Matching Items (31)
Filtering by
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
"Wide adaptation" is an agricultural concept often employed and seldom closely examined. Norman E. Borlaug, while working for the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) on an agricultural project in Mexico in the 1950s, discovered that some tropical wheat varieties could be grown over broad geographic regions, not just in Central and South America but also in the Middle East and South Asia. He called this wide, or broad, adaptation, which scientists generally define as a plant type that has high yields throughout diverse environments. Borlaug soon made wide adaptation as a core pillar of his international wheat program. Borlaug's wheat program rapidly expanded in the 1960s, and he and his colleagues from the RF heavily promoted wide adaptation and the increased use of fertilizers in the Middle East and India. These events led to the green revolution, when several countries rapidly increased their wheat production. Indian wheat cultivation changed radically in the 1960s due to new technologies and policy reforms introduced during the green revolution, and farmers' adoption of 'technology packages' of modern seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation.
Just prior to the green revolution, Indian wheat scientists adopted Borlaug’s new plant breeding philosophy—that varieties should have as wide an adaptation as possible. But Borlaug and Indian wheat scientists also argued that wide adaptation could be achieved by selecting only plants that did well in high fertility and irrigated environments. Scientists claimed, in many cases erroneously, that widely adapted varieties still produced high yields in marginal, or resource poor, areas. Many people have criticized the green revolution for its unequal spread of benefits, but none of these critiques address wide adaptation—the core tenant held by Indian wheat scientists to justify their focus on highly productive land while ignoring marginal and rainfed agriculture. My dissertation describes Borlaug and the RF's research program in wide adaptation, Borlaug's involvement in the Indian wheat program, and internal debates about wide adaptation and selection under favorable environments among Indian scientists. It argues that scientists leveraged the concept of wide adaptation to justify a particular regime of research focused on high production agriculture, and that the footprints of this regime are still present in Indian agriculture.
Just prior to the green revolution, Indian wheat scientists adopted Borlaug’s new plant breeding philosophy—that varieties should have as wide an adaptation as possible. But Borlaug and Indian wheat scientists also argued that wide adaptation could be achieved by selecting only plants that did well in high fertility and irrigated environments. Scientists claimed, in many cases erroneously, that widely adapted varieties still produced high yields in marginal, or resource poor, areas. Many people have criticized the green revolution for its unequal spread of benefits, but none of these critiques address wide adaptation—the core tenant held by Indian wheat scientists to justify their focus on highly productive land while ignoring marginal and rainfed agriculture. My dissertation describes Borlaug and the RF's research program in wide adaptation, Borlaug's involvement in the Indian wheat program, and internal debates about wide adaptation and selection under favorable environments among Indian scientists. It argues that scientists leveraged the concept of wide adaptation to justify a particular regime of research focused on high production agriculture, and that the footprints of this regime are still present in Indian agriculture.
ContributorsBaranski, Marcin (Author) / Kinzig, Ann P. (Thesis advisor) / Mathur, Prem N. (Committee member) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Sarewitz, Daniel (Committee member) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
How fast is evolution? In this dissertation I document a profound change that occurred around the middle of the 20th century in the way that ecologists conceptualized the temporal and spatial scales of adaptive evolution, through the lens of British plant ecologist Anthony David Bradshaw (1926–2008). In the early 1960s, one prominent ecologist distinguished what he called “ecological time”—around ten generations—from “evolutionary time”— around half of a million years. For most ecologists working in the first half of the 20th century, evolution by natural selection was indeed a slow and plodding process, tangible in its products but not in its processes, and inconsequential for explaining most ecological phenomena. During the 1960s, however, many ecologists began to see evolution as potentially rapid and observable. Natural selection moved from the distant past—a remote explanans for both extant biological diversity and paleontological phenomena—to a measurable, quantifiable mechanism molding populations in real time.
The idea that adaptive evolution could be rapid and highly localized was a significant enabling condition for the emergence of ecological genetics in the second half of the 20th century. Most of what historians know about that conceptual shift and the rise of ecological genetics centers on the work of Oxford zoologist E. B. Ford and his students on polymorphism in Lepidotera, especially industrial melanism in Biston betularia. I argue that ecological genetics in Britain was not the brainchild of an infamous patriarch (Ford), but rather the outgrowth of a long tradition of pastureland research at plant breeding stations in Scotland and Wales, part of a discipline known as “genecology” or “experimental taxonomy.” Bradshaw’s investigative activities between 1948 and 1968 were an outgrowth of the specific brand of plant genecology practiced at the Welsh and Scottish Plant Breeding stations. Bradshaw generated evidence that plant populations with negligible reproductive isolation—separated by just a few meters—could diverge and adapt to contrasting environmental conditions in just a few generations. In Bradshaw’s research one can observe the crystallization of a new concept of rapid adaptive evolution, and the methodological and conceptual transformation of genecology into ecological genetics.
