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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 4/2023) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-12-18
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Bausteine zu einer Oral History der Wissenschaftsgeschichte Interview mit Dieter Hoffmann Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Mathias Grote, Anke te Heesen, Dieter Hoffmann
Wie kann man einen historischen Blick auf das eigene Fach werfen? Diese Frage ist nicht einfach zu beantworten – will man einerseits nicht in einer Nabelschau und Hagiographie enden, andererseits aber auch keinen umfassenden Entwurf einer zukünftigen Historiographie vorlegen. Die hier in loser Folge publizierten Interviews mit bekannten Protagonist:innen der Berliner Wissenschaftsgeschichte von ca
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Die Lücke als Fund: Über eine Fehlstelle zur Familiengeschichte im Nachlass von Walther Gerlach (1889–1979)** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-13 Johannes-Geert Hagmann
The career of the German physicist Walther Gerlach (1889–1979) spanned two world wars and the changing political systems in Germany in the twentieth century. As a physicist involved in the rapid development of atomic physics and the management of scientific research in Germany during World War II as well as in post-war West Germany, several attempts have been made in the past by historians of science
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Becoming Natural: The Naturalization of Synthetic Flavors in the Twentieth Century and the Introduction of Konsumstoff Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-10-18 Paulina S. Gennermann
Is it possible that non-natural chemical substances become natural without changing their chemical, physical or physiological characteristics? The history of synthetic flavors with a special emphasis on vanillin suggests that yes, it is possible. This process is called naturalization and means in this case the change of status of a synthetic flavor to something natural. In this article the history
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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 2-3/2023) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-09-12
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Circulation of Coronavirus Images: Helping Social Distancing? Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-16 Bettina Bock von Wülfingen
As soon as the SARS-Cov2 disease was recognized by experts to potentially cause a serious pandemic, a three dimensional diagrammatic image of the virus, colored in strong red, conquered public media globally.
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Circulation as a Visual Practice** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-11 Katharina Steiner, Lukas Engelmann
This special issue looks at some of the ways that images are adopted, co-opted, and adapted in the life sciences and beyond. It brings together papers that investigate the role of visualization in scientific knowledge-production with contributions that focus on the distribution and dissemination of knowledge to a broader audience. A commentary provides a critical perspective. In this editorial we introduce
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Commentary: Visual Cultures, Publication Technologies, and Legitimation in the Life Sciences** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Lynn K. Nyhart
This paper comments on five articles in the special issue “Circulating Images in the Life Sciences.” It sees the papers as unified by two themes. The first is their attention to the processes of legitimation. The second is the embedding of the images in textual cultures, which changed over time from the mid-nineteenth century to the very recent past, most notably with the recent advent of digital culture
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Measuring and Manipulating the Rhine River Branches: Interactions of Theory and Embodied Understanding in Eighteenth Century River Hydraulics Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Maarten G. Kleinhans
Eighteenth century river hydraulics used both theory and measurement to address problems of flood safety, navigation and defense related to the rivers. In the late eighteenth century the Dutch overseer of the rivers, Christiaan Brunings, integrated hydraulic theory and meteorological practices, which enabled him to design a unique instrument for measuring river flow. The question is whether the unprecedented
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“Conducted Properly, Published Incorrectly”: The Evolving Status of Gel Electrophoresis Images Along Instrumental Transformations in Times of Reproducibility Crisis Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Nephtali Callaerts, Alexandre Hocquet, Frédéric Wieber
For the last ten years, within molecular life sciences, the reproducibility crisis discourse has been embodied as a crisis of trust in scientific images. Beyond the contentious perception of “questionable research practices” associated with a digital turn in the production of images, this paper highlights the transformations of gel electrophoresis as a family of experimental techniques. Our aim is
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Pics or It Didn't Happen: Reading Photographs in the Reef Tank Community Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-07-10 Samantha Muka
In 1961, Lee Chin Eng jumpstarted the reef hobby, a hobby dedicated to the modeling of coral reefs in captivity, with an article in Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He illustrated the article with eight photographs; these images were meaningful to the hobbyists viewing them and they conveyed both information about the tank system and also claims about Lee's expertise. This paper examines three genres of ph
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Shaping Public Perception: Polish Illustrated Press and the Image of Polish Naturalists Working in Latin America, 1844–1885 Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-14 Aleksandra Kaye
This article will investigate the ways in which Polish illustrated press contributed to communicating and reporting the work of Polish émigré naturalists working in Latin America to the Polish general public living in the Prussian, Russian and Austrian partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1844–1885. It examines the ways in which illustrations were used to shape the public's opinion about
