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Facsimile Del Frontespizio Della Tesi Di Dottorato Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN Science, Cognition, and Technology Ciclo XXIX Settore Concorsuale di afferenza: 11/C2 – Logica, Storia e Filosofia della scienza Settore Scientifico disciplinare: M-STO/05 – Storia delle scienze e delle tecniche Shaping Public Discourses of Nature: Biological Mutation in the American Press, 1820-1945 Presentata da: Anahita Elżbieta Rouyan Coordinatore Dottorato Relatore Marco Beretta Giuliano Pancaldi ______________ ______________ Esame finale anno 2017 2 Acknowledgments The dissertation would not take the present shape if not for the invaluable guidance of my supervisor, Giuliano Pancaldi. My utmost thanks and sincere gratitude go to the staff at CIS, in particular to Anna Guagnini and my colleagues who have provided plenty of support. Access to primary and secondary sources was a critical component of the completion of this project. I wish to thank the staff at the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, in particular Kathryn M. Neal, as well as the staff at the Library of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Research grants from the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies and the European Association for American Studies have been of great value in assisting me during the various research trips that contributed to this project. I am also indebted to scholars who have provided me with helpful commentary and insight. I would like to thank Robert Craig, Luc Herman, Liz Dobson Jones, Etta Madden, Massimo Mazzotti, Robert Meunier, Staffan Müller-Wille, Kärin Nickelsen, Claire O'Reilly, Gregory Radick, and Cora Stuhrmann. I also wish to thank my closest friends and family who have supported me during the three years of this project, in particular the ones who have translated Italy into a familiar space. Vi ringrazio tutti. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgments...............................................................................................................................3 List of Figures.....................................................................................................................................5 Introduction........................................................................................................................................6 I. Public Attitudes Toward Agricultural Biotechnologies – A Survey of Scholarship..............11 II. Toward the History of the Unnatural...................................................................................17 III. Structure of the Dissertation...............................................................................................21 Chapter 1 Accommodating Scientific Knowledge in the Public Sphere: Toward a Methodology for Historicizing Science Popularization..............................................................................................26 1.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................26 1.2 History of Science Popularization – Current State of the Field.........................................27 1.3 Science in the Public Sphere...............................................................................................35 1.4 Accommodating Scientific Knowledge in the Public Sphere..............................................39 1.5 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................43 Chapter 2 Immutable Boundaries: Species Transmutation and Agricultural Press in Northeastern United States, 1820-1859..................................................................................................................45 2.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................45 2.2 Popularizing Science in the Antebellum Republic..............................................................51 2.3 Science in Agricultural Periodicals....................................................................................56 2.4 Constructing the Authority of Science.................................................................................65 2.5 Perils of Disorder – Transmutation and Theology of Nature.............................................73 2.6 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................79 Appendix 2.1..............................................................................................................................83 Chapter 3 Scientific Nature Faking: Public Discourses of Hugo de Vries's Mutation Theory in California, 1900-1914.......................................................................................................................89 3.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................89 3.2 Popularizing Mutations in the Early Twentieth Century....................................................94 3.3 Mutation Travels to America – Theory and Practice........................................................103 3.4 Mutation Meets Hybridization..........................................................................................111 3.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................121 Appendix 3.1............................................................................................................................124 Chapter 4 Artificial Transmutation of the Gene: Hermann J. Muller's Drosophila Experiments and the American Science Journalism, 1927-1945....................................................................................131 4.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................131 4.2 Public Culture of Science During the Interwar Period....................................................136 4.3 Muller's Mutations and Visions of Evolutionary Control.................................................140 4.4 Cosmic Rays and Evolution – Laboratory vs. Nature.......................................................150 4.5 Conclusion........................................................................................................................160 Appendix 4.1............................................................................................................................164 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................170 I. Facets of Public Engagement with Biological Mutation.....................................................172 II. Further Directions for Research........................................................................................176 Bibliography....................................................................................................................................180 4 List of Figures Figure 1. Front page of The Cultivator v.1-2 1834-6....................................................... p. 58 Figure 2. Report of the activities of the Committee appointed by the New York State Agricultural Society for the assessment of experiments presented by contributors to the journal................................................................................. p. 63 Figure 3. Front page of the New England Farmer featuring citation from the article of John Lindley..................................................................................................... p. 70 Figure 4. Circulation of the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Call, morning and Sunday editions, between 1902 and 1914.................................................................................................................. p. 95 Figure 5. Fragments of two newspaper features about de Vries...................................... p. 102 Figure 6. An example of a feature about MacDougal's experiments in the New York Times................................................................................................................ p. 107 Figure 7. Fragment of a newspaper feature...................................................................... p. 119 Figure 8. Visual representation of Muller's Drosophila experiments.............................. p. 135 Figure 9. Waldemar Kaempffert, “Museum Will Depict Upward Climb of Man” New York Times (21 Jul 1929): 116.......................................................................... p. 149 Figure 10. Visual representation of Muller's Drosophila mutations.................................. p. 158 5 Introduction In the early 1970s, the American public witnessed what would later be called the “genetic engineering revolution” prompted by the emergence of biotechnologies which allowed for molecular manipulation of the DNA. The revolution spawned into existence a range of new scientific fields; for instance, medical biotechnology with products such as engineered vaccines or synthetic human insulin, as well as applications in areas such as gene therapy, or in vitro fertilization. A different facet of this revolution linked biotechnologies to agriculture, in particular, to the development of genetically modified (GM) food crops.1 While the first patents for such products
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