Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Show: 20 | 50 | 100
Results 1 - 20 de 22
Filter
1.
Hist Psychol ; 2024 Jun 03.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38829334

ABSTRACT

The 1960s and 1970s saw the overt "politicization" of the American Psychological Association as an organization. Politics in this context carried a dual meaning referring to both political lobbying to promote the interests of psychology as a health profession and grassroots political action to advance social justice causes. In the years between the passage of the Community Mental Health Act (1963) and the Vail Conference on levels and patterns of professional training in psychology (1973), these two forms of politics were intertwined. The first significant political mobilization of professional psychologists in the postwar era occurred over the staffing of community mental health centers in the mid-1960s. These creations of the Great Society social welfare programs provided a platform for pursuing bold experiments in structural interventions to improve the lives and mental health of minoritized Americans and came to serve as hubs for the Black psychology movement of the early 1970s. This alternative model for the profession received careful consideration at the Vail Conference. However, a different relationship between politics and the profession crystalized by 1980. The politics of professionalism in psychology took the form lobby on behalf of practitioners working independent practices to receive reimbursement from third-party health insurance providers. This shift in the political economy of mental health has obscured this earlier, communitarian moment in American psychology. The racial economy of psychology's professionalization was structural, but not inevitable. It resulted from a series of historical choices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

2.
J Hist Behav Sci ; 58(4): 365-382, 2022 Oct.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35901240

ABSTRACT

This article examines the duality of the Black psychology movement in the United States as both a distinctly American and a postcolonial approach to mental health. The Westside Community Mental Health Center in San Francisco served as the organizational hub for the Association for Black Psychologists (ABPsi) in the 1970s. The Westside clinicians understood forensic psychology as a kind of preventative care as California, more so than any other state, was seduced by the eugenic dream of human improvement through therapeutic interventions in schools and prisons intended to correct the wayward deviant. Their community's mental wellbeing required dismantling the interlinked disciplinary apparatus which disproportionately surveyed, tracked, and confined young Black men. These psychologists mounted a legal challenge to the use of intelligence testing to sort Black children in schools, seeking to replace standardized tests with "dynamic assessments" inspired by Israeli psychologist Reuven Feuerstein's work with refugee children. They consulted on the voir dire process in the highly politicized Angela Davis trial to minimize the presence of racially prejudiced jurors. They offered expert testimony on the psychological damage of solitary confinement on behalf of prison activists. The Westside team artfully developed and deployed the psychological concept of "bias" in their confrontations with local manifestations of the American carceral state. In their theoretical writings, these psychologists reflected upon their historical positionality, understanding themselves as products of the decolonial moment. Bay Area encounters with Third World internationalism, the Black Panther Party (BPP), the Nation of Islam, and community-led substance abuse programs shaped clinical care at Westside and inspired the Afrocentric consciousness many came to espouse. ABPsi initially had a significant impact on the historically white American Psychological Association's training practices. However, the two organizations split over the IQ controversy at a moment when psychologists became increasingly enmeshed in the criminal justice system.


Subject(s)
Expert Testimony , Mental Health , Humans , Male , Child , United States , Prejudice , Black People , San Francisco , Psychology
3.
J Med Radiat Sci ; 69(3): 309-317, 2022 Sep.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35475599

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Interprofessional education (IPE) is implemented throughout the curricula of student healthcare professions as it is understood to provide positive impact on patient outcomes in the clinical environment. There are different methods to provide IPE such as through online learning or traditional face-to-face methods. However, there is a lack of research surrounding the use of Online Learning Environments (OLEs) to teach IPE. METHODS: In a pilot study, seventy-one undergraduate radiography students and twenty Master of Pharmacy students engaged in an ethical scenario using the OLE, Values Exchange (Vx). Following the activity, students were invited to complete an open-ended response question. Fourteen students responded and these data were used for qualitative analysis. RESULTS: A thematic analysis of the students' open-ended responses found the emergence of three major themes, namely; understanding the roles of other healthcare professionals, developing self-reflection skills and, preparing for the clinical environment. Students suggested that additional time allocated for undertaking the study would benefit their engagement in the activity. Students would benefit from added engagement in the Vx task in both the short and long term for IPE. CONCLUSION: Students are receptive in utilising contemporary approaches such as OLEs in furthering their IPE. Positive interpretations and suggestions by both radiography and pharmacy students in this study demonstrate how Vx as an OLE teaching tool can be used effectively. OLEs can overcome barriers that exist in face-to-face education experiences. OLEs should be considered for greater use within academic curricula of healthcare professions, but only if they have been evaluated for effectiveness.


