History of Science Down Under
Ruth Barton, ex-president (2005-2008) of the Australasian Association for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science and associate professor of history at the University of Auckland, describes the topography of history of science in Australasia.
History of science in our region developed in close association with philosophy of science and was sometimes located in separate HPS departments. New historiographical emphases in the 1970s produced “Science, Technology and Society” programs. More recently, history of science has been added to history departments. History of medicine has been part of many of these programs, environmental history has taken a significant place in some, but, by comparison, history of technology has been neglected. Over the last decade there have been major changes in the profile of history of science in Australia and New Zealand. The oldest and biggest programs have been restructured, some smaller programs have disappeared, and in New Zealand history of science has achieved a higher profile.
The regional professional organization is the Australasian Association for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science or AAHPSSS, written A2HPS3 by the scientifically inclined and pronounced “aaps.” The executive, customarily re-elected for two, sometimes three, years, is usually based in one city but always has vice-presidents to represent other regions and interests. We are a small and informal organization; our bank balance, for example, rarely changes by as much as $1,000 over a year. The major AAHPSSS activity is holding conferences (usually in July), which are often held in association with the Australasian Association of Philosophy. Although the AAHPSSS conferences lose local attendees to larger or more specialist conferences in the northern hemisphere, the local conferences provide highly varied, stimulating presentations and are valuable in maintaining local support networks and providing a congenial environment for graduate students’ first conference presentations.
National Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science. Back (L to R): Rachel Ankeny (current chair), David Curtis, Libby Robin; front (L to R): Hans Pols, Rod Home (past chair), Paul Griffiths. Not pictured: David Mercer, David Miller, Rosemary Robins.
Australia
Within Australia, history of science is also supported by the Australian Academy of Science. The Academy’s journal Historical Records of Australian Science is a major forum for regional research. Through its HPS Committee, the Academy fosters HPS in Australia and maintains links between HPS in Australia and the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS). In 2005 the National Museum of Australia and the Academy combined to provide an annual $2,500 prize for the best student essay on any aspect of the history of Australian science or, in alternative years, Australian environmental history. Regional research is also promoted by the Pacific Science Circle (coordinated by Peter Hoffenberg at the University of Hawai’i) which publishes a regular newsletter and organizes thematic sessions at large conferences.
At Melbourne, although members of the long-established HPS Department have been divided between the history and philosophy departments, there is still an HPS teaching program, combining history of science and medicine with philosophy of science and sociology of science. The HPS program offers majors within the framework of a B.A. and B.A. Honors, and postgraduate education. At the undergraduate level, the focus includes the physical sciences, with topics on natural philosophy from ancient Greece to the 20th century, astronomy across different cultures, as well as the rise of science in early modern Europe. In life sciences and medicine current teaching areas are Darwinism, environmental history, and the history of medicine and psychiatry.
Within the HPS program, history of science and medicine is the largest field. Kristian Camilleri’s research focuses on the history and philosophy of modern physics, in particular the interpretation of quantum mechanics in the first half of the 20th century. Gerhard Wiesenfeldt studies the setting of experimental natural philosophy in early modern culture with a focus on the Netherlands. He has also published biographies of “fameless” scientists, on science in popular movies, and romantic self-experiments. Janet McCalman works on the history of lifecourse health and historical demography. James Bradley has studied the role of therapy in the creation of medical identities, the history of complementary and alternative medicine, and the body as a site for punishment.
The University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre, established in its current form in 2007, focuses on the history and archives of Australian science, medicine and technology. The center’s Web site includes links to its major online publications: “Bright Sparcs,” “Australian Science at Work” (soon to be combined into one online resource as “The Encyclopedia of Australian Science”), and guides to archival collections. Other work includes supporting and developing the World History of Science Online project which can be found at http://www.dhst-whso.org/web/.
The program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales (in Sydney) is located in a newly merged School of History and Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science. The program is one of the oldest and largest such units in the world. The course structure integrates the traditional HPS areas of history and philosophy of science, technology and medicine with contemporary issues in environmental studies, technology policy, and the history and politics of contemporary biosciences, and offers critical perspectives on science, technology and environment for undergraduate science, humanities, and social science students. At the post-graduate level the School attracts M.A. and Ph.D. students from all over the world across the spectrum of HPS concerns. The international research profile of the School is particularly high in the history and sociology of science and technology. Program staff in the history of science include: John Schuster (early modern natural philosophy, Descartes); David Phillip Miller (James Watt, the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, including intellectual property); John Gascoigne (Sir Joseph Banks, James Cook, and European-Pacific contact 1763-1842); Nicholas Rasmussen (history of life sciences in the 20th century, including evolving relations between the drug industry and biomedical research); David Oldroyd (history of geology); and Susan Hardy (history of medicine, surgery and health care in European Australia).
