Historiography History of Science and Technology Dr James

Historiography History of Science and Technology Dr James Poskett

The Graphic (1931)

The Cold War and the History of Science Manhattan Project c. 1945 Soviet cosmonaut poster c. 1965

Argument 1. Historiography of science product of the Cold War 2. History of science first written by scientists, later by professional historians. 3. Historiography of science follows broader trends, moving from intellectual to social and then cultural history.

The Cambridge History of Science Committee (1936) Joseph Needham J. D. Bernal Walter Pagel

Opposition to Marxist history of science (1940 -1960) Michael Polanyi Herbert Butterfield

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) Paradigm 1: Newtonian Physics Normal Science Paradigm Shift Paradigm 2: Einsteinian Physics Normal Science

Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) The “strong programme”: • Causality: it examines the conditions (psychological, social, and cultural) that bring about claims to a certain kind of knowledge. • Impartiality: it examines successful as well as unsuccessful knowledge claims. • Symmetry: the same types of explanations are used for successful and unsuccessful knowledge claims alike. • Reflexivity: it must be applicable to sociology itself.

Shapin and Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985) “Solutions to the problem of knowledge are solutions to the problem of social order. ” Robert Boyle Thomas Hobbes Restoration Absolute Sovereign Experimentalism Mechanistic Induction Deduction

Internal vs. External Factors Internal Theories Facts Experiments External Institutions Funding Political Ideology

Cultural History of Science (1990 - present) Victorian Sensation (2000) Peoples on Parade (2011)

Cultural History of Science (1990 - present) Colonizing the Body (1993) Another Reason (1999) Imperial Nature (2008)

Science in the Marketplace (2007)

The Future of the History of Science