Gerald E. Markowitz to Speak at Science and Society Public Talk on October 2

UCSD Science Studies Program Lecture Series in Science and Society presents

Gerald Markowitz, Professor of History at John Jay College and
Professor in the Graduate School and University Center at City University of New York

Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008

Public Lecture: 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Reception to follow. Free and open to the public.

Location: UCSD Natural Sciences Building #1205 (Revelle College campus)

Presentation title: “History and Science on Trial”

Abstract
In Fall, 2002,  Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, was published jointly by the University of California Press and the Milbank Fund as one in a series that addressed a variety of aspects of health policy. Briefly, the book looked at questions regarding how two industries, the lead industry and the chemical industry, reacted when faced with information regarding the potential dangers of their products to human health during the twentieth century.

The history of the lead and vinyl industries offers clear insight into why the relationship between the public and big business is so strained today. Despite the potent evidence of the dangers of their products, these industries hid information, controlled research, continued to market their products as safe, and attempted to influence the political process in order to avoid regulation. {click to view entire abstract}

About the speaker:
Dr. Markowitz, a public health historian who has written extensively about occupational and environmental health, is a professor of history at John Jay College and professor in the Graduate School and University Center at City University of New York. He is author of ten books, including Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution; Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Industrial Disease in Twentieth Century America; Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth Century America; Slaves of Depression: Workers Letters About Life on the Job – all co-authored with David Rosner.

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"Technology and Formations of Power" Workshop on May 2–3, 2008

The UCSD Science Studies Program will hold a research workshop, "Technology and Formations of Power,"
 on May 2 and 3 at the UCSD Geisel Library Seuss Room. 

Speakers will include:
Andrew Feenberg, Simon Fraser University
Gabrielle Hecht University of Michigan
Rebecca Herzig, Bates College
Ravi Rajan, UC-Santa Cruz
Jessica Riskin, Stanford
Fred Turner, Stanford 

For more information, please view our conference website.

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Science Studies Community Members in the News

Two Science Studies Program Faculty Receive 2007-08 Chancellors Associates Faculty Excellence Awards

Steve Epstein, the Director of the Science Studies Program and a professor in the Department of Sociology, is the recipient of the 2008 Chancellors Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Research in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Naomi Oreskes, a professor in the Department of History, is the recipient of the 2008 Chancellors Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Community Service.

Each year the Chancellor’s Associates recognizes UCSD faculty members for their scholarship and contributions to the university and the community.  Award candidates are nominated by their academic peers, with final selection by a committee comprised of Chancellor’s Associates members.  Criteria for selection are based on faculty member achievements, reputation, and impact on students and the academic community. 

Naomi Oreskes Appointed Provost of UC San Diego's Sixth College

Naomi Oreskes, a professor of History and Science Studies, whose work has played a critical role in establishing that there is a clear consensus about global warming among scientists, has been appointed to serve as provost of the UCSD’s Sixth College.

Sixth College is the UCSD's sixth and youngest college in its unique family of undergraduate colleges. Established in 2002, Sixth College focuses on the intersection of culture, art and technology, and seeks to prepare students to become effective global citizens who engage creatively and ethically with the complex issues facing the world in the 21st century.

Recent Grad's Op-Ed Article in The San Diego Union Tribune

Carmel Finley, a 2007 Science Studies Program graduate, recently saw her op-ed article, “Fishing: Making sure supplies are sustained” in print in The San Diego Union Tribune.  This article is based on her thesis, "The Tragedy of Enclosure: Fish, Fisheries Science, and Foreign Policy, 1920-1960."  Click here to view the article.

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DISSENT IN SCIENCE: ORIGINS AND OUTCOMES WORKSHOP
March 3-4, 2008 at UCSD

The London School of Economics Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and the UCSD Science Studies Program
 present the 'Dissent in Science: Origins and Outcomes' workshop on March 3-4, 2008.   

