HPSCGA40 Science in the 20th Century and Beyond. Course Syllabus

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1 HPSCGA40 Science in the 20th Century and Beyond Course Syllabus session Professor Jon Agar Course Information More science was done, and more scientists lived, in the twentieth century than in any other century of human history. Furthermore, there were major changes in the framing ideas and organisation of major disciplines. Physics, for example, grappled with the new ideas of quantum theory and relativity. The life sciences responded to genetics and molecular approaches to life science. Geology uncovered evidence for continental drift, while astronomy explored an expanding universe. These intellectual developments were intimately connected to social, economic, political and cultural trends and events, not least global conflicts, ideological clashes and economic transformations. This course introduces and guides the student through accounts of these changes produced by historians and other commentators. Basic course information Course website: Moodle Web site: Assessment: Timetable: Prerequisites: Required texts: See Moodle moodle.ucl.ac.uk Two essays See online timetable None Readings listed below Course tutor(s): Professor Jon Agar Dr Tiago Mata Contact: Web: Office location: See STS staff pages Room 2.2, 2 nd Floor, 22 Gordon Square

2 Schedule UCL Wk Date Topic Activity as a Break (JA) Read: Galison (2000) Science and Political Cultures (JA) Read: Brannigan (1979) Primary Source: browse Einstein (1905) Read: Forman (1971) Read: Graham (1998, excerpts) Primary Source: none Philanthropy (JA) Read: Kay (1993, excerpt) Read: Kohler (1999) Primary Source: none Second World War (JA) Read: Hughes (1989, excerpt) Read: Proctor (2000) Primary Source: Einstein (1939) Assessment Guidance Identify a possible set of primary sources that will be the focus for essay 2 Reading Week no lectures Cold War (JA) Read: Capshew and Rader (1992) Read: van Keuren (2001) Primary Source: Science, the Endless Frontier (1945) Turn, Turn, Turn (TM) Read: Kaiser (2002) Read: Mata (2009) Primary Source: Carson (1962, excerpts) Africa, India, China (JA) Read: Greenhalgh (2008, excerpt) Read: Merson (2000) Entrepreneurial Science (JA) Read: Kenney (1986, excerpt) Read: Wright (1986) Primary Source: US Patent 4,736, Unsocial social science (TM) Read: Morgan (2003) Read: Fourcade (2006) Primary source: Lazear (2000)

3 Assessments Summary Description Deadline Word limit Deadline for Tutors to provide Feedback Essay 1 Essay 2 26 March , April ,500 As advised in class As advised in class Assignments The essays are linked, and are designed so that you learn and demonstrate the skills to explore primary sources related to the history of 20 th century science, and the knowledge of the broader scientific, social, political and cultural context necessary to interpret and understand such sources. The first essay will be broad and contextual: a survey of the secondary literature relating to the science and place of the primary sources you have chosen, without yet discussing the primary sources in detail. The second essay will be a detailed exploration of the primary sources, offering an interpretation based on the context discussed in the first essay. Guidance about choosing and researching the essays will be given in a whole session (the 5 th session, UCL week 24). Specific Criteria for Assessment for this Module: Specific criteria for assessment will be discussed in class.

4 Aims & objectives Aims: Understanding of the history, and historiography, of science in the twentieth century. Objectives: By the end of this module students should be able to: Have an overview of main developments and themes of science in the twentieth century Possess an understanding of the historiography of science in the twentieth century Reading list Best General Introductions: Agar, Jon (2012) Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity. Krige, John and Dominique Pestre (eds) (1997), Science in the Twentieth Century, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press The Cambridge History of Science volumes, in particular: Volume 5, The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Edited by Mary Jo Nye Volume 6, Modern Life and Earth Sciences, Edited by Peter J. Bowler, John V. Pickstone Volume 7, The Modern Social Sciences, Edited by Theodore M. Porter, Dorothy Ross Lecture Readings: Agar, Jon (2008) What happened in the sixties?, British Journal for the History of Science 41(4), pp Ball, Philip (2014) Epilogue: We did not speak the same language in Serving the Reich: the Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp Brand, Stewart (ed.) (1969) Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools. Fall Menlo Park: Portola Institute. Brannigan, Augustine (1979) The reification of Mendel, Social Studies of Science 9, pp

5 Capshew, James H. and Karen A. Rader (1992) Big Science: Price to the present, Osiris, 2nd Series, 7, pp Carson, Rachel (1962) Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Edgerton, David (2011), Boffins, in Britain s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War. London: Allen Lane, pp Einstein, Albert (1905) On the electrodynamics of moving bodies, (the English translation of his original 1905 German-language paper Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper, in Annalen der Physik (1905) 17, p. 891, which appeared in The Principle of Relativity, London: Methuen and Company, Einstein, Albert (1939), letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Copy here: Forman, Paul (1971) Weimar culture, causality, and quantum theory, : adaptation by German physicists and mathematicians to a hostile intellectual environment, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 3, pp Fourcade, Marion (2006) The Constitution of a Global Profession: the Transnationalization of Economics, American Journal of Sociology 112(1), pp Galison, Peter (2000) Einstein's clocks: the place of time, Critical Inquiry, 26(2), pp Graham, Loren R. (1998) Chapter 1: Is science a social construction? (part), Chapter 3: How robust in science under stress?, in What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1-17, pp Greenhalgh, Susan (2008) Chapter 6: The scientific revolution in Chengdu, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng s China, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp Hughes, Thomas P. (1989) Chapter 8: Tennessee Valley and Manhattan Engineer District, in American Genesis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp Kaiser, David (2002) Nuclear Democracy: Political Engagement, Pedagogical Reform, and Particle Physics in Postwar America, Isis 93(2), pp Kay, Lily E. (1993) The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. TBC Kenney, Martin (1986) Biotechnology: the University-Industrial Complex. New Haven: Yale University Press

6 Kevles, Daniel J. (1997) Big Science and big politics in the United States: reflections on the death of the SSC and the life of the Human Genome Project, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 27(2), pp Kohler, Robert (1999) Moral economy, material culture, and community in Drosophila genetics, in Mario Biagioli (ed), Science Studies Reader, London: Routledge, pp Lazear, Edward P. (2000) Economic Imperialism, Quarterly Journal of Economics 115(1), pp Mata, Tiago (2009) Migrations and Boundary Work: Harvard, Radical Economists and the Committee on Political Discrimination, Science in Context 22(1), pp Medvedev, Zhores A. (1969) The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. v-xii, pp , pp Merson, John (2000) Bio-prospecting or bio-piracy: intellectual property rights and biodiversity in a colonial and postcolonial context, Osiris, 2nd Series, 15, pp Morgan, Mary S. (2003) Economics, in Porter, T. and D. Ross (eds.), Cambridge History of Science, volume 7, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp Proctor, Robert (2000) Nazi science and Nazi medical ethics: some myths and misconceptions, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43(3), pp Science, the Endless Frontier. A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July Washington: United States Government Printing Office. Copy here: United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent no. 4,736,866. Search via: van Keuren, David K. (2001) Cold War science in black and white: US Intelligence Gathering and its scientific cover at the Naval Research Laboratory, , Social Studies of Science 31(2), pp Wright, Susan (1986) Recombinant DNA technology and its social transformation, , Osiris 2, pp