History and philosophy of science has been taught in the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney since the early 1950s, although a permanent lecturer was not appointed until 1966. Two further appointments were made and by the mid-1990s this set-up was commonly referred to as the Unit for HPS. Currently, the Unit for HPS has five staff members and one postdoctoral fellow. Research and teaching areas focus on: history of early modern science (Ofer Gal, Charles Wolfe); history and philosophy of medicine, including bioethics (Hans Pols, Dominic Murphy, Catherine Mills); and philosophy of science (Dean Rickles). Colleagues in philosophy of science and history of philosophy (including Mark Colyvan, Huw Price, Warwick Anderson, and Paul Griffiths) have been involved in the new Centre for the Foundations of Science in the Faculty of Arts, opened in mid-2008.
The Science, Technology and Society Programme at the University of Wollongong (south of Sydney), has been through boom and bust since the first HPS courses were taught in the 1960s. Recent signs of growth include the appointment of Adam Lucas, whose interests range from medieval technology to contemporary science policy, and who joins David Mercer, a sociologist of science focusing on the legal use of scientific evidence. They even hope for a third appointment.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, history of science and history and philosophy of science programs have developed quickly in the past decade. Synergies among historians of science, historians of medicine, philosophers of science, scientists and others have led to new programs and to informal alliances, making history of science more visible. Relationships between the individuals in different institutions are usually collegial but institutional cooperation is hindered by the culture of competition among universities, which results from the highly competitive national research funding system. The PBRF (Performance Based Research Funding) model distributes block research funding to universities on the basis of research productivity in which every individual is graded as A, B, C or R (for research inactive). The average grades for departments are published and departments and institutions compete with their neighbors. This competitive spirit may show through in the descriptions below.
The University of Otago (in Dunedin, in the south of the country) has a long tradition of teaching and research in the history of science. Since the appointment of Alan Musgrave in 1970 there has been continuous undergraduate teaching in the Philosophy Department, and from the 1980s history of medicine and history of science have been taught in the History Department. With the arrival in 2006 of Peter Anstey, who specializes in early modern natural philosophy, and the establishment in 2007 of an undergraduate Minor in History and Philosophy of Science, Otago has consolidated itself as a leader in the history of science in New Zealand. There are active researchers in a variety of fields, including: Greek astronomy and time-keeping (Robert Hannah and Alan Musgrave); early modern natural philosophy, including Bacon, Boyle, and Newton (Anstey and Musgrave); the history of the physical sciences in the modern period (Musgrave); science and religion in the nineteenth century (John Stenhouse); the history of medicine (Barbara Brookes), and the history of media technology in the 20th century (Hugh Slotten).
Otago is also home to some important archives for the history of medicine and the history of science in New Zealand. The Medical Library houses the Monro Collection of medical manuscripts and publications deriving from the dynasty of professors of medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the 18th century. (See Douglas Taylor, The Monro Collection, University of Otago Press, 1979.) The Hocken Library is one of the richest sources of archival material on the history of science in New Zealand and the Special Collections Library contains the de Beer Collection, which includes many important early modern works.
Moving north, at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch a program in history of science formerly associated with the philosophy department has become an interdepartmental HPS program. Currently the academic faculty member with the most dedicated profile as a historian of science is Clemency Montelle (in the mathematics department), who works on ancient mathematics and astronomy. Philip Catton (philosophy), who instigated the teaching program, researches linkages between histories of mathematics and physics and the history of philosophy at selected junctures from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Also in philosophy, Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot head up the Turing Archive and both are recognized researchers in the history of computing. Several of the university’s scientists, including John Hearnshaw, William Tobin, and John Campbell, have published monographs on scientists. A political scientist, Mark Francis, recently published the definitive intellectual biography of Herbert Spencer. History of medicine is strong in the history department. Jane Buckingham’s research focuses on India and the Pacific; Philippa Mein-Smith’s research on Australia and New Zealand includes the history of medicine and health. The program greatly benefits from the University’s scheme of Erskine Fellowships, which bring international visitors for one to two months, and N.Z.-U.S. academic exchanges under the Fulbright system. In 2008, visits by Margaret Osler (University of Calgary) and Sally Gregory Kohlstedt (University of Minnesota) have given diversity to the program. At present there are a small number of research students in history of science. Ph.D. student Rebecca Priestley is researching “nuclear New Zealand.” Priestley has also edited an anthology of writing by N.Z. scientists, The Awa Book of New Zealand Science (Te Awa Press, 2008). Bronwyn Rideout, a Commonwealth Scholar from Canada, is researching the mathematical understandings of the Greek mathematician Pappus. Graduates of the fourth-year honors program in history of science regularly go on to perform with distinction in larger graduate programs overseas.
