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X-WR-CALNAME:History and Philosophy of Science Events
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for History and Philosophy of Science Events
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DTSTART:20250101T000000
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260803T173000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260803T183000
DTSTAMP:20260729T055001Z
CREATED:20260729T054236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T055001Z
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SUMMARY:Proprioception and Knowledge of the External World in the Long 18th Century - Antonia LoLordo - University of Virginia
DESCRIPTION:Abstract:  Mary Shepherd says that motion (or the power of motion) is a sixth sense (or sixth sense organ).  I argue that she is talking about proprioception.  Shepherd thus holds that proprioception plays a crucial role in acquiring knowledge of the external world\, as well as in acquiring the concepts involved.  I further argue that proprioception plays a role in knowledge of the external world for many of her predecessors as well—for example\, the Berkeley of the New Theory\, Condillac\, Hume\, and Reid—although unlike Shepherd\, they do not distinguish proprioception from the sense of touch. \nBio:  Antonia LoLordo is George C. and Clare F. Downing Memorial Professor at the University of Virginia.  Her work includes Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge)\, Locke’s Moral Man (Oxford)\, an edition of Mary Shepherd’s Essays on the Perception of an External Universe (Oxford)\, and Mary Shepherd (Cambridge)\, as well as articles on Cugoano\, Descartes\, Edwards\, Gassendi\, Hume\, Locke\, Malebranche\, and Shepherd.  She is currently working on a book on proprioception and knowledge of the external world in the 18th century.
URL:https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/event/proprioception-and-knowledge-of-the-external-world-in-the-long-18th-century/
LOCATION:Madsen Room 331\, Madsen Building F09\, The University of Sydney\, NSW\, 2006\, Australia
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260810T173000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260810T183000
DTSTAMP:20260806T022911Z
CREATED:20260805T022647Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260806T022911Z
UID:228-1786383000-1786386600@hps-events.sydney.edu.au
SUMMARY:Fitness landscapes past\, present\, and future - Andreas Wagner - University of Zurich
DESCRIPTION:Abstract \nThe fitness landscape or adaptive landscape is an iconic metaphor of evolutionary biology that has also been influential in unrelated areas of science\, such as psychology and operations research. I present a brief history of the concept in biology\, and discuss how early theory predicts that landscapes with many peaks – rugged landscapes – can impair Darwinian evolution (and similar optimization processes in other areas of science). I then discuss our most recent experiments to map such a landscape in the bacterium E. coli at a large scale. These experiments seemingly invalidate early theoretical predictions about ruggedness and adaptive evolution. I discuss possible reasons for this mismatch between theory and experiment. More generally\, recent research suggests that landscapes are more than just superficial metaphors but deep analogies with multiple unanticipated uses. They raise a number of questions that may be of potential interest to historians and philosophers. \n  \nShort Biosketch \nAndreas Wagner received his Ph.D. in 1995 at Yale University\, where his research won the J.S. Nicholas Prize for best dissertation in the field. He is currently a professor in the department of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland)\, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complex systems (Santa Fe\, NM). Wagner leads a laboratory of more than a dozen international researchers in evolutionary biology and complex systems studies.  He has (co)authored more than 250 scientific papers in journals that include Nature\, Science\, and PNAS. Wagner is also the author of six books. The most recent of them is Sleeping Beauties (OneWorld) a Times and Telegraph book of the year 2023. Wagner has held research fellowships at several institutions\, such as the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin (Germany)\, the Institut des Hautes Etudes in Bures-sur-Yvette (France)\, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS\, South Africa). He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences\, and an elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). Wagner has served on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals that include Scientific Advances\, Genome Biology\, and Bioessays. In recent years\, invited lectures have taken him to destinations that include Chile\, Taiwan\, Norway\, Spain\, India\, and Singapore\, as well as numerous cities in Switzerland\, France\, Germany\, the UK\, and the U.S.An Austrian-born U.S. citizen\, Wagner lives in Zurich\, Switzerland.