Speakers include:
John Beatty (Philosophy, UBC Vancouver)
Marilena Di-Bucchianico (Philosophy, LSE)
Tal Golan (Science Studies and History, UCSD)
Beatrice Golomb (Medicine, UCSD)
Elisabeth Lloyd (Philosophy of Sc., Indiana U. Bloomington)
Naomi Oreskes (Science Studies & History, UCSD)
Miriam Solomon (Temple University, Philadelphia)

The workshop is part of the 'Contingency and Dissent in Science' project run at the London School of Economics. 
Attendance is free, but space is limited so please register by emailing: contingencydissent@lse.ac.uk    

March 3, 9:00am - 4:30pm, the workshop will be held at the UCSD Institute of the Americas Deutz Conference Room;
March 4, 8:30am - 12:45pm, the workshop will be held at the UCSD Center for Molecular Genetics

Click here for more information

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David Healy, M.D., to Speak at Science and Society Public Talk on December 4

UCSD Science Studies Program Lecture Series in Science and Society presents

David Healy, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Cardiff University, UK

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Hojel Auditorium, Institute of the Americas, UCSD

Public Lecture: 1:30-3:00pm; Pre-Lecture Reception: 12:30-1:30pm
Free and open to the public {directions to Hojel Auditorium}

Presentation title: “The Human Laboratory: The Making and Marketing of Psychoactive Drugs”

Abstract:
This talk examines how psychoactive drugs, manufactured by pharmaceutical laboratories, have turned both clinicians and patients into subjects in a human laboratory. As a result, the experiences of those seeking treatment for nervous disorders – as well as the self-understanding of the rest of us – have been transformed through a marketing of diseases that utilizes ghost-written articles, selectively publishes data, and creates patient groups and disease-awareness campaigns.

David Healy studied medicine in Dublin and Cambridge. He is a Professor of Psychiatry in Cardiff University, a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and author of over 140 peer reviewed articles, 200 other pieces, and 15 books, including The Antidepressant Era, The Creation of Psycho-pharmacology, The Psychopharmacologists, (three volumes), Let Them Eat Prozac, and Mania (forthcoming). He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving SSRI drugs, and in bringing these problems to the attention of American and British regulators.  He has also worked on aspects of how pharmaceutical companies market drugs by marketing diseases and co-opt academic opinion-leaders by ghostwriting their articles.

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Naomi Oreskes Elected as a Fellow of the AAAS

Naomi Oreskes has recently been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. According to the AAAS, "Election as a Fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. Fellows are recognized for meritorious efforts to advance science or its applications." Oreskes will be recognized for her contributions to science at the Fellows Forum to be held on 16 February 2008 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

Prof. Oreskes now joins Prof. William Bechtel as the second Science Studies Program faculty member to be elected to the History and Philosophy of Science Section of the AAAS Fellows program.

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Science Studies Program Fall 2007 Newsletter

Stay Connected! Click here to view our Fall 2007 Newsletter.

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"Healthscapes and Body States: Politics and Practices of Biomedicine" Workshop on May 18 and 19

The UCSD Science Studies Program will hold a research workshop, "Healthscapes and Body States: Politics and Practices of Biomedicine," on May 18-19 at the Eucalyptus Point Conference Center.  Speakers will include Adele E. Clarke, Carl Elliott, Andrew Lakoff, Michelle Murphy, Keith Wailoo, and Elizabeth Wilson.  For more information, please view our conference website.

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Robert N. Proctor to Speak at Science and Society Public Talk on May 3

The Science Studies Program Lecture Series in Science and Society presents a public talk on Thursday, May 3 at 4:00pm by:

Robert N. Proctor, Ph.D., Stanford University
Professor of the History of Science

Presentation title: "The Cigarette in Global Lung History: How Flue Curing, Matches, Mechanization, and Mass Marketing led to Mass Death and Deception"

Location: UCSD Natural Sciences Building #1205 (Revelle College campus)

Abstract:
There are presently about 6 trillion cigarettes smoked every year. With 6 billion people on earth, this means a global consumption rate of about 1000 per person per year, man, woman and child. Cigarettes are about 3.5 inches long, which means that 350 million miles are smoked per annum--enough to make a continuous chain stretching from the earth to the sun and back--with enough left over for a couple of side trips to Mars. Or to circle the globe 15,000 times. {view entire abstract}

Dr. Procter specializes in 20th century science, technology, and medicine, especially the history of controversy in those fields and projects on scientific rhetoric, the cultural production of ignorance (agnotology), and the history of expert witnessing. He is presently working on a book titled "Darwin in the History of Life", framed around the idea that the 19th century evolution revolution can be seen as a consequence of efforts to historicize life.