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Visualizing Pollution: Representations of Biological Data in Water Pollution Control in the United States, 1948–1962 Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-03-24 Ryan Hearty
After the United States Congress passed the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, biologists played an increasingly significant role in scientific studies of water pollution. Biologists interacted with other experts, notably engineers, who managed the public agencies devoted to water pollution control. Although biologists were at first marginalized within these agencies, the situation began to change
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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 1/2023) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-03-10
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Language, Science and Globalization in the Eighteenth Century** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 Rebeca Fernández Rodríguez
Asia, America, and Europe have been intellectually intertwined for centuries. Several studies have been published revealing European scholars’ interest in the “exotic” languages of Asia and America, as well as in ethnographic and anthropological aspects. Some scholars such as Polymath Leibniz (1646–1716), were interested in these languages in an attempt to construct a universal language, while others
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From Cosmopolitan to Vernacular in the Language Sciences: A Global History Perspective Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-02-22 Michiel Leezenberg
Sheldon Pollock's justly famous work on cosmopolitan orders and processes of vernacularization in the worlds of Latinity and Sanskrit invites questions of a comparative and global-historical character. I will raise such questions in the context of the Persianate cosmopolitan order, especially as exemplified by the early modern Ottoman Empire, focusing on the wave of vernacularizations this empire witnessed
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Language in the Global History of Knowledge. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-02-13 Floris Solleveld
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Language as a Specimen Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-02-13 Floris Solleveld
Language was never studied by linguists (or philologists) alone. The greater part of the languages of the world was first known in the West through the reports of missionaries, explorers, and colonial administrators, and what they documented reflected their specific interests. Missionaries wrote catechisms, primers, dictionaries, and Bible translations (especially Lord's Prayers); for explorers and
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James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Ian Stewart
This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work
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Yoshio Gonnosuke and His Comparative Dutch-Japanese Syntax: Glimpses at the Unpublished Second Part of Siebold's “Epitome Linguae Japonicae”** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-01-19 Sven Osterkamp
After outlining the life and works of interpreter Yoshio Gonnosuke, this paper introduces the manuscript witnesses of his hitherto unstudied comparative Dutch–Japanese syntax written in the mid-1820s, which was modelled on Pieter Weiland's Nederduitsche spraakkunst (1805). This is followed by a closer look at the process of compilation and publication of Philipp Franz von Siebold's “Epitome linguae
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The “Greenberg Controversy” and the Interdisciplinary Study of Global Linguistic Relationships** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-01-16 Judith R. H. Kaplan
This paper examines the controversy that followed the 1987 publication of Joseph Greenberg's book, Language in the Americas, attending to the role of language and linguistic research within overlapping disciplinary traditions. With this text, Greenberg presented a macro-level tripartite classification that opposed then dominant fine-grained analyses recognizing anywhere from 150 to 200 distinct language
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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 4/2022) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-12-08
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Forschung und Freizeit: Karl von Frischs Aufenthalt in Neapel 1911** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-11-28 Christoph Hoffmann
In March 1911, Karl von Frisch visited the Zoological Station in Naples for the first time. During his stay, Frisch, who had just received his doctorate, was studying the color adaptation of marine fish. At the same time, as diary notes show, he also completed an extensive tourist program. Frisch was not alone in this; many scientists combined their time in Naples with excursions and other pleasures
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Texts, Practice and Practitioners: Computational Cultures at Work in Early Modern South India** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-11-28 D. Senthil Babu
This essay will discuss the hegemonic role that texts have come to play in the historiography of subcontinental mathematical traditions. It will argue that texts need to be studied as records of practices of people's working lives, grounded in social hierarchies. We will take particular mathematical texts to show how different occupational registers have come to shape practices that defy the binaries
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In the Shadow of the 1919 Total Solar Eclipse: The Two British Expeditions and the Politics of Invisibility** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Ana Simões
This paper addresses the legendary total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. Two British teams confirmed the light bending prediction by Albert Einstein: Charles R. Davidson and Andrew C. C. Crommelin in Sobral, Brazil and Arthur S. Eddington and Edwin T. Cottingham on the African island of Príncipe, then part of the Portuguese empire.
