History and Contemporary Science

Back in the 1960s, the historian of science Derek de Solla Price famously pointed out in his book Little Science, Big Science that more than ninety percent of the scientists who had ever lived were alive and working at that time. The massive explosion of science in the twentieth century, particularly after the Second World War when governments had learned the importance of funding science on a lavish scale, had created an enormous scientific establishment with more new research, publications, and meetings than ever before. With the growth of new forms of research organizations, and the emergence of new fields of enquiry and powerful new techniques, the bulk of scientific activity in world history has taken place in the last half-century [1].

Strangely, historians of science have failed to keep up with this expansion. Long accustomed to working on ancient science, alchemy, the scientific and industrial revolutions, and even the development of science up to 1945, they have typically been more reluctant to work on postwar and more recent science. While studies of eighteenth-century natural philosophy and nineteenth-century geology, physics, and evolutionary theory abound, the neglect of contemporary scientific history continues today. Only about ten percent of research conducted on the history of science deals with post-1945 and contemporary science, a figure quite at odds with the volume and cultural significance of science itself in late modern society. Moreover, this imbalance is not reflected in other fields of history such as history of art, literature, politics, or music, where contemporary concerns are an integral part of historical enquiry.

So why do historians still find it difficult to write about recent and contemporary science? A recent conference in Copenhagen brought together for the second time (the first was in Gothenburg in 1994 [2]) a group of practicing historians of contemporary science to consider this question. They concluded that the reasons for the neglect of the history of contemporary science are twofold: methodological difficulties concerning the size and complexity of contemporary science, and political problems concerning its authority in contemporary culture. They also outlined some possible antidotes to this neglect by charting a new role for the history of contemporary science in modern culture.

Methodological Problems

Ironically, the first problem facing the contemporary historian arises from the sheer volume of science produced in the last few decades. The proliferation of papers, reports, and conference proceedings, and other newer forms of scientific production and communication (like computers, fax, and email) makes it almost impossible for one individual to keep up with the development of more than a small area of scientific activity. With the technical complexity of contemporary science, furthermore, few historians can master the specialist knowledge needed to write the detailed historical accounts of scientific development which would satisfy both scientists and historians. Moreover, much postwar science has been connected with industry and the military, so that commercial and government secrecy prohibits access to crucial archives and papers, even when the historian is aware of their existence. Access to scientists' personal papers is a problem too, with many archives employing policies that close archives for 30 or even 50 years after the death of their subjects. And in many cases, of course, the scientists involved in recent and contemporary science are still alive, adding delicate questions of ethics and access to private papers to the historian's troubles.

Though apparently daunting, however, these problems of bulk, complexity, and accessibility are neither new nor insuperable. History is not a "one-pass" enterprise in which the One True Account is written first time round, and the pragmatics of history-writing dissolve what at first seem like serious obstacles. With the possible exception of those working on the science of antiquity, historians have always battled against an archive which threatened to overwhelm them; an abundance, rather than a dearth of source material has always been a historical problem. Yet historians have always found ways of selecting and presenting material in the light of the particular historical questions they wish to ask. Newton and Darwin scholars, for example, are faced with a vast archive of published and unpublished material, while political and other historians are quite used to dealing with "unmanageable" quantities of recent material by careful selection. This, indeed, is one of the skills by which a historian can be defined.

Historians of science are beginning to deal with the problem of complexity in contemporary science by mirroring the organization of that science itself. Rare today is the historian of science who takes as his task the history of an entire subject or discipline; instead, specialization is typical, as historians focus on the practice of science in particular milieux (rather than constructing the "grand narratives" of the development of high theory which once constituted the history of science). Where the volume of archival material really is a difficulty for a single historian, as in the case of the multimillion-dollar institutions of "big science" with their staffs of thousands, historians solve the difficulty by increasing specialization and by working in multi-skilled teams - what has been called "big history of science" [see, for example, Hermann et al., 1987-1996]. With regard to the constraints of confidentiality, historians have always found ways of operating within the bounds of official secrecy; for example, by searching out alternative sources of "secret" documents, by campaigning for the release of protected material into the public domain, or by obtaining clearance to work with sensitive material (which can often subsequently be published). Finally, historians are quite accustomed to problems of archival access, to negotiating with individuals and institutions, and, in any case, to making the best of whatever resources they have to hand.

