Making plants better, making Australia better? A history of genetic modification science, policy, and community attitudes in Australia. This project will document and analyse the history of the development of genetic modification (GM) science and policy, and the associated community attitudes and activism efforts in Australia over the last 40 years, with a focus on the development of GM for food and agricultural purposes. In addition to producing a rich historical narrative of critical scientifi ....Making plants better, making Australia better? A history of genetic modification science, policy, and community attitudes in Australia. This project will document and analyse the history of the development of genetic modification (GM) science and policy, and the associated community attitudes and activism efforts in Australia over the last 40 years, with a focus on the development of GM for food and agricultural purposes. In addition to producing a rich historical narrative of critical scientific and policy developments associated with GM in Australia. This project will explore how Australians respond to new scientific ideas and technologies, and use this evidence as the basis for a case study of prospects for future community involvement in the development of science policy particularly in association with emerging technologies.Read moreRead less
The place of history in science: reassessing the Darwinian revolution. This project aims to examine how historical representations of Darwin and his revolutionary theory have influenced the shape and direction of modern evolutionary science itself. The project expects to show how certain historical assumptions about Darwin and natural selection have constrained evolutionary thinking in particular ways. Conversely, it will demonstrate how contemporary developments in evolutionary science have cha ....The place of history in science: reassessing the Darwinian revolution. This project aims to examine how historical representations of Darwin and his revolutionary theory have influenced the shape and direction of modern evolutionary science itself. The project expects to show how certain historical assumptions about Darwin and natural selection have constrained evolutionary thinking in particular ways. Conversely, it will demonstrate how contemporary developments in evolutionary science have changed historians’ understanding of the history of evolution. The expected outcomes include a new understanding of the mutual interactions between history and science, capacity building in the field of the history of science, and interdisciplinary collaborations across the biological sciences and humanities.Read moreRead less
Climate change and the history of environmental determinism. In previous centuries, most scientists presumed that environment and climate determined human health, capacities and difference. By tracing this longstanding idea through the twentieth century, this project will identify implications for current climate science.
The culture of weeds: invasion biology, identity and aesthetics in Australia. Weeds are a significant threat to Australia’s biodiversity - but when does a plant become one? Defining plants and landscapes as weedy reflects not only ecological values, but also economics, aesthetics, and national identity. The question of how and why weeds spread reveals cultural values that inform the management of all invasive species.
Passionate Knowledge: The Ethics and Politics of the Scientific Revoution. Modern science and the modern state came to the world together. They emerged from the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, which changed not only the way people understood the world, but how they understood themselves as individuals and communities. By analysing scientific, philosophical and political documents, some canonical and some rarely read, this project aims to reveal the ethical and political implications o ....Passionate Knowledge: The Ethics and Politics of the Scientific Revoution. Modern science and the modern state came to the world together. They emerged from the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, which changed not only the way people understood the world, but how they understood themselves as individuals and communities. By analysing scientific, philosophical and political documents, some canonical and some rarely read, this project aims to reveal the ethical and political implications of the rise of modern science. It is expected to be the first comprehensive study of the co-formation of science and the state in their era of origin, shedding crucial and surprising light on the place of science in culture and politics ever since.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102368
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The making of the modern chemist: struggles within Enlightenment science. The project will reinterpret the emergence of modern chemistry by challenging the iconic revolution-centred approach to the history of early modern science. Examining scientific successes alongside crises and revolutionaries alongside reactionaries, the project will chart chemists' long struggle for disciplinary independence in the Enlightenment.
Organisms and Us: How Living Things Help Us To Understand Our World. How do researchers learn from and 'think with' non-human organisms? This project seeks to develop a comprehensive historical and philosophical exploration of the changing roles and understandings of research with organisms in 20th and early 21st century science. Advances in the content and technologies of the biological and biomedical sciences have resulted in new understandings of what we can know and learn from organisms, par ....Organisms and Us: How Living Things Help Us To Understand Our World. How do researchers learn from and 'think with' non-human organisms? This project seeks to develop a comprehensive historical and philosophical exploration of the changing roles and understandings of research with organisms in 20th and early 21st century science. Advances in the content and technologies of the biological and biomedical sciences have resulted in new understandings of what we can know and learn from organisms, particularly with regard to human functioning, health, and well-being, yet we have no integrated scholarship examining these developments across a range of fields. This project seeks to produce useful scholarship relevant for humanities scholars, scientists, clinicians and policy-makers.Read moreRead less
Culture-bound syndromes, koro, and the emergence of 'cosmopolitan' psychiatry. This historical study examines the concepts of ethnicity used by psychiatrists by focusing on the ways in which one culture-bound syndrome, koro, moved from being exclusively South-East Asian to being found in a number of cultures. It will develop significant understandings of psychiatric conceptions of cultural difference.
The Huxleys and global science, 1825–1975. This project aims to deepen our understanding of how life and earth sciences contributed to global modernity over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The project will focus on two major biologists and communicators of evolutionary theory, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) and his grandson Julian Huxley (1887–1975). It will interrogate the questions that the Huxleys raised about the changing nature of time, the deep past and the distant future of human ....The Huxleys and global science, 1825–1975. This project aims to deepen our understanding of how life and earth sciences contributed to global modernity over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The project will focus on two major biologists and communicators of evolutionary theory, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) and his grandson Julian Huxley (1887–1975). It will interrogate the questions that the Huxleys raised about the changing nature of time, the deep past and the distant future of humankind, shifting ideas about difference between and within species. By doing so, the project aims to better understand developments from pre- to high- to post-Darwinian eras, and the major institutional and intellectual shifts from imperial to international sciences.Read moreRead less
The scientific revolution: mechanisation of the world picture or the emergence of science as opposed to a world picture? This project will enhance Australia's already strong international reputation in History and Philosophy of Science by offering an account of the Scientific Revolution that meets the highest standards of both philosophical and historical scholarship. It will portray science as emerging as an autonomous discipline distinct from natural philosophy.