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Hydrogeological Knowledge from Below: Water Expertise as a Republican Common in Early-Modern Venice** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-11-03 Pietro Daniel Omodeo
This essay looks at early-modern Venice hydroculture as a case of episteme from below. The forms of water knowledge it developed were multilayered and collective in their essence and solidly rested on a social experiential basis that was rooted in labour (especially fishing) and practices (especially water surveying and engineering). In accordance with the city's republican esprit (and correspondent
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The Double Legacy of Bernalism in Science Diplomacy Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-11-03 Gerardo Ienna
Recent debates in the history of science aimed at reconstructing the history of scientific diplomacy have privileged the analysis of forms of diplomacy coming from above. Instead, the objective of this paper is to raise awareness of these debates by looking at attempts at scientific diplomacy from below. Such a shift in perspective might allow us to observe the impact of marginalized social agents
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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 3/2022) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09
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Introduction: Embracing Ambivalence and Change** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Lara Keuck, Kärin Nickelsen
1 Beginnings In 1997, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger published his now seminal book Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Twenty-four years later, in 2021, he compiled a collection of essays under the title Spalt und Fuge: Eine Phänomenologie des Experiments, which will shortly also be available in English. What happened between these two books? What does it mean to write
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Experimental Systems in the Co-Construction of Scientific Knowledge** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Michel Morange
The publication of Toward a History of Epistemic Things 25 years ago was a landmark in science studies. Not only was the book a brilliant overview of new research trends, but it was also a personal and highly original contribution because of its emphasis on the major role of experimental systems in the construction of scientific knowledge. The paths that it opened have not yet been fully explored.
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Glückliche Fügung: Experiments’ Potential to Integrate Disciplines** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Caterina Schürch
This essay reviews the discipline-connecting potential of experimentation. Two examples are used to illustrate how researchers in the first half of the twentieth century profitably combined resources from different disciplines in their experiments. These experiments were designed to test mechanism models describing chemical processes underlying the behavior of biological systems. The researchers had
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“You've Got to Work on This Axon”: J. Z. Young and Squid Giant Axon Preparations in 20th-Century Neurobiology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Kathryn Maxson Jones
Employing and extending Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's analytical concept of epistemic things, this essay proposes one reason why squid giant axons, unusually large invertebrate nerve fibers, had such great impacts on twentieth-century neurobiology. The 1930s characterizations of these axons by John Zachary Young reshaped prevailing assumptions about nerve cells as epistemic things, I argue. Specifically
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The Electrophoretic Revolution in the 1960s: Historical Epistemology Meets the Global History of Science and Technology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Edna Suárez-Díaz
This paper uses zone electrophoresis, one of the most frequently used tools in molecular biology, to explore two ideas derived from Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's reflections on experiments. First, the constraining role played by technical objects—instrumentation and material conditions—in the production of knowledge or epistemic things. Second, the production of interconnected experimental systems by such
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“How Many Individuals Consider Themselves to Be Cell Biologists but Are Informed by the Journal That Their Work Is Not Cell Biology”** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Hanna Lucia Worliczek
What can we gain from co-analyzing experimental cultures, regionalization, and disciplinary phenomena of late twentieth century life sciences under our historiographic looking glass? This essay investigates the potential of such a strategy for the case of cell biology after 1960. By merging perspectives from historical epistemology inspired by the work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger with a focus on boundary
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In the Circulation Sphere of the Biomolecular Age: Economics and Gender Matter** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Alexander von Schwerin
This contribution draws attention to the circulation of materialities and persons as a central feature in the constitution of experimental cultures. The protein and ribosome research at the Max Planck Society (MPG)—with a main focus on the research conducted by Brigitte Wittmann-Liebold at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics—serves as an example to highlight some of the central conditions
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Approaches in Post-Experimental Science. The Case of Precision Medicine** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Robert Meunier
In the introduction to his Spalt und Fuge, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger points to the possibility that we are currently experiencing a new turning point regarding forms of experimentation, which is characterized by the growing importance of high-throughput methods and big data analytics. This essay will explore the thesis that data-intensive research indeed constitutes a form of post-experimental research
