AAAS Sections

History and Philosophy of Science (L)

Letter From the Section President

This is an update on Section L from your new chair. Thanks to all of you who attended the section meeting in Washington this February, and especially to those of you who organized or spoke in sessions. And congratulations and thanks especially to Larry Principe for giving an absolutely superb Sarton Lecture, which led the Economist's meeting coverage (see http://www.economist.com/node/18226821)

Remember the process of proposing sessions for the 2012 meeting in Vancouver, is underway with a 26 April 2011 deadline. The meeting theme is "Flattening the World: Building the 21st Century Global Knowledge Society." To submit a session, see http://www.aaas.org/meetings/2012/program/symposia/submit/

For section news, please be sure and check out the section website. The approach here is simple, and we are open to suggestions for improvements that do not demand a lot of upkeep. http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/organization/sections/history/

AAAS has a new blog related to HPS and edited by Manfred Laubichler at Arizona State (see http://www.aaasmember.org/blogs/scientia). If you wish to contribute, please contact manfred.laubichler@asu.edu. The AAAS invited proposals for blog pages, and Manfred's was chosen. This has attracted some attention as did our April 1 webinar on what history of science has to say to science. For more information on that webinar, see http://membercentral.aaas.org/multimedia/webinars/historys-role-science

The section website includes an announcement that our two-term excellent Secretary, Jonathan Coopersmith, will step down at the close of the 2012 meeting. We are selecting a new secretary for this important role. Interested parties should contact me before 15 April.

The entire section thanks Alan Rocke for his outstanding 3-year service as section chair-elect, chair, and retiring chair. Congratulations to Jed Buchwald as our new Chair-Elect. Richard Creath is retiring chair, and the other officers are posted on the section website.

Also, congratulations to our newly-inducted Fellows: Davis Baird, Jed Buchwald, John Dupre, Diana Kormos-Buchwald, and Thomas Nickles. We were able to nominate so many Fellows this year because the section presented our quota of 2, and we also nominated 3 more through the process of nomination by 3 Fellows. Please note that those nominations are due to Jonathan Coopersmith very soon: http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/fellows/

The history of science is now facing significant cuts at the National Science Foundation. As is the case in any time of trouble, we are presented now with an opportunity to demonstrate the value of the history of science, not only to the core mission of NSF, but also to society in general. Jay Malone, the executive secretary of the History of Science Society, asks us to send him examples of how the history of science benefits the societies in which we live. For more information, please see http://www.hssonline.org/publications/Newsletter2011/January-inside.html.

One last note: Thanks to the generous donations of a section member, we have had funds to support graduate students presenting posters at the annual meeting. While it is not our culture to present posters, it's a valuable experience. Please encourage your students to apply for 2012.

Thanks everybody for your participation. This section may be small compared to the huge ones like biological sciences, but we are substantive and have made a strong and important presence at the AAAS meeting and in the activities of the Society. Please entice your colleagues to join in the fun.

Cheers,
Jane Maienschein
Maienschein@asu.edu