SCIENCE: ITS ADVOCATES AND ADVERSARIES
17th Annual Conference of the Institute of Contemporary
British History, 7-9 July 2003, Senate House, University of London.

For registration information contact the ICBH at [log in to unmask]
Abstracts will be posted on our website: www.icbh.ac.uk/icbh

Monday 7 July
9:15-10:00      Registration and Coffee
10:00-10:15     Introduction

10:15-11:25     Plenary Lecture
Prof David Edgerton (Imperial College, London): 'Science and
the Nation'
Chair: Dr Harriet Jones (ICBH)

11:30-13:00     Panel Sessions

A. Two Cultures
Dr Anna Mayer (Cambridge): 'Reluctant Technocrats: Science-
Promotion in the Neglect-of-Science Debate'
Mr Guy Ortolano (Northwestern): 'Neither Advocate Nor
Adversary: F. R. Leavis on Science'
Dr Paul White (Cambridge): 'One culture or two?: the formation
of science and literature in the Victorian period'
Discussant: Prof David Cannadine (IHR)

B. The Practice of Medicine
Dr Alan Bacon (Brunel): 'Clinical Autonomy in Decline?: The
changing role of doctors within the public health services'
Prof Ann Lennarson Greer (Wisconson): 'Practicing what others
preach: A case study in science and practice in the NHS'
Dr Helen Valier (Manchester): 'Chronic Illnesses in the Golden
Age of Clinical Research'
Discussant: Prof Virginia Berridge (London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine)

13:00-14:00     Lunch

14:00-15:30     Panel Sessions
C. The British Thermonuclear Bluff Revisited
Dr Kate Pyne (Aldermaston): 'Going it alone: British nuclear
warhead development before 1958'
Dr Richard Moore: 'How much American help?: British nuclear
warhead development after 1958'
Discussant: Prof Eric Grove (Hull)

D. Scientists and Society
Dr Jon Turney (University College, London): 'Popular Science as
Popular epistemology'
Mr Hugh Aldersey-Williams: 'One man's ceiling is another man's
floor: scientific conscience during the 1970s'
Dr Robin Mackie and Dr Gerrylynn Roberts (Open University):
'Who were the Chemists?: the changing profile of the British
chemical community in the twentieth century'
Discussant: Dr Robert Bud (Science Museum)


15:30-16:00     Tea

16:00-17:30     Plenary Discussion
Prof Hilary Rose (Gresham College) and Prof Steven Rose
(Open University): 'Science and Society Revisited'
Chair: Prof Michael Warboys (Manchester)
17:30-19:00     Reception


Tuesday, 8 July
9:30-10:00      Coffee

10:00-11.30     Panel Sessions

E. Healthy Children?
Ms Pru Hobson-West (Nottingham): 'Resistance to vaccination in
England: Science, history and risk'
Dr Emm Barnes (Cambridge): 'Childhood Cancers, 1977-2002:
the Rhetoric of Cure'
Prof Jean Mercer (Richard Stockton College): 'Attachment
Therapy: Science Adversaries Appeal to Scientific Evidence'
Discussant: Dr Ornella Moscucci (London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine)

F. Britain and the Space Race
Dr Felicity Mellor (Imperial College, London): 'Promoting
Catastrophe: Astronomy and the Scientific Imaginary'
Dr Jane Gregory (University College, London): ''People, not
gadgets': how cosmologists survived the space race'
Mr Matthew Godwin (ICBH): 'The Foreign Office, ESRO, and British
Space Policy, 1959-63'
Discussant: Dr Jon Agar (University College, London)

11:35-13:00     Plenary Lecture
Dr Sally Horrocks (Leicester): ''Neither are research workers witch
doctors': images of science and the management of corporate
R&D in Britain, c.1945-1970'
Chair: Dr Richard Coopey (Aberystwyth)

12:50-13:50     Lunch

13:50-15:20     Panel Sessions

G. Genetic Controversies
Dr William Leeming (Manchester): 'Eugenics, Human Genetics
and Medical Genetics'
Dr Martin W Bauer (LSE): 'DNA in trouble: 50 years of public
opinion'
Ms Louise Jarvis (UCL): 'Directed Mutation and twentieth century
Lamarckism'
Discusant: Dr Soraya de Chadarevian (Cambridge)