The idea that adaptive evolution could be rapid and highly localized was a significant enabling condition for the emergence of ecological genetics in the second half of the 20th century. Most of what historians know about that conceptual shift and the rise of ecological genetics centers on the work of Oxford zoologist E. B. Ford and his students on polymorphism in Lepidotera, especially industrial melanism in Biston betularia. I argue that ecological genetics in Britain was not the brainchild of an infamous patriarch (Ford), but rather the outgrowth of a long tradition of pastureland research at plant breeding stations in Scotland and Wales, part of a discipline known as “genecology” or “experimental taxonomy.” Bradshaw’s investigative activities between 1948 and 1968 were an outgrowth of the specific brand of plant genecology practiced at the Welsh and Scottish Plant Breeding stations. Bradshaw generated evidence that plant populations with negligible reproductive isolation—separated by just a few meters—could diverge and adapt to contrasting environmental conditions in just a few generations. In Bradshaw’s research one can observe the crystallization of a new concept of rapid adaptive evolution, and the methodological and conceptual transformation of genecology into ecological genetics.
ContributorsPeirson, Bruce Richard Erick (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred D (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Collins, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Systems biology studies complex biological systems. It is an interdisciplinary field, with biologists working with non-biologists such as computer scientists, engineers, chemists, and mathematicians to address research problems applying systems’ perspectives. How these different researchers and their disciplines differently contributed to the advancement of this field over time is a question worth examining. Did systems biology become a systems-oriented science or a biology-oriented science from 1992 to 2013?
This project utilized computational tools to analyze large data sets and interpreted the results from historical and philosophical perspectives. Tools deployed were derived from scientometrics, corpus linguistics, text-based analysis, network analysis, and GIS analysis to analyze more than 9000 articles (metadata and text) on systems biology. The application of these tools to a HPS project represents a novel approach.
The dissertation shows that systems biology has transitioned from a more mathematical, computational, and engineering-oriented discipline focusing on modeling to a more biology-oriented discipline that uses modeling as a means to address real biological problems. Also, the results show that bioengineering and medical research has increased within systems biology. This is reflected in the increase of the centrality of biology-related concepts such as cancer, over time. The dissertation also compares the development of systems biology in China with some other parts of the world, and reveals regional differences, such as a unique trajectory of systems biology in China related to a focus on traditional Chinese medicine.
This dissertation adds to the historiography of modern biology where few studies have focused on systems biology compared with the history of molecular biology and evolutionary biology.
This project utilized computational tools to analyze large data sets and interpreted the results from historical and philosophical perspectives. Tools deployed were derived from scientometrics, corpus linguistics, text-based analysis, network analysis, and GIS analysis to analyze more than 9000 articles (metadata and text) on systems biology. The application of these tools to a HPS project represents a novel approach.
The dissertation shows that systems biology has transitioned from a more mathematical, computational, and engineering-oriented discipline focusing on modeling to a more biology-oriented discipline that uses modeling as a means to address real biological problems. Also, the results show that bioengineering and medical research has increased within systems biology. This is reflected in the increase of the centrality of biology-related concepts such as cancer, over time. The dissertation also compares the development of systems biology in China with some other parts of the world, and reveals regional differences, such as a unique trajectory of systems biology in China related to a focus on traditional Chinese medicine.
This dissertation adds to the historiography of modern biology where few studies have focused on systems biology compared with the history of molecular biology and evolutionary biology.
ContributorsZou, Yawen (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Newfeld, Stuart (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the official guidebook to psychiatric diagnosis in America, currently exempts the recently bereaved from being diagnosed with depression unless their experiences are marked by feelings of extreme worthlessness, significant functional impairment, psychotic symptoms, psychomotor retardation, or suicidal ideation. Ordinary symptoms of depression, such as sleeplessness or loss of appetite, are considered healthy, functional emotional responses to the loss of a loved one. The bereavement exemption is slated for removal in the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, functionally redefining the emotional distress of bereavement as a psychiatric disorder. This study employs genealogical analysis to expose the multiplicity of forces that shape modern psychiatry and the ways that the redefinition of depression functions strategically in the social negotiation of truth and power. Under the guise of etiological and prescriptive neutrality, the redefinition of depression promotes a deeply biological model of psychiatric disorder, a medicalized understanding of human emotion, and a pharmacological approach to the treatment of emotional distress. Through genealogical analysis, this project seeks to enable informed, meaningful ethico-political responses to these developments.
