The Berkeley Science Review: Articles

Faculty Portrait
Cathryn Carson, Associate Professor of History (view PDF)
by Amy Whitcomb

Cathryn Carson grew up in Washington D.C., and learned early on that she had both a talent for and an interest in physics. During college, Carson found that her passion was not in the details of laboratory experimentation, but rather in the investigation of how societal changes made such experiments and discoveries possible. She now holds both a Masters in physics and a PhD in history of science from Harvard University. Carson has been a faculty member at UC Berkeley since 1996.

Carson is also the Director of the Office for History of Science and Technology (OHST). Based at UC Berkeley, OHST supports scholars from a variety of disciplines by facilitating conferences and colloquia, publishing a research journal, and administering grants. As director, Carson serves as the Chair of the Editorial Board for the journal Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences. Carson is currently studying the history of UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology with a team of sociologists, philosophers, and biologists, and is also researching the development of the science behind nuclear waste management.

What inspired you to pursue the history of science as a career?
My parents, from the time they were in graduate school, had a copy of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—an old pink copy that I still have in my office. I read it in high school and was captured by the thought that past scientists who thought differently than we do were not, for that reason, stupid. They had very good reasons for believing the things that they did, even though we now consider them to be wrong. That kind of openness to the idea that alternative understandings of the world were possible, which was not anything I had gotten from my science education to date, was really transformative.

Can you give an example of how knowledge of the history of science can influence emerging scientists?
I think there are two main things it can deliver. First, by understanding the history better, you get a better conceptual grip on the science. If you understand, for instance, how modern physics emerged out of classical physics, if you understand why it was continuous with classical physics, then you've got a deep insight into the nature of the science we now accept—an insight that you largely do not encounter unless you approach it historically. Secondly, history is an illustration of how science is an actual human practice. Anyone who's worked in the laboratory knows that experiments do not simply confirm theories, and yet that is what we're taught in high school as the methodology of science: that science is about secure demonstration beyond all contest. Those of us who have worked in science realize there is much more human engagement in it than that ethereal model allows.

Your academic training is truly interdisciplinary, with degrees in both physics and history. Your work with the OHST also integrates students and faculty from different fields and even different universities. What are some of the challenges to working in an interdisciplinary setting?
“Challenges” is a good word. There are the challenges within any single person, challenges of mastering the different disciplines to the point that you can speak intelligently about each. In my work I need enough knowledge to understand the research that was done—that is a significant investment—on top of which I have to layer my historical knowledge. There are also challenges of collaborating with people. My colleagues who are specialized in science can say very intelligent things about the research, but the perspective that I bring of the broader, general history isn't part of their tool kit. So it's a constant and very productive negotiation between scholars bringing different questions and capacities. That's not to say it's frictionless—and it doesn't always work—but when it does, it's beautiful.

I'm surprised that you say it doesn't always work.
One thing I've learned from this work is that it's not necessarily a question of aligning institutions or aligning disciplines. It's about aligning individuals who, for whatever reason of chance or preparation, are able to talk to each other. Being about individuals guarantees that there is no algorithm for making it work! Choosing collaborators is one of the most sensitive parts of an interdisciplinary project.

What have you learned about the history of science at UC Berkeley that surprised you?
I had not understood that the sciences have been so absolutely central to the University's sense of itself. It's much more broadly based than one individual and one department—Ernest Lawrence in physics, for instance. As someone who occupies a place in the history department, it's a lesson in the ways in which the humanities and social sciences have been marginalized here going back 80 or 90 years. It has helped me understand my own situation today.

Where do you see the field of the history of science and technology heading in the future?
For the last generation or more, the history of science field has really been organized around one question, more or less: how does science relate to the society that surrounds it, the cultures that give it sustenance, the politics and funding agencies that enable it to be pursued? I don't think we've gotten to the bottom of that set of concerns. It's a very tough problem. How it is that, for instance, Heisenberg's work on quantum mechanics relates to the philosophical and intellectual currents of Germany in the 1920s? Trying to come up with historical schemes to explain how we get from the broadest social and cultural phenomena down into the core of the science is still a very challenging problem.

Amy Whitcomb is a graduate student in environmental science, policy, and management.

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