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From Organismic Biology as History and Philosophy to the History and Philosophy of Biology—the Work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger in the German Context** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Christian Reiß
In this paper, I ask about the broader context of the history and philosophy of biology in the German-speaking world as the place in which Hans-Jörg Rheinberger began his work. Three German philosophical traditions—neo-Kantianism, phenomenology, and Lebensphilosophie—were interested in the developments and conceptual challenges of the life sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
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An Epistemology of Scientific Practice: Positioning Hans-Jörg Rheinberger in Twentieth-Century History and Philosophy of Biology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Pierre-Olivier Méthot
In this article, I first outline the professionalization of the history and philosophy of biology from the 1960s onward. Then, I attempt to situate the work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger with respect to this field. On the one hand, Rheinberger was marginal with respect to Anglo-American philosophical tradition; on the other, he was very influential in building up an integrated history and philosophy of
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Tactile Vision, Epistemic Things and Data Visualization** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Cornelius Borck
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger constructed his historical epistemology of epistemic things by analyzing experimental practices in molecular biology during the 1970s and 80s. With genetic sequencing and multi-omics approaches, data has become a new resource in the life sciences, questioning the applicability of his concept of experimental system. By historicizing Rheinberger's epistemology, the paper focuses
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Hans-Jörg Rheinberger as a Philosopher of Time** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Michael F. Zimmermann
When Hans-Jörg Rheinberger proposed the concept of epistemic things, he drew inspiration from the art historian George Kubler, who had considered the aesthetic object as resulting from problem-solving processes in The Shape of Time (1962). Kubler also demonstrated that a sequence of objects could retrace the progress that led to a solution that was afterwards accepted as the most classical. Parallel
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Of Some Paradoxes in the Historiography of Molecular Biology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Soraya de Chadarevian
Just when molecular biology is arguably delivering on some of its long-promised medical applications—think mRNA vaccines, monoclonal antibody drugs, PCR testing, and gene therapies—the history of molecular biology has lost much of its shine. What not too long ago seemed like a burgeoning field of research with endless possibilities, is now often reduced to the “central dogma” that saw its apotheosis
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Narratives of Genetic Selfhood** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Angela N. H. Creager
This essay considers the mid-twentieth century adoption of genetic explanations for three biological phenomena: nutritional adaptation, antibiotic resistance, and antibody production. This occurred at the same time as the hardening of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis in evolutionary theory. I argue that these concurrent changes reflect an ascendant narrative of genetic selfhood, which prioritized random
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Precision Medicine: Historiography of Life Sciences and the Geneticization of the Clinics** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Ilana Löwy
In 2013, Hans Jörg Rheinberger proposed that Mendelian genetics and molecular biology were “scientific ideologies,” that is, for him they are systems of thought whose objects are hyperbolic; they are not, or not yet, in the realm of and not, or not yet, under the control of that system. This article proposes that precision medicine today is a scientific ideology and analyses the implications of this
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New Meanings in the Archive: Privacy, Technological Change and the Status of Sources** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Jenny Bangham
This essay reflects on how technological changes in biomedicine can affect what archival sources are available for historical research. Historians and anthropologists have examined the ways in which old biomedical samples can be made to serve novel scientific purposes, such as when decades-old frozen tissue specimens are analyzed using new genomic techniques. Those uses are also affected by shifting
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The Politics of Sources Meets the Practices of the Librarian: An Interview with Esther Chen** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Esther Chen, Lara Keuck, Kärin Nickelsen
[I] want to single out one phenomenon that could be called the ‘politics of sources’. It points to the extent to which the histories that both scientists and historians can write are artifacts of the available sources. The Rockefeller Foundation not only opened its archives very early on for historical work but also invested a lot in making the archives readily available for historical exploration
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Postscriptum** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Lara Keuck and Kärin Nickelsen, the organizers of this special issue and its workshop, invited me to contribute a closing commentary, and I feel honored and pleased to do so. Now that the English version of the book that inspired it is forthcoming,1n1 Rheinberger 2021; Rheinberger, in press. it might be better to look ahead instead of looking back. Therefore, I will try to convey in my concluding remarks
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What Time Should We Arrive at the Party? The Historical and the Contemporary in Studies of Science and Technology. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-01 Stephen Hilgartner
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Titelbild: (Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 1-2/2022) Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-09