URL:https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/event/fitness-landscapes-past-present-and-future-andreas-wagner-yale-university/
LOCATION:Madsen Room 331\, Madsen Building F09\, The University of Sydney\, NSW\, 2006\, Australia
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260824T173000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260824T183000
DTSTAMP:20260817T053411Z
CREATED:20260817T053411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260817T053411Z
UID:234-1787592600-1787596200@hps-events.sydney.edu.au
SUMMARY:A war inside a war: fighting drug addiction during the decolonization of Vietnam - Claire Eddington - University of California
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: This talk opens in Hanoi on the eve of decolonization of French Indochina and the division of Vietnam into a Communist-controlled North\, and a US-backed South. After decades of administering a state-run opium monopoly\, in late 1953 the French government and its Vietnamese allies moved to ban all opium use and to require all drug users to register with the North Vietnam Health Service as an addict. This period of opium registration was short-lived. Nevertheless\, the policy is significant to the extent that it signaled how a long-term crisis of addiction\, fueled by expanding markets for drugs and hypodermic needles\, joined with an acute political crisis to force an official reconsideration of approaches to recovery. At the same time\, this talk attends to those other\, shadowy networks\, forged through rumor and gossip\, that shaped how drug users themselves came to understand what was happening and how they thought about their own prospects for recovery. By writing drug users back into the history of drugs in the region\, this talk asks what new storylines become possible. \nBio: Claire Edington is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California- San Diego where she specializes in the history of medicine and public health\, modern Southeast Asian history\, and colonial and postcolonial science studies. Her book\, Beyond the Asylum: Mental Illness in French Colonial Vietnam\, was published with Cornell University Press in 2019. Her second book with Cindy Ermus\, Epidemics: A Global History\, is forthcoming from University of California Press. She is currently researching the history of drug addiction in Vietnam across the twentieth century\, from the time of the French colonial opium monopoly through the arrival of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
URL:https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/event/a-war-inside-a-war-fighting-drug-addiction-during-the-decolonization-of-vietnam-claire-eddington-university-of-california/
LOCATION:Madsen Room 331\, Madsen Building F09\, The University of Sydney\, NSW\, 2006\, Australia
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20260831T173000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20260831T183000
DTSTAMP:20260817T061105Z
CREATED:20260817T061027Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260817T061105Z
UID:237-1788197400-1788201000@hps-events.sydney.edu.au
SUMMARY:Euthenics\, Women\, and the Making of Better Environments - David PD Munns - City University of New York
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: \nIn 1904\, Ellen Richards introduced “euthenics.” By 1912\, Lewellys Barker\, director of medicine and physician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital\, would tell the New York Times that the “task of eugenics” and the “task of euthenics” was the “Task for the Nation.” Alongside the emergence of hereditarian eugenics\, where fate was firmly rooted in heredity\, this talk places euthenics into the same Progressive Era demands for the scientific management over environmental issues like life and labor\, health and hygiene\, sewage and sanitation. I argue that euthenics not only heralded women as leaders in the quest for what Richards and eugenicists termed “racial improvement” but understood reforms were to come through environmental and educational reform rather than hereditary interventions. Looking to recuperate the figure of Ellen Richards in the history of science\, I place Richards and her euthenics more into the debate over eugenics rather than over the emergence of home economics. Building on the work of Donald Opitz\, Staffan Bergwik\, and Brigette Van Tiggelen\, this talk shows\, first\, how Richards’ career threads the needle between the home and the laboratory as sites of science making\, not as separate spheres but as overlapping realms\, and helps recover how domestic concerns shaped the focus of the life sciences. Second\, this talk shows how euthenics shaped eugenics by looking at the writings of American eugenicists Charles Davenport\, Paul Popenoe\, and David Starr Jordan on “Eugenics and Euthenics.” Third\, I describe how euthenics took root in new academic departments of domestic science\, home economics\, and departments child welfare and family life in the 1920s and 1930s\, most notably the Institute of Euthenics at Vassar College after 1923\, where – super twist – Dr Spock taught for two summers\, recruited by Margaret Mead. \n  \nShort Bio: \nName: David PD Munns. \nEmail: dmunns@jjay.cuny.edu \nSocial media: https://jjay-cuny.academia.edu/DavidMunns ; www.worldoftrons.com \nCurrently a Professor of the History of Science at the City University of New York\, David Munns has taught nearly 10\,000 students across 200 classes and authored 7 books\, dealing with subjects including radio astronomy\, environmental and sanitary engineering\, plant physiology\, nuclear engineering\, Euthenics and Eugenics\, and the cultural history of the suffix *tron. He is currently working on a project entitled Big Science\, Down Under.
URL:https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/event/euthenics-women-and-the-making-of-better-environments-david-pd-munns-city-university-of-new-york/
LOCATION:Madsen Room 331\, Madsen Building F09\, The University of Sydney\, NSW\, 2006\, Australia
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