Hasok Chang and the disgruntled internalists

Regular readers beware: there are no astrolabes in this post!  Instead we'll be engaging with some hardcore historiography.  Comments welcome!

The "Histories of the Sciences" seminar series convened by Professor Nick Jardine at Cambridge's Department of History and Philosophy of Science is generally a low-key affair: at each session one or two texts, by important thinkers who have influenced the way the history of science is studied and written about, are introduced and discussed.  There's half a dozen students and rarely any controversy.

But Monday's session was different: a tense, packed room awaited the appearance in person of the important figure we were discussing: Professor Hasok Chang, who had come to discuss his keynote address at July's International Congress in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM).  For anyone who wasn't in Manchester in July and hasn't watched the address since, here it is:



We were examining the issues raised by Chang alongside a critique of his arguments.  This wasn't in a published paper: in what may well have been a first not only for this seminar series but the whole Department, it was a blog post.  That post was by Michael Bycroft, who recently graduated from this Department.  Because he is now working in Berlin, Dr Bycroft asked me to write up some notes from the seminar.  That's the reason for my current foray into shark-infested historiographical waters.

I don't have room in this post to explain Chang's paper (you'll have to watch the video or wait for its publication in the BJHS).  But suffice it to say that it was entitled Putting Science Back into the History of Science.  Put extremely simply, his argument was that greater focus on the technical content of past science would be of benefit both to history, and to current science.

Bycroft's critique made three main points (again, apologies for simplifying to the point of misrepresentation):

1. Chang could have defended purely internalist (content-focused) history of science more strongly against context-focused history.  In some ways he ended up defending a sort of hybrid.
2. Writers of internalist history of science should defend their work as a valid and valuable form of history.  They should not try and argue that its focus on content makes it superior to other ways of writing.
3. Internalist history can display many of the virtues normally ascribed to hybrid history of science.  For example, it can demonstrate the contingency of science (i.e. that science tackles problems that exist - or appear to exist - in the here and now, rather than advancing along a straight line towards The Truth).  And it can be a form of cultural history - after all, science is a cultural product.

In introducing his paper, Chang accepted these points, while stressing that he was not trying to suggest that internalist history of science was necessarily superior to other ways of doing history of science.

The Seminar
The discussion during the seminar was free-flowing, and I did not take any notes.  As I only have my vague memories to go on, I will not attempt to reconstruct it blow-by-blow.  Rather, I will try to group the points that were made under 4 general themes.

1.  Cultural history vs. rationality: a false dichotomy?
One point that was made focused on the early part of Chang's address, in which he set out to dismiss four false dichotomies that he believes are widespread misconceptions in history of science.  The third of these was between cultural history, which "treats our own civilization in the same way that anthropologists study alien cultures" (Robert Darnton), and the idea that scientists behave rationally.  Put simply, Chang's argument (at 9:53 in the video) was that rationality can still be meaningful even though we acknowledge that it is "fully embedded in and dependent on social, political and institutional settings."

The question that was raised was: what kind of rationality? Whose rationality?  Can we be rational historians writing in the twenty-first century and still aim to approach (or imitate) the rationality of people in the past?  The quite strident answer seemed to be that that is precisely what historians should be doing.  Our particular skill as historians must surely be to straddle two time zones.

2.  How can history stimulate science?
In my view, the most controversial claim Chang made (at 28:34 in the video) was that history of science can and should be looking to contribute towards new discoveries in science.  This point was not addressed directly but it was noted that there were few historians in university science departments, and we rarely look to push ourselves in that direction.  And even if history is rarely going to produce new scientific knowledge (and it's certainly arguable whether that should be its aim), it is surely a good idea for practising scientists to learn from history about the contingent development of their discipline (a point made fully by Chang at 20:43).

So perhaps it is in science departments that history of science can be most useful to society.  Where it is in them already, it seems to perform mainly a sort of ornamental function, helpful for PR purposes but totally divorced from any involvement in or effect on the main business of inevitable scientific progress.  Chang has argued in many papers that the history of science can play an important role in science education - and has practised what he preaches by talking to schoolkids about historical experiments in which water didn't boil at 100°C.  But historians are mainly reduced to carping on the sidelines as scientists fill the airwaves and the public consciousness with a view of history of science that is as embarrassing for real historians as Intelligent Design is for most evolutionary biologists.  (Rebekah Higgitt and others have written about how historians of science sometimes seem just to be spoiling everyone's party.)  Perhaps we can do better if we focus our efforts more at scientists.