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Editorial Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Marieke Hendriksen, Christian Joas, Lara Keuck, Dominik Knaupp, Fabian Krämer, Kärin Nickelsen
Three eventful years have passed since Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte added its English title, History of Science and Humanities, since the journal ceased to be published under the auspices of a professional society, since its cover received a facelift, and since Kärin Nickelsen, Christian Joas, Fabian Krämer, and Dominik Knaupp took over as editors from Cornelius Borck, who had been at the journal's
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Commentary: New Directions in the History of Ethology Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Richard W. Burkhardt
This welcome set of original and instructive papers illuminates and enriches the history of twentieth-century ethology in multiple ways. It adds a wealth of actors, animals, methods, and places to those featured in previous treatments of ethology's development. Some of the papers extend the chronology beyond the heyday of ethology's disciplinary construction to consider exciting developments in the
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Farm Hall Transcripts Reconsidered Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Gerald Holton
The Farm Hall Transcripts appeared to offer a unique opportunity for a study in the history and sociology of science. My request for access to the transcripts was initially denied, but later was allowed thanks to the intervention of British intellectuals. The recorded opinions of the interned German scientists indicate that initially they had attempted to produce a nuclear weapon, but later abandoned
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Farm Hall—Another Look Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-02 Dieter Hoffmann
When the American Physical Society (APS) awarded me the 2020 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, I was asked to submit a topic for my laureate lecture. After some thoughts I proposed that the APS's Forum for History and Philosophy of Physics should deviate from tradition and have not only the laureate, but also other colleagues speak in a themed session at the 2020 APS Spring Meeting. My proposal
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The Drama of Farm Hall: A Historian Ventures into Play Writing Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-02 David C. Cassidy
In this paper, the author, a historian, describes the challenges he encountered as he sought to turn the Farm Hall event and its surviving transcripts into a theatrical play. The play, Farm Hall, was produced in New York in 2014 and published in Cassidy 2017. This paper further discusses what the author learned about the nature and elements of a play, how he applied those lessons to his play, and the
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Did Werner Heisenberg Understand How Atomic Bombs Worked? Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-02 Mark Walker
Drawing upon primary sources and using a comparison with the American Manhattan Project for context, this article examines the question whether Werner Heisenberg understood how atomic bombs work.
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Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-01 Sophia Gräfe, Cora Stuhrmann
1 History of Ethology and Ethology's Histories Ethology is considered the leading biological discipline within behavioral research in the 20th century. Its history is told as a seemingly straightforward narrative: Ethology has its roots in the 1930s in German-speaking countries, a disciplinary heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, after which it slowly lost relevance. It employs a distinct approach to the
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Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-06-01 Sophia Gräfe,Cora Stuhrmann
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Bausteine zu einer Oral History der Wissenschaftsgeschichte Wissenschaft als Arbeitsprozess. Interview mit Wolfgang Lefèvre Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Mathias Grote, Anke te Heesen, Wolfgang Lefèvre
Wie kann man einen historischen Blick auf das eigene Fach werfen? Diese Frage ist nicht einfach zu beantworten – will man einerseits nicht in einer Nabelschau und Hagiographie enden, andererseits aber auch keinen umfassenden Entwurf einer zukünftigen Historiographie vorlegen. Die hier als Bausteine zu einer Oral History der Wissenschaftsgeschichte in loser Folge publizierten Interviews mit bekannten
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Red Foxes in the Filing Cabinet: Günter Tembrock's Image Collection and Media Use in Mid-Century Ethology** Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-18 Sophia Gräfe
This paper considers the epistemic career of visual media in ethology in the mid-20th century. Above all, ethologists claimed close contact with research animals and drew scientific evidence from these human-animal communities, particularly in public relations. However, if we look into the toolboxes of comparative behavioral biologists, it becomes evident that scientifically valid research results
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Red Foxes in the Filing Cabinet: Günter Tembrock's Image Collection and Media Use in Mid-Century Ethology. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-18 Sophia Gräfe
This paper considers the epistemic career of visual media in ethology in the mid-20th century. Above all, ethologists claimed close contact with research animals and drew scientific evidence from these human-animal communities, particularly in public relations. However, if we look into the toolboxes of comparative behavioral biologists, it becomes evident that scientifically valid research results
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The Farm Hall Transcripts: The Smoking Gun That Wasn't Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 Ryan Dahn
Over 75 years after their creation, the Farm Hall transcripts remain a tantalizing source from the dawn of the atomic age in 1945. Declassified in 1992, the transcripts document ten prominent German nuclear physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and Otto Hahn, contemplating the Nazi defeat, their complicity in the German war machine, and – after the atomic bomb was