Biologists and the Promise of American Life
Biologists and the Promise of American Life

Author: Philip J. Pauly

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0691186332

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Explorers, evolutionists, eugenicists, sexologists, and high school biology teachers--all have contributed to the prominence of the biological sciences in American life. In this book, Philip Pauly weaves their stories together into a fascinating history of biology in America over the last two hundred years. Beginning with the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806, botanists and zoologists identified science with national culture, linking their work to continental imperialism and the creation of an industrial republic. Pauly examines this nineteenth-century movement in local scientific communities with national reach: the partnership of Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz at Harvard University, the excitement of work at the Smithsonian Institution and the Geological Survey, and disputes at the Agriculture Department over the continent's future. He then describes the establishment of biology as an academic discipline in the late nineteenth century, and the retreat of life scientists from the problems of American nature. The early twentieth century, however, witnessed a new burst of public-oriented activity among biologists. Here Pauly chronicles such topics as the introduction of biology into high school curricula, the efforts of eugenicists to alter the "breeding" of Americans, and the influence of sexual biology on Americans' most private lives. Throughout much of American history, Pauly argues, life scientists linked their study of nature with a desire to culture--to use intelligence and craft to improve American plants, animals, and humans. They often disagreed and frequently overreached, but they sought to build a nation whose people would be prosperous, humane, secular, and liberal. Life scientists were significant participants in efforts to realize what Progressive Era oracle Herbert Croly called "the promise of American life." Pauly tells their story in its entirety and explains why now, in a society that is rapidly returning to a complex ethnic mix similar to the one that existed for a hundred years prior to the Cold War, it is important to reconnect with the progressive creators of American secular culture.

Bulletin
Bulletin

Author: University of California (1868-1952)

Publisher:

Published: 1911

Total Pages: 900

ISBN-13:

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The Marine Biological Station of San Diego
The Marine Biological Station of San Diego

Author: Gail Marie Alexander

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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A number of historians of science have been involved in studying the nature of biology at the turn of the century, and the picture that they have developed describes biology during this time as a field struggling to define itself. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, biologists were trying to legitimize their field by discovering laws and theories that would underpin all of biology. In order to unearth these basic fundamentals, biologists looked to experimentation and shifted their attention to questions concerned with development and heredity. This "core" work did not constrain all of biology, however. There did exist researchers, fields of inquiry, and institutions that pursued biological investigations that did not coincide with the aims of discovering the basic laws and theories of biology. One such researcher who did not aspire to discovering the laws and theories of biology was William Emerson Ritter. William Emerson Ritter was largely concerned with making a biological survey of the coast of southern California. He wanted to discover how the marine organisms off this coast were distributed with respect to environmental factors, and he wanted to determine the adaptations they possessed that allowed them to live where they did. In order to achieve these aims, Ritter set out to create a marine station. His attempts culminated in the establishment of The Marine Biological Station of San Diego near the town of La Jolla, California in 1905. A study of the ideas of William Emerson Ritter as related to the founding and development of this station proves to be very instructive. It not only illustrates that an institution can reflect the aims of a strong personality, but also illustrates that not all researchers or the institutions at which they work must necessarily conform to the aims of the disciplines of which they are a part. The research undertaken at the San Diego Marine Biological Station, under the guidance of William Emerson Ritter, was not directed toward discovering the laws and theories that were the foundation of biology; rather, it was directed toward learning about the marine organisms that inhabited the Pacific off the coast of southern California by discovering and describing the organisms present in the area, their distribution, and the physiological, morphological and/or behavioral adaptations they possessed to allow them to exist where they did.

Oceanography: The Past
Oceanography: The Past

Author: M. Sears

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 831

ISBN-13: 1461380901

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This volume, "Oceanography: The Past," is the Proceedings of the Third Inter national Congress on the History of Oceanography, organized under the auspices of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, September 22-26, 1980. The Congress is a part of the year-long celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It will be followed by an Assembly, September 29 -October 2, in which invited speakers will address the question, ''Will we use the oceans wisely-the next SO years in oceanogra phy?" The papers from the Assembly will also be published by Springer-Verlag as "Oceanography: The Present and Future," a companion volume to this book. The First International Congress on the History of Oceanography was held at the Musee Ocean~graphique in Monaco, December 12-17, 1966. It coincided with the centennial of the beginning of the distinguished career of Prince Albert I as a student and patron of oceanography, for it was in 1866 that he first went to sea-on the armored frigate Tetuan of the Royal Spanish Navy. The results of this Congress were published as 57 papers in the Bulletin de l'Institut Oceanogra phique (special no. 2, vols. 1-3, pp. XLII + 807, 1968).