3.  Isn't this all just obvious?  The insecurity of historians of science
Always one for practising what he preaches, Chang has just launched a new reading/discussion group called Coffee with Scientists, which aims to bring together scientists and historians, to the benefit of both.  It was one of those scientists who raised the commensense objection: DUH! Of course history of science needs to have science in it!  What's the point of studying something if you're not prepared to engage with its content?  This question, and those that followed along the same lines, occupied most of the seminar.

A key question was: if you engage with content, how critical can you be?  Chang himself had made the analogy with historians of art (at 14:29) - they have no problem being historians and art critics at the same time.  But historians of science feel uncomfortable exercising judgment in the same way, for fear of being branded "Whiggish".  Against this, Chang says (at 16:47) "we only need to make sure that our view of past science is not dictated by current scientific orthodoxy.  It is not necessary to abandon all judgment."

There was a sense from some in the seminar that historians of science are too insecure, and spend too much time justifying what we do.  We are obsessed with theorising our own discipline, and perhaps we should just get on and do it!  But it is precisely our desire to change things in the present - changing people's views of science - that forces us to justify ourselves, which is what theory seems to be for.  To take mainstream political history as an example: most of the time it is not especially interested in changing the present, so political historians look for little theoretical support.  But post-colonial history often has an explicit political agenda, and so tends to have far more theoretical baggage too.

4.  Is internalism superior?  Prove yourself!
This brought us back to internalist history of science, which was then presented as a solution to historians' insecurities.  Do we need to prove that we know what we're talking about?  A point was raised that had been made in a comment on Bycroft's blog post: the depth principle, which states that we need to know a lot more than we write about.  But should we have to wear that knowledge like a scout badge?

As time ran out in the seminar, the suggestion was made that we should emulate some notable historians of science, who have written one absurdly complex internalist work at the beginning of their career.  Their scientific credentials thus established, they have spent the rest of their working lives writing contextualist, cultural history of science - and no-one has dared accuse them of ignorance.

What's the conclusion?  I don't know.  I may come back and add one once I've had some more time to mull over the issues raised in the seminar.  For now, please join the debate and add your own comments.  And if you were at the seminar and feel I've missed, misrepresented or misunderstood something, please say so!

Tweets from the Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop - Part 2

Here is the second instalment of my tweets from the Eleventh Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop.  If you missed the first batch, you can read them here.

Once again, if you enjoy reading them, don't forget to follow me on Twitter!




Congratulations for making it through all those!  Remember, if you missed the first instalment, you can find them here.

Tweets from the Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop - Part 1

I've spent the last few days at the Eleventh Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, at the University of Notre Dame (in the USA, not Paris).  It was a tremendous learning experience and very enjoyable.

I hope to post some reflections on the conference soon, but first, I've collated all the tweets I wrote during the last five days.  I found the 140-character limit made for an interesting challenge in summarising what was being said.  As there were quite a few tweets, I've split them in two (you can find the second batch here).  If you enjoy reading them, don't forget to follow me on Twitter!



Wow! Did you really read all those tweets?  If you're a glutton for more punishment, click here for the second instalment.

Chronology and the politicisation of history teaching

Last Saturday I posted about the proposed new National Curriculum and its programme of study for History.  Yesterday's Sunday papers splashed big on the subject.

Among much hyperbole and inaccurate reporting (no, Observer, Key Stage 3 does not end at age 18), there was an excellent, balanced letter from the presidents of various historical societies.  It's worth reading in full but I'll quote a couple of passages here.

First, they note (as I did) the issue of relegating all pre-modern history to primary schools, where it won't be taught by specialist historians:

we regret that the construction of the Programme in a strictly chronological sequence from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 ensures that many students will not be properly exposed to the exciting and intellectually demanding study of pre-modern history other than in the very earliest stages of their studies.

More fundamentally, they criticise the way the curriculum was drafted:

The contrast with the practice of the Conservative government of the late 1980s when it drafted the first national curriculum is striking. Then, a history Working group, including teachers, educational experts and academics, worked in tandem with the ministry of the day to produce first an interim report and than a final report in the midst of much public discussion.

The curriculum that resulted was widely supported across many professional and political divisions in the teaching and academic professions and by the general public. The current government was certainly right to feel that after many interim changes it was time for a fresh look. Unfortunately, it has not attempted to assemble the same kind of consensus and, as a result, it has produced a draft curriculum that it can be argued could still benefit from extensive discussion about how to ensure that it best serves both good practice and the public interest.

