ISSN 0739-4934 NEWSLETTER -..!STORY OFSOENCE -~-~i_6 ~-Bffi-3 --~_SOOETY NSF SUPPORT FOR HST HSSEXECUTIVE IN I-ITCH SCHOOL COURSES COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Wll.LIAM COLEMAN, University of By KATHRYN M. OLESKO Wisconsin-Madison Charr, HSS Committee on Education VICE-PRESIDE.."'T AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH 1D SCIENCE LITERACY: HISTDRY EDUCA­ MARY JO NYE, University of Oklahoma TION was the title of a conference sponsored by HSS with funding from NSF SECRETARY and held on 27-28 Aprill987 at the Intercultural Center of Georgetown Univer­ EDTTII SYLLA, North Carolina State University sity. Representatives of interested agencies and societies, including HSS, met with high school teachers to discuss ways of enhancing the role of the history of TREASURER science and technology in precollege history courses (especially American and MARY LOUISE GLEASON, New York City European surveys). A formal recommendation was submitted to the Director of EDITOR the NSF, Erich Bloch, asking NSF to support curricular reform projects that seek CHARLES ROSENBERG, University of to incorporate topics in the history of science and technology into precollege Pennsylvania science and history courses. Those present at the conference, including representatives of the History of Science Society, the Society for the History of Technology, the American Histor­ The History of Science Society was founded in ical Association, the Society for History Education, the Council of Chief State 1924 to secure the future of Isis, the interna­ School Officers, the National Commission on Social Studies, the Educational tional review that George Sarton (1884-1956) Jesting Service, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment had founded in Belgium in 1912. The Society for the Humanities, agreed that "scientific literacy" is not just the ability to seeks to foster interest in the history of science and its social and cultural relations, to provide a manipulate and apply the skills, techniques, and tools of science; it refers also forum for discussion, and to promote scholarly to the ability to understand, reflect on, and evaluate the role of science and tech­ research in the history of science. The Society nology in the modem world, as is appropriate for a responsible citizenry. It was pursues these objectives by the publication of its journals Isis and Osiris, by the support and continued on page 10 subvention of other forms of scholarly publica­ tion, by the organization of annual meetings and other programs, by the award of medals and prizes for outstanding contributions to the history of science, by the encouragement and sponsorship of local and regional sections of the Society, and by cooperation with other learned and scientific societies. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE HSS ELECTION 2 ANNUAL MEETING PROGRAM 11-20 PREREGISTRATION AND The Geozgetown University ROOM REGISTRATION FORMS 6-7 Intercultural Center, where the conference on scientific literacy ISIS EDITOR 8 recently m et. page2 History of Sciace Society Newsletter - fohn Beatty Peter Dear Peter Galison Sharon Kingskmd Kenneth Manning ogy, genetics in America. Statement: The THE 1987 HSS ELECTION Society should continue to broaden aware­ ness of the history of science through CANDIDATES' BIOGRAPHIES interaction with other societies, both historical and scientific. I am especially interested in exploring ways to promote FOR COUNCIL maintain and extend such attempts to teaching of the history of science within widen both the scholarly and the pedagog­ general history courses of the "Western John Beatty ical base of the Society. Civilization" type. Associate Professor, Department of Ecol­ Peter Galison Kenneth Manning ogy, Evolution, and Behavior; Program in the History of Science and Technology; Cochair, Program in History of Science, Professor of the History of Science, Pro­ Center for the Philosophy of Science; Stanford University. Ph.D., Harvard Uni­ gram in Science, Thchnology, and Society, University of Minnesota. Ph.D., Indiana versity, 1983. Specialties: history of and Head of the Writing Program, Massa­ University, 1979. Specialties: history and twentieth-century physics; seventeenth­ chusetts Institute of Thchnology. Ph.D., philosophy of biology. Current project: century natural philosophy. Professional Harvard University, 1974. Specialties: the evolutionary biology in the atomic age, a activities: American Physical Society­ role of blacks in American science and study of an interconnected set of concep­ Executive Committee, History of Physics technology; history of medicine; biogra­ tual, methodological, and social policy division. West Coast History of Science phy. Professional activities: HSS­ issues facing evolutionary biologists in the Society-Secretary-Treasurer. Selected