Septuagenarian prospectors Frederick Cassin and Charles Jacobsen hold a Geiger counter to a piece of the uranium-bearing rock they discovered in the Buller Gorge in November 1955. Their find sparked a 25-year hunt for a commercially-viable uranium deposit, supported by the New Zealand government and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Despite investigations by New Zealand, Australian and German companies, no economic deposits were found. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Reference No. PAColl-8163-74, Dominion Collection
In Wellington, the Royal Society of New Zealand and other national institutions support significant activity in the history of science. The Alexander Turnbull Library, which is part of the National Library, houses important archival collections for research on New Zealand science. In 2006 the National Library held an exhibition of New Zealand’s science history, which was curated by Rebecca Priestley and science journalist Veronika Meduna. The National Library and the Royal Society sponsor occasional lectures on historical topics, for example, by scientists who are researching the achievements of their eminent forebears. A conference on James Hector, the founder of many of New Zealand’s scientific institutions, including the Royal Society, was held at Te Papa, the national museum, in 2007. And, illustrating the diversity of interests within history of science, Glyn Parry at Victoria University of Wellington teaches and researches the interconnections of early modern science, magic, witchcraft, and religion.
James Hector (seated, third from right), with friends and colleagues from the local scientific community, proudly displays the skeleton of a whale before its addition to the Colonial Museum collections (Wellington, c. 1874). Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Reference number: 1/2-004109-F
The History Department at the University of Waikato maintains a strong research field in the history of science. James Beattie (appointed 2007) publishes widely on the history of science and environmental history in the British colonial world, and in China and Japan. Cathy Coleborne specializes in the history of health, and is exploring how families dealt with mental breakdown in colonial Australia and New Zealand. Ross Galbreath is the leading historian of New Zealand science, and his best-known book is a history of the country’s main institutional body for science (until disbanded in 1992) titled DSIR: Making Science Work for New Zealand (1998). History of science and environmental history are themes within many courses, and faculty teach on the history of science and imperialism in the British Empire and the social history of medicine and illness.
The history department at the University of Auckland teaches history of medicine, history of science, and cultural history. History of medicine has been especially popular with graduate students; a number of Ph.D.’s on the history of health and medicine in New Zealand have been completed under Linda Bryder’s supervision. Bryder has published widely on maternal and infant health in New Zealand and is currently completing a project on the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland, including its controversial cervical cancer research. Ruth Barton teaches and researches in history of science, chiefly on science and culture in Victorian Britain and the history of New Zealand science. More recently, the cultural historian Joe Zizek joined the department. His teaching and supervision include topics connected with the history of science, while his research focuses on revolutionary France. The department currently has a post-doctoral fellow, Natalie Lloyd, working on the history of agriculture, tracing British imperial networks of researchers on animal deficiency diseases in the early 20th century. In the first semester of 2008, Sally Gregory Kohlstedt co-taught in Barton’s graduate course. Graduate students at M.A. and Ph.D. levels chiefly work on New Zealand topics (for example, a history of theories of extinction with reference to debates over moa extinction by Simon Thode; germ theory and bacteriology in N.Z., 1880-1920 by Katrina Ford). Students in history of science can take courses in sociology of science and philosophy of science and, through Kohlstedt’s visit, links to the Auckland graduate program in Museums and Cultural Heritage have been established.
This account has focused on history of science within teaching programs, but research proceeds in many other academic pockets. In the German department at Auckland, Jim Bade, James Braund, and Sascha Nolden research German-speaking scientists in New Zealand, most notably Ferdinand Hochstetter, and hosted an international conference on the contribution of German-speaking scientists to N.Z. natural history in September 2008. Research in history of geology is sometimes pursued within geology departments, history of anthropology within anthropology departments, and history of medicine within medical schools.
Unlike Australia, there is no larger national organization of history of science in New Zealand. Although New Zealanders in general are reluctant to be included, almost invisibly, with Australia under the label ‘Australasian’ and many of the people mentioned here identify with history or history of medicine rather than history of science, a few New Zealanders have been active in the AAHPSSS. It is evidence of the recent growth of history and philosophy of science in New Zealand that from 2005 to 2008 the AAHPSSS executive was, for the first time, located in New Zealand.
– by Ruth Barton, with thanks to Peter Anstey, James Beattie, Kristian Camilleri, Philip Catton, Gavan McCarthy, Hans Pols, John Schuster and, for photographs, Rebecca Priestley.