoon of John Tyndall 120 27 Topographical map of Paris and environs 125 28 The Paris Observatory 127 29 Giraffe presented to the king of France 136 30 The Planisphere Terrestre by Cassini 144 31 A hypsometer or boiling-point apparatus 151 32 Wallace’s faunal and racial boundaries of the Malay Archipelago 162 33 “Inhabitants of the Island of Terra del Fuego in their Hut” 166 34 “A View of the Indians of Terra del Fuego in their Hut” 167 35 Photographic illustrations of typical racial types 170 36 The botanical garden on the island of St. Vincent 173 Preface There is something strange about science. Scientific inquiry takes place in highly specialist sites—high-tech labs, remote field stations, museum archives, astronomical observatories. It has also been pur- sued in coffee shops and cathedrals, in public houses and stock farms, on ships’ decks and exhibition stages. And yet the knowledge that is acquired in these places is taken to have ubiquitous qualities. Scien- tific findings, to put it another way, are both local and global; they are both particular and universal; they are both provincial and transcen- dental. To ask what role specific locations have in the making of sci- entific knowledge and to try to figure out how local experience is transformed into shared generalization is, I believe, to ask funda- mentally geographical questions. In large measure my interest in such questions arises from a re- versal of intellectual influence in my own thinking. That journey be- gan when I first embarked on the task of bringing the methods used by historians of scientific culture to bear on the history of geographi- cal thought and practice. My concern was to place the development of geography, as both discourse and discipline, in the wider context xii preface of social and intellectual history. At some point along the way I be- gan to wonder if influences might also move in the opposite direction. Could the craft competencies of the geographer, with interests in space and place, throw some light on the history of the scientific en- terprise? This book is my attempt to answer that question. Given my desire to convene conversations between geographers and historians of science, it is no surprise that I myself have benefited enormously from the stimulus and encouragement of colleagues in both communities. Accordingly, I am deeply indebted to Frank Gour- ley and Nuala Johnson for many helpful discussions, constructive crit- icism, generous reading, new leads, and fruitful suggestions. Besides the inspiration of his own work, the detailed observations of Steven Shapin on each of the chapters that follow were immensely profitable. Constructive engagement with the overall argument, as well as careful commentary on particular passages, by Adrian Johns, Robert Kohler, and Mark Monmonier was invaluable. Trevor Barnes, John Brooke, Stephen Williams, John Wilson, and Charles Withers acted as good friends should: they provided encouragement when I longed for it, criticism when I needed it, time when I asked for it, and advice when I sought it. Alas, despite their best efforts, the faults that remain in what follows are my own responsibility. To all these I must add Susan Abrams, who rendered welcome long-distance support by telephone and e-mail. I am most grateful to her for her belief in, and enthusiasm for, this whole undertaking. Christie Henry’s editorial expertise, Jennifer Howard’s efficiency in responding to queries and Gill Alexander’s skills in working with il- lustrations all did much to take the strain out of the final stages of the project. And I am much indebted to Alice Bennett for her deft and diligent copyediting. I am delighted too to acknowledge the support of the British Academy in the form of a two-year Research Reader- ship that allowed me space to inquire into the spaces of inquiry. 1 A Geography of Science? Scientific knowledge is made in a lot of different places. Does it mat- ter where? Can the location of scientific endeavor make any differ- ence to the conduct of science? And even more important, can it affect the content of science? In my view the answer to these ques- tions is yes. The suggestion that science has a geography goes against the grain. We can readily understand that there is a philosophy of science and a history of science, even a sociology of science. But the idea of a geography of science runs counter to our intuition. Science, we have long been told, is an enterprise untouched by local conditions. It is a universal undertaking, not a provincial practice. Of all the human projects devoted to getting at the truth of how things are, that venture we call science has surely been among the most assiduous in its efforts to transcend the parochial. It has been extraordinarily diligent in de- ploying mechanisms to lay aside prejudices and presuppositions and to guarantee objectivity by leaving the local behind. Credible knowl- edge, we assume, does not bear the marks of the provincial, and sci- ence that is local has something wrong with it. As one observer has 2 chapter one put it, “It was the end for cold fusion when people decided that it only happened in Salt Lake City.” Genuine science, after all, is carried on in much the same way everywhere from Boston to Beijing; experi- mentalists replicate each other’s results in Moscow and Melbourne; conference delegates from Paris and Prague can engage in scientific conversation. The places where science is conducted, then, seem to be of little or no consequence. Even geographers, despite their professional stake in matters of place and location, have been inclined to exempt science from the imperatives of spatial significance. To be sure, they have acknowledged from time to time that a geography of, say, as- tronomy could be written. But beyond such trivial circumstances as the fact that observatories are not erected in foggy valley floors or that the Pole Star is not visible in the Southern Hemisphere, there was re- ally nothing more to say. To suggest that the methods of astronomy, or the theories astronomers devised, might be influenced by their spatial settings was little short of absurd. Of course geographers— like everyone else—readily conceded that the diffusion of scientific discoveries and technical innovations could be charted over space and time. The paths by which a new agricultural technique or medical serum spread from its point of origin, for example, could be presented in map form. But beyond such platitudinous concessions, geography seemed to have little bearing on science. In adopting this hands-off attitude toward science, geographers have certainly not been alone. While sociologists—for long enough— were only too happy to socialize most everything from families and fi- estas to rituals and religions, they drew back from looking at science in sociological terms.