Research and Publications
History of Science faculty and associated faculty regularly publish on topics of scolarly interest in the areas of science, technology, and medicine.
In Moby-Dick, Ishmael declares, "Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that a whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me." Few readers today know just how much argument Ishmael is waiving a
Physicists regularly invoke universal laws, such as those of motion and electromagnetism, to explain events. Biological and medical scientists have no such laws.
Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced it to surrender.
Why do racial and ethnic controversies become attached, as they often do, to discussions of modern genetics? How do theories about genetic difference become entangled with political debates about cultural and group differences in America?
In On Their Own Terms, Benjamin A. Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900).