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SUMMARY:A look back at 'Biometrician Versus Mendelian: A Controversy and i
 ts Explanation' (1974) - Gregory Radick (University of Leeds)
DTSTART:20230427T143000Z
DTEND:20230427T160000Z
UID:TALK199978@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jacob Stegenga
DESCRIPTION:Over the past fifty years\, a major stimulus for history and p
 hilosophy of science has been contact with the sociological study of scien
 tific knowledge. In this seminar I want to outline and reflect on the achi
 evement of a sociological paper dating from the start of this period: 'Bio
 metrician Versus Mendelian: A Controversy and its Explanation'\, by Donald
  MacKenzie and Barry Barnes. When the paper was completed in September 197
 4\, MacKenzie was a PhD student in the Science Studies Unit in Edinburgh\,
  where Barnes was his supervisor. Remarkably\, this classic case study in 
 'Edinburgh School' sociology of scientific knowledge was never published i
 n its original English-language form. One aim of this seminar is simply to
  make the paper more widely available. Another is to give seminar particip
 ants the opportunity – Zoom permitting – to hear about it from Donald 
 MacKenzie directly. In my contribution I'll suggest that the paper continu
 es to repay scholarly attention\, not because its main claims are correct 
 (I'll give my reasons for thinking they aren't)\, but because it permanent
 ly raised the bar for historians concerned to address the explanatory chal
 lenges posed by the debate over Mendelism\, and perhaps even for scientifi
 c controversies generally.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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