The "Living Scientist" Syndrome

Given the pragmatics of history-writing, then, writing the history of contemporary science would seem to be little different in principle from writing the history of early seventeenth-century religion, eighteenth-century music, or late-nineteenth-century diplomacy. Yet such a view is illusory. What marks the history of recent and contemporary science as unique is the fact that its practitioners are still alive. For the historian, this is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the fact that the scientists who actually participated in the work one is analyzing historically are available for interviews and discussions means that issues of fact and interpretation can be clarified and the historical record enriched by personal records and recollections. Both memory and personal archives are notoriously selective, of course, but historians rarely rely on a single source; the evidence of personal testimony is a valuable addition to the toolkit of the contemporary historian in checking other sources, in adding new (and often otherwise inaccessible) material to one's historical account, and in suggesting new lines of historical enquiry.

At the same time, scientists and historians often have quite different agendas in the writing of history. Partly because of the common belief in science as a cumulative process of discovery and application of new knowledge, and partly because of the highly competitive reward system which underpins modern science, scientists typically are concerned with allotting proper credit within their discipline. Historians, taking a more detached view, seek to understand the broader principles and processes by which science works, and are much less concerned with allotting credit to individual scientists. Given these two seemingly antithetical approaches, the possibility for conflict is obvious, particularly when scientists often control access to the resources (archives, and sometimes even funding) that historians need to do their work. The implications of this "living scientist" syndrome are weighty; the potential threats of noncooperation, denial of access to source materials, even litigation, all constrain the historian in his or her choice of material and historical interpretation. In practice such problems rarely arise, as scientists and historians carefully negotiate both their engagement with each other and the kind of history which results. Self-reflection and an awareness of the conditions of intellectual endeavor have always been hallmarks of proper historical writing; as will now be apparent, nowhere is this more so than in the history of contemporary science.

The Politics of the History of Science

The "living scientist" syndrome is in many ways but one symptom of a more general phenomenon that deeply affects the writing of the history of science - contemporary and long past. Until relatively recently, the history of science was largely written by scientists themselves, and consisted mainly of linear stories of scientific progress leading up to the present. Over the last twenty years, however, professional historians of science have been moving away from a focus on scientific theories alone to look at the practices by which those results were produced and the contexts in which they were interpreted and given meaning [3]. A new picture of the history of science has emerged in which science is not merely about the result of three centuries of self-evident progress in the history of ideas, but about a complex set of human institutional and intellectual achievements. Where scientists' accounts typically focus on ideas and their sequential development, historians' typically seek to understand the relationship between scientific practices, scientific institutions, and the wider society in which they exist.

The two kinds of history serve very different purposes. Through its emphasis on the heroic achievements of "great men" and the linear development of theory, the scientists' account - the kind of thing one finds in textbook introductions, review articles and so on - typically acts to justify the current status quo in science intellectually, institutionally, and ideologically. The historians' account, with its insistence on the complex, multilayered nature of science and its reluctance to offer a single "grand narrative," offers a less deterministic, more open-ended account of scientific development. And it is here that trouble can arise, for scientists used to a history of science which validates the status quo can find different kinds of analysis a threat to their science. Historical work can come to be seen as irrelevant to science, or even, at the extreme, as "antiscience." Here, in the politics of scientific legitimation, lies a real difficulty for the historian of contemporary science, for it is over contemporary science with its living, working protagonists, that controversy is most likely to arise.

In principle, the two kinds of history are not contradictory; indeed, they are complementary. Moreover, there are ways in which they can work together. At a time when great emphasis is being placed on the Public Understanding of Science, the history of recent and contemporary science surely has a valuable role to play in communicating something of the fascination of current science and the way it works to a broad audience. Biographical studies, for example, can be used to explore the passions and aspirations which motivate practicing scientists, as well as the ups and downs of scientific work. They may even contribute to the moral edification of the scientific community in an age when research ethics are perceived to have deteriorated. Historical studies can shed valuable light on issues of concern to scientists, policy-makers, and the public: funding, science education, the knowledge economy, and many others. At a time when public confidence in science is declining over genetically modified food, cloning, and numerous other issues, history can offer the concrete examples of the process of science in action which might just help to rebuild public - and professional - confidence in it.

Jeff Hughes is lecturer in the history of science and technology at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.