This, I'd suggest, is the result of a political climate that combines a distrust of the teaching profession with a desire to use history as a tool to promote national pride and placate the Conservative base.  As the letter-writers recognise, there is much in the new curriculum to welcome, but such policy-making motives are unlikely to benefit future generations of schoolchildren.

Matthew Arnold, Michael Faraday, and Michael Gove

To those who have managed to keep up with the astounding pace of policy changes flowing from the Department for Education in recent months, it will come as no surprise to see Secretary of State Michael Gove quoting Matthew Arnold in the introduction to his new National Curriculum.  The draft curriculum, which was released for consultation last week, begins with this as the first of two Aims:

The National Curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the core knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said; and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.


You may (especially if you listened to the excellent "Value of Culture" series on BBC Radio 4 recently), recognise this as directly quoting Culture and Anarchy, by the Victorian poet, critic and schools inspector.  Arnold wrote:

The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.

So, what is on this new Victorian's list of "the best that has been thought and said"?

Well, in History at least (the subject I taught for 5 years), it seems that the omission of Arnold's "in the world" is significant: the new curriculum focuses squarely on British - and usually English - history.  And we get a very clear idea of what bits of British history are to be taught: unlike the current curriculum, which is deliberately non-prescriptive, the draft programme of study (pages 166-171) is laid out in considerable detail, almost as chapter headings of the new textbooks which the publishing/examining conglomerates are sure to rush into print.  Unlike the present system, which does not insist on the study of any single person (Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce are named, but only in passing: "the work of people such as..."), the proposed new regime hopes to drum in knowledge of dozens of famous figures, from Alfred and Athelstan through "Clive of India" and Christopher Wren, to Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.

There's a curious dissonance in the publication of such a prescriptive curriculum by an education secretary who boasts of giving unprecedented freedom to schools.  (The level of prescriptive detail has been criticised even by one of Gove's strongest supporters, the economic historian and free-market apologist Niall Ferguson.)

Despite considerable media interest in the proposed curriculum, the most significant change has barely been mentioned.  The content for Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) starts in the mid-17th century with "The Enlightenment in England" (a topic that, curiously from an Education Secretary born and raised in Aberdeen, includes the proud Scot Adam Smith).  This means that the earlier history of Britain, from the Stone Age through to the Glorious Revolution and 1707 Acts of Union, will be taught in primary schools (Key Stage 2, ages 7-11), where teachers are highly unlikely to be history specialists.

As a medievalist, I am worried by this.  But I do also recognise the sense in ending the repetition that currently exists between primary and secondary history (typical class discussion: "We already learned about Henry VIII."  "Oh, did you?"  "Yes. He was fat, and he had lots of wives.").  And I can see that focusing the last 3 years of compulsory History in on the last 3 centuries of British history provides a great opportunity to include some fascinating content.

Here, almost for the first time, is the history of science.  "Scientists such as Isaac Newton or Michael Faraday" get a mention in Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7; if there are any primary school teachers reading this, I'd love to know how you would approach this topic).  In Key Stage 2 we have "Chaucer and the revival of learning" (there's a whole blog post's worth of debate in that title).  And Key Stage 3 gives us Bacon, Newton, the Royal Society and the Industrial Revolution (Watt, Stephenson and Brunel are named).

I would like to imagine that this will lead to innovative cross-curricular collaboration, as young people study Newtonian mechanics, Swiftian satire, and Voltaire in the original French, all put into broader context in their History classes.  Or at least, for the history of science, kids could learn about discoveries and the development of ideas, anchored in understanding of the societies and conditions in which they arose, rather than as isolated eureka moments or landmarks on the way to our current state of scientific perfection.

But since the bulk of the curriculum comprises topics such as "Britain and her Empire" (note the gendered pronoun), "the conquest of Canada", and "the Indian Mutiny and the Great Game", it seems that Gove's aim, despite the modernising rhetoric in which it's sometimes clothed, is the same old glorification of Our Island Story (1905) - "the story of the people of Britain [which] tells how they grew to be a great people" (p. 4).  Yes, I still have a copy, and yes, it's a wonderful story - that's all its author ever intended it to be.  But if it's to be used as the basis for a 21st-century education it could do with some updating; and so, I fear, could Gove's ideas.

Actually, he could do with studying Arnold more carefully.  The passage I quoted above continues: "and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits".  Stock notions abound in the new history curriculum, but fresh and free thought?  That's one deficit the government hasn't made much progress in clearing.