THE SEARCH FOR ANCIENT DNA IN THE MEDIA LIMELIGHT: A CASE STUDY OF CELEBRITY SCIENCE ELIZABETH DOBSON JONES UCL Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Science and Technology Studies 2017 1 DECLARATION I, Elizabeth Jones, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 DEDICATION For My Paleontology Professors Mary Schweitzer and Gregory Erickson Family Dobsons and Joneses Husband Patrick Jones In Memory Of My Father-In-Law Johnny Jones 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to acknowledge my previous mentors who have helped me, and continue to help me, in my career as a historian of science. First, I want to thank my paleontology professors, Mary Schweitzer at North Carolina State University and Gregory Erickson at Florida State University, who have encouraged me throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies to pursue paleontology and its history. This PhD is a result of their enthusiasm and encouragement. I also want to thank William Kimler, North Carolina State University, who introduced me to the history of science. Thank you also to Paul Brinkman, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, who has supported my research. I want to thank Frederick Davis, Florida State University, who advised my master’s thesis, the basis for this PhD thesis, with good guidance. Finally, I want to thank Michael Ruse, Florida State University, for having faith in me as a student and for helping me push my potential as a scholar, even from afar. It is not always easy to find a life-long mentor, and I am blessed to have found more than one to guide me through these different stages of my career. Next, this project was possible with funding from University College London. I want to thank UCL for funding through three separate scholarships; UCL Graduate Research Scholarship, UCL Overseas Research Scholarship, and UCL Cross-Disciplinary Training Scholarship. This third scholarship has allowed me to spend a fourth and final year earning real research experience on an interdisciplinary project, further funded by UCL Grand Challenges and UCL Octagon Gallery, to sequence the genomes of two university intellectual icons, Jeremy Bentham and Flinders Petrie. This funding has allowed me to work in the UCL Ancient DNA Lab and the Natural History Museum Ancient DNA Lab. I am also grateful to the British Society for the History of Science, History of Science Society, and the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History for funding towards travel to do research and present at conferences. I am grateful to my department, Science and Technology Studies, for further funding towards expenses over the years. The strength of this thesis resides in the fact that it was produced in partnership with scientists. I cannot thank each interviewee enough for giving so much of their time to this project. A number of interviewees have shared or donated their documents from ancient DNA’s history, helping me to create an archive for the future. These interviewees and their 4 memories of their history have been invaluable to this project. I hope they see their experiences in the events detailed in this thesis. I also want to acknowledge the scientists, especially the paleontologists and geneticists, who have helped me throughout my degree. Thank you to Anjali Goswami and the Goswami Lab in UCL’s Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment for adopting me as a pseudo-paleontologist member of their lab for these four years. I want to say a special thank you to my dear friends – Andrew Cuff, Thomas Halliday, Ryan Felice, Aki Watanabe, Carla Bardua, and Marcela Randau Carvalho Burgess – for the fun-filled friendships that have made my time here worthwhile. To Marcela, thank you for the laughs and tears that have made this adventure so memorable. Next, thank you to my second supervisor, Mark Thomas, and the Molecular and Cultural Evolution (MACE) Lab in UCL’s Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment for also adopting me into their lab. Mark, thank you for agreeing to supervise this thesis and for challenging me with careful and constructive criticism along the way. Also, thank you to the MACE Lab – Zuzana Faltyskova, Anna Rudzinski, Elizabeth Gallagher, Katherine Brown, Catherine Walker, Pascale Gerbault, Lucy van Dorp, Yoan Diekmann, Adrian Timpson, Stuart Peters, and David Diez del Molino – for taking me in and teaching me with patience. I cannot imagine this thesis without the interaction or input from this lab. Also, thank you to Selina Brace, Tom Booth, and Ian Barnes at the Natural History Museum for collaborating on the Cross-Disciplinary Scholarship Training. There are some that say the PhD can be a lonely journey, but in UCL’s