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SUMMARY:The many births of the test-tube baby: proof and publicity in clai
 ms to a breakthrough - Nick Hopwood (Department of History and Philosophy 
 of Science)
DTSTART:20241121T153000Z
DTEND:20241121T170000Z
UID:TALK223474@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr. Rosanna Dent
DESCRIPTION:How have discoveries or breakthroughs been announced and recog
 nized or rejected? Though articles in scientific journals have played majo
 r parts\, these have not topped a stable hierarchy but been nodes in webs 
 that have varied by time and place. This talk is about how the operation o
 f that web changed in the 1960s and 1970s\, when interactions intensified 
 between journals and newspapers\, TV and press conferences\, symposia and 
 magazines. The focus is claims to human in vitro fertilization from 1944\,
  when a two-cell embryo was reported from Harvard Medical School\, to the 
 aftermath of the birth of Louise Brown in Oldham\, near Manchester in 1978
 . This perspective on the making of IVF\, the founding innovation of repro
 ductive biomedicine\, will explain why Baby Louise counts as the first 'te
 st-tube baby' although she was not the first to be declared. It will illus
 trate the interplay\, in an intermittently high-profile field\, of changin
 g and contested standards of evidence\, on the one hand\, and norms of com
 munication\, on the other. This is relevant to claims-making today\, when 
 discoveries are announced on preprint servers and social media.
LOCATION:Hopkinson Lecture Theatre\, New Museums Site
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