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Peter L. Galison -- the Students’ Choice Speaker -- on Friday, April 6

Peter L. Galison, Pellegrino Professor of the History of Science and Physics at Harvard University, will present a colloquium talk, "Picturing Objectivity," on Friday, April 6 at 9:30am in the Humanities and Social Sciences Building # 4025.  Galison is visiting UCSD as the Science Studies Program 2007-08 Students’ Choice speaker.

Picturing Objectivity
When scientific objectivity became a goal in the early 19th century it was by no means obvious.  Natural philosophers had to invert the old epistemic virtues that involved finding ideal forms that lay behind the variations of this or that individual.  Where genius was, plain-sight observation came to dominate.  We will here track how scientific atlases helped define the modern scientific category of mechanical objectivity-and the new
quieted and transparent scientific self that necessarily accompanied it.  The fate of objectivity kept turning: 20th century scientists questioned image-based, mechanical objectivity; they demanded more interpretation and modification of images than mechanical objectivity ever allowed.  With that shift came a new view of the right scientific self, one now explicitly making use of intuition, expertise, and the unconscious.

Galison’s work focuses on the exploration of twentieth century physics, and, in particular, he explores how experimenters, instrument makers and theorists are interconnected. He is the author of Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time, How Experiments End, and Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics.

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Science Studies Program Lecture Series in Science and Society Presents Gov. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon on March 15

The Science Studies Program is pleased to announce that Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon will speak at UCSD on Thursday, March 15 at 12:30pm at the IR/PS Robinson Auditorium.

Governor Kulongoski will be the inaugural speaker of the Science Studies Program Lecture Series in Science and Society and will address how scientific knowledge can be put to use in developing sound environmental policy, and how states are taking the lead on this issue.

Governor Ted Kulongoski has been at the forefront of state-based environmental legislation based on scientific understanding. As a member of the Oregon State Senate in the 1980s, he led the first state-based law to ban the use of the chemicals that were creating the ozone hole. In June 2003, the Governor issued an Executive Order on Sustainability directing state agencies to incorporate sustainability into their decision-making and strategic planning. {more}

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Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD To Speak on February 14

The Science Studies Program and the Department of Communication at UCSD invite you to attend a public lecture on Wednesday, February 14, 3-5pm by

Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Women's Studies
Director, Program in Culture, Health, and Medicine
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Presentation title: "Protest Psychosis: Race, Stigma, and the Diagnosis of Schizophrenia"

Location: Science Studies Program Conference Room, Room 3027, Humanities & Social Sciences
Building, Muir College, UCSD

Abstract:
Misperceptions that persons with schizophrenia are violent or dangerous lie at the heart of stigmatizations of the disease. For instance,
numerous studies have found that physicians, police officers, and the general public overestimate the risk of aggression in patients with
schizophrenia more often than in other patient groups. My project tells the story of how these modern-day American conceptualizations of
schizophrenic patients as violent emerged during the civil-rights era of the 1950s-1970s in response to a larger set of conversations about race.
{view entire abstract}

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Naomi Oreskes Testifies at Senate Hearing on Climate Change

Naomi Oreskes, professor of history and science studies, testified at the Dec. 6 “Climate Change and the Media” hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. This was the last hearing called by outgoing committee chair, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).  

Oreskes testified,  “In recent months, the suggestion has been made that concern over anthropogenic global warming is a just a fad or a fashion. The history of science shows otherwise. Scientific attention to global warming has lasted over a century, involved thousands of scientists, and extended across six continents.” {View article}

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