Lecturer, Visiting Historians of Science 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. publications: How Experiments End (Chi­ Program, 1986-1987. AAAS-Committee cago, 1987}; "Bubble Chambers and the on Public Understanding of Science and Peter Dear Experimental Workplace," in Observation, Technology. Selected publications: Black Experiment and Hypothesis in Modem Apollo of Science (Oxford, 1983} (Pfizer Assistant Professor of History and History Physicill Science, ed. P. Achinstein and Award). Current project: the history of of Science, Department of History, Cor­ 0. Hannaway (MIT, 1985); "Descartes's blacks in American medicine. nell University Ph.D., Princeton Univer­ Comparisons: From the Invisible to the sity, 1984. Specialties: history of early Visible;' Isis, 1984, 75:311-326. Current Eman McMullin modern science and philosophy. Selected project: work on the history of detectors publications: Mersenne and the Leaming Professor and Director of the Program of and material culture of modern physics, of the Schools (Cornell, forthcoming}; from the cloud chamber to the massive History and Philosophy of Science, and "Totius in verba: Rhetoric and Authority Director, Reilly Center for Science, Thch­ collaborative enterprises of CERN and the in the Early Royal Society," Isis, 1985, SSC; expansion of the laboratory, includ­ nology, and Values, University of Notre 76:145-161; "Jesuit Mathematical Sci­ Dame. Ph.D., University of Louvain, ing effects of World War II and Cold War ence and the Reconstitution of Experience on the technology and organization of 1954. Specialties: history of the philoso­ in the Early Seventeenth Century," Studies work. phy of science; the natural sciences in the in History and Philosophy of Science, Scientific Revolution; contemporary the­ 1987; contributor to The Cambridge His­ Sharon Kingsland ory of science. Professional activities: tory of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy PSA-President, 1980-1982. U.S. Na­ (in preparation}. Current project: study of Associate Professor, History of Science tional Committee for History and Philoso­ the cognitive status of experiment and its Department, Johns Hopkins University phy of Science-Chair, 1982-1984, presentation in the seventeenth century Ph.D., University ofThronto, 1981. Spe­ 1986-1988. Selected publications: The Statement: Improvement in the Society's cialties: history of modem biology. Pro­ Concept of Matter (1963); Galill!o. ....=: finances has enabled the establishment of fessional activities: HSS-Schuman Prize Science (1967); Newton on Motto and various admirable undertakings, not least Committee, 1984-1985. Selected publi­ Activity, (1978). Current projects:~ the Unaffiliated Scholars and Visiting cations: Modeling Nature: Episodes in the opment of scientific method in the period Historians of Science programs. I support History of Population Ecology (Chicago, from Bacon to Newton; the role of episte­ these recent initiatives and would wish to 1985}. Current projects: history of ecol- mic and nonepistemic factors in scientific July 1987 page3 r. Emon McMullin Arthur Molella Theodore Porter Mmtb.a H. Verbrugge William A. Wallace controversies. Statement: One of my should continue and extend its efforts to Council, 1974-1977; Research Commit­ abns would be to foster closer links be­ reach out to neighboring fields. tee, Chair, 1977-1978. Selected publica­ tween HSS and other science-related soci­ tions: Prelude to Galileo (Reidel, 1981); eties in the United States. Martha H. Verbrugge Galileo and His Sources (Princeton, 1984); editor, Reinterpreting Galileo (Catholic Arthw Molella Associate Professor of History, Bucknell Univ. of America, 1986). Current proj­ University. Ph.D., Harvard University, ect: Galileo's logical treatises-dating, Curator and Chair, Department of the 1978. Specialties: history of American sources, English translation with com­ History of Science and Technology, science and medicine, especially women's mentary. Statement: I am interested in Museum of American History, Smithso­ health and popular physiology. Selected maintaining interest within the HSS in nian Institution, Washington, D .C. Ph.D., publications: Able-Bodied Womanhood: natural philosophy and in the sources of Cornell University, 1972. Specialties: Personal Health and Social Change in its tradition (Latin, Arab, Greek), as well history of physics; relations between sci­ Nineteenth-Centwy Boston (Oxford, as in promoting interchanges with philos­ ence and technology; historiography of forthcoming); "Emma Perry Carr, 1880- ophers of science. technology. Professional activities: 1972:' in Notable American Women: The SHOT-chair of the Finance Committee; Modem Period, ed. Barbara Sicherman et Technology and Culture advisory editor. al. (Harvard, 1980); "The Social Meaning Computer Museum-board of directors.