ContributorsMeeth, John (Author) / Edson, Belle (Thesis advisor) / Palazzolo, Kellie (Thesis advisor) / Quinlivan, Raena (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The Committee on Rare and Endangered Wildlife Species (CREWS) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made important and lasting contributions to one of the most significant pieces of environmental legislation in U.S. history: the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). CREWS was a prominent science-advisory body within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) in the 1960s and 1970s, responsible for advising on the development of federal endangered-wildlife policy. The Committee took full advantage of its scientific and political authority by identifying a particular object of conservation--used in the development of the first U.S. list of endangered species--and establishing captive breeding as a primary conservation practice, both of which were written into the ESA and are employed in endangered-species listing and recovery to this day. Despite these important contributions to federal endangered-species practice and policy, CREWS has received little attention from historians of science or policy scholars. This dissertation is an empirical history of CREWS that draws on primary sources from the Smithsonian Institution (SI) Archives and a detailed analysis of the U.S. congressional record. The SI sources (including the records of the Bird and Mammal Laboratory, an FWS staffed research group stationed at the Smithsonian Institution) reveal the technical and political details of CREWS's advisory work. The congressional record provides evidence showing significant contributions of CREWS and its advisors and supervisors to the legislative process that resulted in the inclusion of key CREWS-inspired concepts and practices in the ESA. The foundational concepts and practices of the CREWS's research program drew from a number of areas currently of interest to several sub-disciplines that investigate the complex relationship between science and society. Among them are migratory bird conservation, systematics inspired by the Evolutionary Synthesis, species-focused ecology, captive breeding, reintroduction, and species transplantation. The following pages describe the role played by CREWS in drawing these various threads together and codifying them as endangered-species policy in the ESA.
ContributorsWinston, Johnny (Author) / Hamilton, Andrew (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Committee member) / Henson, Pamela (Committee member) / Collins, James (Committee member) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Biology textbooks are everybody's business. In accepting the view that texts are created with specific social goals in mind, I examined 127 twentieth-century high school biology textbooks for representations of animal development. Paragraphs and visual representations were coded and placed in one of four scientific literacy categories: descriptive, investigative, nature of science, and human embryos, technology, and society (HETS). I then interpreted how embryos and fetuses have been socially constructed for students. I also examined the use of Haeckel's embryo drawings to support recapitulation and evolutionary theory. Textbooks revealed that publication of Haeckel's drawings was influenced by evolutionists and anti-evolutionists in the 1930s, 1960s, and the 1990s. Haeckel's embryos continue to persist in textbooks because they "safely" illustrate similarities between embryos and are rarely discussed in enough detail to understand comparative embryology's role in the support of evolution. Certain events coincided with changes in how embryos were presented: (a) the growth of the American Medical Association (AMA) and an increase in birth rates (1950s); (b) the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and public acceptance of birth control methods (1960s); (c) Roe vs. Wade (1973); (d) in vitro fertilization and Lennart Nilsson's photographs (1970s); (e) prenatal technology and fetocentrism (1980s); and (f) genetic engineering and Science-Technology-Society (STS) curriculum (1980s and 1990s). By the end of the twentieth century, changing conceptions, research practices, and technologies all combined to transform the nature of biological development. Human embryos went from a highly descriptive, static, and private object to that of sometimes contentious public figure. I contend that an ignored source for helping move embryos into the public realm is schoolbooks. Throughout the 1900s, authors and publishers accomplished this by placing biology textbook embryos and fetuses in several different contexts--biological, technological, experimental, moral, social, and legal.
ContributorsWellner, Karen L (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Ellison, Karin D. (Committee member) / Robert, Jason S. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
The goal of science education in the United States is promoting scientific literacy for all students. The goal necessitates understanding the nature of science-what science is as a body of knowledge, explanatory tool, and human enterprise. The history of science is one of the most long-standing pedagogical methods of getting at the nature of science. But scientific literacy also encompasses education in scientific inquiry, and in the relationships among science, technology, and society (STS), as well as fact and theory-based subject-matter content. Since the beginning of the standards-based reform movement (circa 1983) many attempts have been made to codify the components of scientific literacy. National level voluntary standards have lead to state standards. Under No Child Left Behind, those state standards have become integral parts of the educational system. Standards are political in nature, yet play the role of intended curriculum. I examine one thread of scientific literacy, the history and nature of science, from its beginnings in science education through the political perturbations of the last thirty years. This examination of "the history and nature of science" through the history of standards-based reform sheds light on our changing conception of scientific literacy.
