From classical to Baroque: Inquiry about science in America, 1930-1990 Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Remington, John Alvah, 1942- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 11:15:32 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291856 INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction Is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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FROM CLASSICAL TO BAROQUE: INQUIRY ABOUT SCIENCE IN AMERICA 1930-1990 by John Alvah Remington Copyright (c) 1990 John Alvah Remington A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1990 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted In partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and Is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgement of source Is mads. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript In whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: (990 Paul A Carter Professor of History Date ' 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor, Paul Carter, for sticking with me over the last few years and for his germane comments and readiness to help. I also want to thank Michael SchaJler of the Department of History and Henry Byerly of the Department of Philosophy for their helpful comments. In addition, Tim Lenoir and Steve Pyne were invaluable in the earty part of this project for their encouragement and insights. My previous article, John A Remlngton."Beyond Big Science in America: The Binding of Inquiry," Social Studies of Science. Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 45-72, copyright © 1988 Sage Publications (Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications. Inc.), forms the basis for Chapters 5 of this essay. The chapter is an adaptation and elaboration of the previous study. In addition, paragraphs on page 11 and pages 44-46 were adapted from the previous study. 4 TABLE OF (XNTEMTS Pegs Abstract 5 I Hie Forest and Its TVees 6 n Flower Garden of the Gray Matter 22 in From the Big Trees of Peyton Place To the Four-Lane Traffic of Metropolis 39 IV Intellectual Down-Shift: From Realist Physics to Idealist Biology 54 V Research Crosscurrents and Social Undertows 71 VI Interpretive Synthesis: The Baroque As A Unifying Concept For Post-Sputnik American Science 87 VII Appendix A: Strangers In A Strange Land: Popular Notions About Science 104 Vm.Appendix B: Late Medieval Origins of Classical Science 108 IX References 112 5 ABSTRACT This essay offers an overview of the Intellectual and social structures of science In the United States from the 1930s into the 1980s. It axgues that Germanic Immigrant scientists who fled the Nazis In thel930s were vital In energizing a productive colleglality among scientists and relnvlgoratlng a dlelectlcal Interplay between theorists and experimentalists, both of which characterize "classical" science. This unique Intellectual contribution and the "Internal dynamic" of doing science are described as becoming embedded In new social and ethical structures since World War II. New directions for research have been shaped by such "external" factors as the increased accountability of science, governmental mega-projects and secrecy, the enlarged dimension of "Instrumentalities" In science, changes in social relationships In the laboratory, and changes in the expectations of the public. As a consequence, styles of doing science, the motivations of scientists, and theoretical/experimental Interactions, all part of the "Internal" dynamic of science, have been stressed and to some extent transformed. The concluding chapter aigues that the most appropriate designation for American science since the 1960s Is not Just "big." In the most expansive sense of the word, it Is Barociue. 6 I The Forest and Its Trees A young Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, brilliant and always happy to surprise, was one of the earliest scientists to flee Nazi Germany in 1933. Szilard recalled: Hitler came into office in January '33, and I had no doubt what would happen. I lived in the faculty club of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem and I had my suitcases which were packed standing in my room; the key was in them, and all I had to do was turn the key and leave when things got too bad. I was there when the Reichstaff brand occurred, and I remember how difficult it was for people there to understand what was going on. ... I went to see my friend Michael Polyani and told him what had happened, and he looked at me and said, "Do you realty mean to say that you think the secretary of the interior hiad anything to do with this?" and I said, Yes, that is precisely what I mean," and he just looked at me with incredulous eyes.,.. How quickly things move you can see from this: I took a train from Berlin to Vienna on a certain date, close to the first of April, 1933. The train was empty. The same train on the next day was overcrowded, was stopped at the frontier, the people had to get out and everybody was Interrogated by the Nazis. This just goes to show that if you want to succeed In this world you don't have to be much cleverer than other people, you just have to be one day earlier than most people. This is all it takes.1 Between 1933, the year of the Reichstag fire, Nazi ascendancy and dismissal of Jewish academics, and 1941, as many as half a million persons emigrated from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The United States ultimately admitted the most, about 132,000 immigrants from Germany and Austria, followed by Great Britain with 72,000. The peak year of immigration was 1939 after the November 1938 Krlstallnacht and burning of synagogues. Although initially In 1933 about 72 to 75 percent of all emigres sought refuge In France, by 1938 France could no longer absorb such numbers and people were forced to remigrate.^ Most of the refugees were Jewish, and within groups of intellectuals from two-thirds to four-fifths were Jewish. The estimated number of European refuges who were professionals. Including teachers, arriving in the United States from 1933 to 1944 varies between 22,800 and 25,500 people, according to Maurice Davie's book Refugees in America, published in 1947. More recent estimates are higher. 7 In the United States some 15,000 to 17,000 refound professional employment. A biographical data bank on abut 25, 000 such refugees world wide has been assembled.^ Of these professionals, of course , not all were "intellectuals" and academics. In her 1969 book Illustrious Immigrants Laura Fermi, Enrico Fermi's wife, has surveyed the largely successful experiences of some 1900 such immigrants who had attained an education and usually some stature as a scholar or scientist before moving. She emphasized that this survey, although the most complete one at the time, only represented some fraction of such refugee intellectuals. More current lists of scientists and literary persons, professors and teachers, musicians, sculptors and artists number about 8700. And this does not Include over 2500 writers and an undertermined number of performing artists. The vast majority of the German and Austrian emigres permanently left their countries. Of the over 300 German university faculty and employees who emigrated in the 1930s, only 13 to 17 percent returned after the war.4 Besides Leo Szilard, names of accomplished scientists include Fermi, Luria, Godel, Von Neumann, Bethe, Ulam, and Delbruck, not to mention psychologists such as Alexander.