Department of Science and Technology Studies that is far from true. My decision to join this department has been one of the best, and I have the staff, faculty, and students to thank for this. Thank you to past and present PhD students: Matthew Paskins, Hsiang-Fu Huang, Melanie Smallman, Yafeng Shan, Yin Chung Au, Sara Peres, Tom O’Donnell, Samantha Vanderslott, Tona Anzures, Huiping Chu, Rupert Cole, Alberto Aparicio, Hattie Lloyd, Farrah Lawrence, Jacob Ward, Alex Mankoo, Sadie Harrison, Erika Jones, Katherine Cecil, Rebecca Martin, Hannah Wills, Rory Jubber, Claudia Cristalli, Emma Sullivan, and Edward Bankes. I want to say a super special thank you to my PhD cohort; Raquel Velho, Erman Sozudogru, Oliver Marsh, Toby Friend, and Julia Sanchez-Dorado. These years with this cohort have been such an amazing adventure and I would not want to have shared my studies or pints of beer with anyone else. 5 Further, thank you to my supervisor, Joe Cain, for molding me into a scholar. The argument of this thesis is very much a product of our continuous conversations over these four years. Joe, thank you for taking the time to make this project more fun, challenging, and rewarding than I imagined it to be. I am a better scholar because you have been a brilliant supervisor. I cannot thank you enough. The hard times, as well as the happy times, are always better when spent with support from family. This research was possible because of my family, the Dobsons and Joneses, who have always supported my studies, even if that meant living in another state or country and losing precious time together. To the Dobsons – Allen, Martha, Robert, Angela, Kayleigh, and Sara – thank you for understanding, or at least not questioning, my decision to become a researcher instead of a dolphin trainer or back-up singer for Michael Bolton. To the Joneses – Johnny, Donna, Wesley, Kinsey, and Andy – thank you for making me one of your own and for being a part of this journey. Thank you to my grandparents – Lolo and Lorraine Dobson, Bill Anderson, and Betty Jones – for your love and support. Thank you to my girlfriends – Kyla, Tyler, Chelsea, Whitney, Stephanie, Heather, Jannell, Kelly, and Lindsey – for your friendship from afar. I am also grateful to my mom, Martha, for editing this thesis for grammar. Finally, I want to acknowledge my best friend and husband, Patrick, who has made this project possible. You have been a strong source of emotional, intellectual, and financial support over these years, and our relationship is evidence that the path to success is not a solitary adventure or achievement. You have made this thesis better in many ways. Thank you for always investing in me and in us. I feel you deserve this degree as much, if not more, than I do. 6 ABSTRACT This is the first academic historical account of the search for DNA from ancient and extinct organisms and the first account of the celebrity science concept. The search for DNA from fossils surfaced from the interplay between paleontology, archeology, and molecular biology in the 1980s and has evolved from an emergent into a more established technoscience today. However, it has evolved under intense public interest and extreme media exposure, particularly as it coincided with and was catalyzed into the media spotlight by the book and movie Jurassic Park in the 1990s. Drawing on historical material and oral history interviews with over fifty scientists, I explore ancient DNA’s disciplinary development and explain its relationship with the media, especially through examining its close connection to de-extinction, the idea of bringing back extinct species. As the discipline developed, researchers responded to its technoscientific challenges and status as a public-facing practice. Authentication of research results was a primary problem for scientists. Here, contamination concerns placed the practice’s credibility on the line. However, celebrity was also a crucial component to ancient DNA’s disciplinary development. While media mobilized the practice, it destabilized it, too. This thesis argues that the search for ancient DNA can be characterized as a history of a celebrity science. I argue that a celebrity science develops within a shared conceptual space of professional and popular interests. Media are crucial in the making of a celebrity science, pursuing the science and scientists for the news values. But researchers participate in this process, too, responding positively and negatively to the attention. Ultimately, a celebrity science is the outcome of prolonged publicity advanced by a relationship actively pursued and produced by both scientists and media members. Ancient DNA as a case study of celebrity science has implications for the process of science