ContributorsLawrence, Cera Ruth (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Luft, Julie (Committee member) / LePore, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Computational tools in the digital humanities often either work on the macro-scale, enabling researchers to analyze huge amounts of data, or on the micro-scale, supporting scholars in the interpretation and analysis of individual documents. The proposed research system that was developed in the context of this dissertation ("Quadriga System") works to bridge these two extremes by offering tools to support close reading and interpretation of texts, while at the same time providing a means for collaboration and data collection that could lead to analyses based on big datasets. In the field of history of science, researchers usually use unstructured data such as texts or images. To computationally analyze such data, it first has to be transformed into a machine-understandable format. The Quadriga System is based on the idea to represent texts as graphs of contextualized triples (or quadruples). Those graphs (or networks) can then be mathematically analyzed and visualized. This dissertation describes two projects that use the Quadriga System for the analysis and exploration of texts and the creation of social networks. Furthermore, a model for digital humanities education is proposed that brings together students from the humanities and computer science in order to develop user-oriented, innovative tools, methods, and infrastructures.
ContributorsDamerow, Julia (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Hooper, Wallace (Committee member) / Renn, Jürgen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation is an historical analysis of the science of human origins, paleoanthropology, examining the intersection of science and culture around fossil human ancestors (hominins) over the last century and a half. Focusing on fossils as scientific objects, this work examines three controversial fossils from the science’s history asking, how do fossils formulate, challenge, and reconfigure notions of what it means to be human? The introduction reviews the historiography of paleoanthropology and the gaps that exist in the literature. Chapter two examines the first case study, the type specimen of Homo neanderthalensis, known as the Feldhofer Neanderthal, providing a biography of the object from its discovery in Germany in 1856 until its species designation in 1864. Chapter three briefly links the Neanderthal’s story in time and space to the next fossil’s story. Chapter four picks up the story of paleoanthropology in 1924 in South Africa, with the discovery and initial analysis of a specimen nicknamed the Taungs Baby, which was labeled a new hominin species, Australopithecus africanus. Chapter five is another brief chapter connecting the Taungs Baby story in time and space to the final specimen examined in this work at the end of the century. Chapter six examines the final case study, a specimen discovered in 2003 in Indonesia, designated a new species named Homo floresiensis and nicknamed the Hobbit. Through comparing contrasting, and connecting the stories of these three specimens, three major conclusions emerge about the field. First, the fossils themselves play an important role in knowledge production about the hominin past. Second, scientific practice shaped both interpretations of fossils and larger questions of what it means to be human. Third, the scientific practice is itself shaped by local culture, which continually interacts with attempts to establish a global perspective about the human past. The perspective gleaned through the eyes of these three fossils therefore reveals the way shifting, rather than eternally true, claims are embedded in culture and intertwined with the perspectives of the humans conducting the science.
ContributorsMadison, Paige (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Kimbel, William (Committee member) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Hurlbut, James (Committee member) / Laubichler, Mandred (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Astrobiology, as it is known by official statements and agencies, is “the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe” (NASA Astrobiology Insitute , 2018). This definition should suit a dictionary, but it may not accurately describe the research and motivations of practicing astrobiologists. Furthermore, it does little to characterize the context in which astrobiologists work. The aim of this project is to explore various social network structures within a large body of astrobiological research, intending to both further define the current motivations of astrobiological research and to lend context to these motivations. In this effort, two Web of Science queries were assembled to search for two contrasting corpora related to astrobiological research. The first search, for astrobiology and its close synonym, exobiology, returned a corpus of 3,229 journal articles. The second search, which includes the first and supplements it with further search terms (see Table 1) returned a corpus of 19,017 journal articles. The metadata for these articles were then used to construct various networks. The resulting networks describe an astrobiology that is well entrenched in other related fields, showcasing the interdisciplinarity of astrobiology in its emergence. The networks also showcase the entrenchment of astrobiology in the sociological context in which it is conducted—namely, its relative dependence on the United States government, which should prompt further discussion amongst astrobiology researchers.
ContributorsBromley, Megan Rachel (Author) / Manfred, Laubichler (Thesis director) / Sara, Walker (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12