Scientific Discrimination and the Activist Scientist: L. C. Dunn and the Professionalization of Genetics and Human Genetics in the United States
Journal of the History of Biology 42 (1):33 - 72 (2009)
| Abstract | During the 1920s and 1930s geneticist L. C. Dunn of Columbia University cautioned Americans against endorsing eugenic policies and called attention to eugenicists' less than rigorous practices. Then, from the mid-1940s to early 1950s he attacked scientific racism and Nazi Rassenhygiene by co-authoring Heredity, Race and Society with Theodosius Dobzhansky and collaborating with members of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) on their international campaign against racism. Even though shaking the foundations of scientific discrimination was Dunn's primary concern during the interwar and post-World War II years, his campaigns had ancillary consequences for the discipline. He contributed to the professionalization of genetics during the 1920s and 1930s and sought respectability for human genetics in the 1940s and 1950s. My article aims to elucidate the activist scientist's role in undermining scientific discrimination by exploring aspects of Dunn's scientific work and political activism from the 1920s to 1950s. Definitions are provided for scientific discrimination and activist scientist. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,865 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesLisa Gannett (2001). Racism and Human Genome Diversity Research: The Ethical Limits of "Population Thinking". Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2001 (3):S479-.
Aaron Panofsky (2011). Field Analysis and Interdisciplinary Science: Scientific Capital Exchange in Behavior Genetics. Minerva 49 (3):295-316.
Leah Ceccarelli (1995). A Rhetoric of Interdisciplinary Scientific Discourse: Textual Criticism of Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species. Social Epistemology 9 (2):91 – 111.
Keekok Lee (2003). Philosophy and Revolutions in Genetics: Deep Science and Deep Technology. Palgrave Macmillan.
Joe Cain (2002). Co-Opting Colleagues: Appropriating Dobzhansky's 1936 Lectures at Columbia. Journal of the History of Biology 35 (2):207 - 219.
Peter Gildenhuys (2011). Righteous Modeling: The Competence of Classical Population Genetics. Biology and Philosophy 26 (6):813-835.
Antoinette Rouvroy (2008). Human Genes and Neoliberal Governance: A Foucauldian Critique. Routledge-Cavendish.
Soraya De Chadarevian (2006). Mice and the Reactor: The "Genetics Experiment" in 1950s Britain. Journal of the History of Biology 39 (4):707 - 735.
U. Deichmann (1996). Genetics in Germany. [Review Of: Harwood J, Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community, 1900-1933. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993]. [REVIEW] British Journal for the History of Science 29 (100 Pt 1):83-87.
Roberta L. Millstein (forthcoming). Exploring the Status of Population Genetics: The Role of Ecology. Biological Theory.
Christian Byk (1998). A Map to a New Treasure Island: The Human Genome and the Concept of Common Heritage. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 23 (3):234 – 246.
Antonio Marturano & Ruth Chadwick (2004). How the Role of Computing is Driving New Genetics' Public Policy. Ethics and Information Technology 6 (1):43-53.
Analytics
Monthly downloads
Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
|
Added to index2011-05-29Total downloads1 ( #277,212 of 556,803 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #64,847 of 556,803 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