H. Objects of Desire
Dr Justus Lentsch (Bielefeld): 'Scientific Advice, the Precautionary
Principle and the Governance of Risk: the Case of EMF Effects of
Mobile Phones'
Mr George Woolaghan (Central St Martin's) 'Inherent
contradictions of technology: Locating social and technical
boundaries in the car'
Dr Colin Chant (Open): 'Cars, contexts and identities: the
Volkswagen and the Trabant'
Discussant: Dr Mats Fridlund (Imperial College)

I. Science and Emigration
Ms Jessica Reinisch (Imperial College, London): 'German exiles'
approaches to the post-war reconstruction of public health in
Germany, 1944-1945'
Ms Jenny Marie (UCL): 'Hans Grüneberg and the establishment
of developmental genetics in Britain

Dr Alexis de Greiff (Bogota): 'Abdus Salam: a migrant scientist at
Imperial College in post-imperial times'
Discussant: Prof Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes)

15:20-15:40     Tea

15:40-17:10     Plenary Lecture
Prof Terence Kealey (Buckingham): 'Science: Why its advocates
like to pretend it is a public good'
Chair: Prof Pat Thane (ICBH)

18:30-20:00     PUBLIC DEBATE
Cure or Crime: Science, History and Drugs
Panellists include: Prof Les Iveson (Oxford), Dr James Mills
(Glasgow)
Chair: to be announced

20:00-21:00     Reception
Sponsored by Oxford University Press and BBC History Magazine


Wednesday, 9 July
9:30-10:00      Coffee
10:00-11:25     Panel Sessions

J. Science and Intelligence
Dr Stephen Twigge (Public Record Office): 'Scientific Intelligence
and the Attlee Government 1945-51'
Mr Michael Goodman (Nottingham): 'Atomic Intelligence and
the Soviet target'
Mr Simone Turchetti (Manchester): 'The Pontecorvo Case:
Nuclear Science, the Cold War and Italian émigré intellectuals in
post-war Britain'

Discussant: to be announced
K. Science and Reconstruction
Ms Sabine Clarke (Imperial College, London): 'Promoting
Fundamental Science for Colonial Development in the Post War
period'
Mr Simon Lock (University College, London): 'Constructing the
Nation: the display of science in the Festival of Britain, 1951'
Dr Robert Bud (Science Museum): '"Religion is not only silly but
wrong": the political and cultural meaning of DNA, 1939-53'
Discussant: to be announced

11:30-12:45     Plenary Lecture
Prof David Zimmerman (Victoria): British Science, German
Academic Refugees and the Coming of the Second World War
Chair: Prof Antoine Capet (Rouen)
12:45-13:45     Lunch
13:45- 15:15    Panel Sessions

L. Science, Technology and Warfare
Dr Bart Hacker (Smithsonian): 'Against Mechanization: British
Army Officers Opposed to Military Mechanization'
Ms Nafsika Thalassis (Salford): 'Silk purse or sow's ear: the use of
psychological testing in the Armed Forces during the Second
World War'
Dr Brian Balmer (University College, London): The 'Carella
Incident': Secret Science in the Cold War and the Accidental
Exposure of Fishermen to Biological Warfare Agents
Discussant: Prof Ian Beckett (Marine Corps Research Center)

M. Science and Controversy
Dr Eve Seguin (Aberdeen): 'Prion Discourse: How an
Unconventional Discourse Accommodates an Unconventional
Agent'
Dr Chris Philippidis (Bath): 'The impact that quantum
epistemology has had on scientific narratives'
Dr Abigail Woods (Manchester): 'Controlling foot and mouth
disease in Britain: official and popular reactions to vaccine
discovery, 1939-1954'
Discussant: Dr Andrew Mendelsohn (Imperial College, London)

15:20-18.00     Witness Seminar
        The British Scientific Response to the Strategic
Defence Initiative in the mid-1980s
Chair: Prof Lawrence Freedman (King's College, London)
Introductory paper: Mr Holger Nehring (Oxford)
Witnesses include: Sir Michael Quinlan, Lord Powell, Sir John
Weston, Prof Sir Joseph Rotblat, and Prof A. David Caplin

For registration information contact the ICBH at [log in to unmask]
Abstracts will be posted on our website: www.icbh.ac.uk/icbh
ICBH, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street,
London WC1E 7HU