Science History Podcast

Before the advent of the germ theory of disease in the 1870s, quarantine provided one of the few effective means to prevent or alleviate epidemics. The Lazaretto quarantine station in Philadelphia illustrates the history of quarantine both before and after the discovery of pathogenic microbes. With us to explore the history of 18th and 19th century quarantine in Philadelphia, and what it meant for public health, is David Barnes. David teaches the history of medicine and public health at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is an Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science. David received a BA in history from Yale in 1984 and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. His books include The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France (University of California Press, 1995), The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle against Filth and Germs (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), and Lazaretto: How Philadelphia Used an Unpopular Quarantine Based on Disputed Science to Accommodate Immigrants and Prevent Epidemics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023).

What are the commonalities between scaling the world's highest peaks and tackling the most challenging pollution problems? What was it like to enter the worlds of climbing and chemistry as a woman in the 1960s and 70s? With us to answer these questions is Arlene Blum. Arlene completed a bachelor's degree at Reed College in 1966 and a PhD in biophysical chemistry at Berkeley in 1971. She was a pioneering alpinist early in her career and a founder of the Green Science Policy Institute later in her career. She is the author of Annapurna - A Woman's Place, published by Counterpoint in 1980, and Breaking Trail, A Climbing Life, published by Harcourt in 2005.

Any intellectual endeavor runs the risk of bias. Today we explore ways in which political ideology interferes with scholarship, particularly in the social sciences, with a focus on social psychology. My guest is Lee Jussim, a distinguished professor of social psychology and the leader of the Social Perception Laboratory at Rutgers University. Lee is a prolific author and studies stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination; political radicalization; and other problems that impede science and society. Lee's books include Social Perception and Social Reality, which received the American Association of Publishers award for best book in psychology, as well as the edited volumes The Social Psychology of Morality, The Politics of Social Psychology, and Research Integrity. Lee is also a founding member of the Heterodox Academy, the Academic Freedom Alliance, and the Society for Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences.

The world's environmental problems demand solutions for the common good, which in turn necessitate environmental diplomacy. With us to untangle the messy history of environmental diplomacy is Mark Lytle. In addition to his long tenure as a professor at Bard College, Mark has taught at Yale, Vassar, and University College Dublin. Mark's books include The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance, 1941-1953, America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement, and The All-Consuming Nation: Pursuing the American Dream Since World War II.

Certain fields of science attract broad interest because of what they tell us about humanity, and no field does this more directly than paleoanthropology. Today we explore the history of paleoanthropology with a focus on Louis and Mary Leakey, who made key discoveries at an inflection point of our understanding of human evolution. With us to discuss this history is Evan Hadingham. Evanis the Senior Science Editor of the award-winning PBS series NOVA. Today we discuss his new book, Discovering Us, Fifty Great Discoveries in Human Origins, published in partnership with the Leakey Foundation in 2021.

How could a conservation easement be anything other than a great thing? With us to answer this question are Jaimi Dowdell and Andrea Januta, both of whom are investigative reporters and data journalists with Reuters. Jaimi and Andrea were part of the Reuters team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. Today we discuss their Reuters special report entitled "How Boeing created a nature preserve that may also preserve pollution", published on July 20, 2022.

For thousands of years, scholars have struggled with what it means to be human. One critical dimension of humanity is foresight, and with us to decipher the evolution of foresight is Thomas Suddendorf. Thomas is a professor at the University of Queensland, where he investigates mental capacities in young children and in animals to answer fundamental questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Thomas is the author of over 140 research articles and two books: The Gap: The science of what separates us from other animals, published in 2013 by Basic Books, and The invention of tomorrow: a natural history of foresight (with co-authors Jonathan Redshaw and Adam Bulley), published in 2022, also by Basic Books. Today we discuss archaeological finds related to stone tools, fire, hunting, ornaments, containers, burial, watercraft, maps, music, and storytelling - and what they tell us about the evolution of foresight.

Johan Rockström and colleagues first proposed the concept in 2009 of planetary boundary threats and a safe operating space for humanity. This conceptual framework clarifies environmental problems that are of planetary significance, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and stratospheric ozone depletion. The most recently articulated planetary boundary threat, or set of threats, relates to chemical pollution of the biosphere. With us to unpack planetary boundary threats as they relate to pollution is Bethanie Carney Almroth. Bethanie is a professor at the University of Gothenburg, where she researches threats posed to our planet due to the immense number and quantities of synthetic chemicals released into the environment.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing worldwide Great Depression left families in economic shock and despair. International trade collapsed to less than half of its previous levels and unemployment skyrocketed. Into this devastating mess stepped Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who began his long presidency in 1933. FDR spearheaded a series of programs known as the New Deal to revive the United States. The most popular of these was the government work relief program called the Civilian Conservation Corps, which ran from 1933 to 1942. Three million American men joined the Corps, gaining skills and employment while also attending to widespread conservation problems. With us to explain the significance of the Civilian Conservation Corps is Neil Maher. Neil is a professor of history in the Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, Newark, and he is the author of Apollo in the Age of Aquarius and Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement.

The ways people think about matters both big and small, from climate change to daily tasks, impact the outcomes. Throughout the history of science and society, key insights arose through a thought process of simplification and subtraction, though the human tendency leans towards complication and addition. Today I discuss the power of subtraction with Leidy Klotz. Leidy is a professor at the University of Virginia, where he studies the science of design. He is the author of Subtract, published in 2021 by Flatiron Books.