Subject(s)
Education, Distance , Students, Health Occupations , Humans , Interprofessional Education , Interprofessional Relations , Pilot Projects
4.
J Mass Spectrom ; 56(6): e4729, 2021 Jun.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33942437

ABSTRACT

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE), a neurological disease resulting from liver failure, is difficult to manage and its causes are unclear. Bile acids have been postulated to be involved in the provenance and progression of various diseases including HE. Hence, the characterization of bile acid profiles in the brains of subjects with and without liver failure can provide important clues for the potential treatment of HE. Nanoflow ultra-performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization ion mobility mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-IM-MS) is a highly sensitive method for detection of specific molecules, such as bile acids in brain samples, at biologically relevant concentrations. We used UPLC-ESI-IM-MS to characterize bile acid profiles in brain samples from seven "healthy" control rodents and 22 "diseased" rodents with liver failure (i.e., induced HE). An isomer of trihydroxycholanoyl-taurine was detected in brain tissue samples from both rats and mice with induced HE; however, this isomer was not detected in the brains of healthy rats and mice. Our findings were confirmed by comparing IM arrival times (AT), exact mass measurements (m/z), and mass spectral fragmentation patterns of the experimentally observed suspected species to standards of trihydroxycholanoyl-taurine isomers. Moreover, In Silico Fractionation was employed to provide an additional analytical dimension to verify bile acid identifications.


Subject(s)
Hepatic Encephalopathy/metabolism , Taurine/analysis , Taurine/metabolism , Animals , Bile Acids and Salts/analysis , Bile Acids and Salts/metabolism , Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid , Isomerism , Liver/chemistry , Liver/metabolism , Male , Mice , Mice, Inbred C57BL , Rats , Rats, Sprague-Dawley , Rodentia , Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization
5.
J Mass Spectrom ; 55(4): e4475, 2020 Apr.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31726477

ABSTRACT

A multimodal workflow for mass spectrometry imaging was developed that combines MALDI imaging with protein identification and quantification by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Thin tissue sections were analyzed by MALDI imaging, and the regions of interest (ROI) were identified using a smoothing and edge detection procedure. A midinfrared laser at 3-µm wavelength was used to remove the ROI from the brain tissue section after MALDI mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI MSI). The captured material was processed using a single-pot solid-phase-enhanced sample preparation (SP3) method and analyzed by LC-MS/MS using ion mobility (IM) enhanced data independent acquisition (DIA) to identify and quantify proteins; more than 600 proteins were identified. Using a modified database that included isoform and the post-translational modifications chain, loss of the initial methionine, and acetylation, 14 MALDI MSI peaks were identified. Comparison of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways of the identified proteins was achieved through an evolutionary relationships classification system.


Subject(s)
Brain/diagnostic imaging , Laser Therapy/methods , Proteins/analysis , Proteomics/methods , Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization/methods , Animals , Brain/metabolism , Chromatography, Liquid , Proteins/metabolism , Rats , Tandem Mass Spectrometry
6.
Anal Chim Acta ; 1034: 102-109, 2018 Nov 30.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30193623

ABSTRACT

Infrared laser ablation microsampling was used with data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and ion mobility-enhanced data-independent acquisition (HDMSE) for mass spectrometry based bottom-up proteomics analysis of rat brain tissue. Results from HDMSE and DDA analyses of the 12 laser ablation sampled tissue sections showed that HDMSE consistently identified approximately seven times more peptides and four times more proteins than DDA. To evaluate the impact of ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) peak congestion on HDMSE and DDA analysis, whole tissue digests from rat brain were analyzed at six different UPLC separation times. Analogous to results from laser ablated samples, HDMSE analyses of whole tissue digests yielded about four times more proteins identified than DDA for all six UPLC separation times.


Subject(s)
Brain Chemistry , Infrared Rays , Laser Therapy , Tissue Extracts/chemistry , Animals , Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid , Rats , Tandem Mass Spectrometry
7.
Analyst ; 143(11): 2574-2586, 2018 May 29.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29725669

ABSTRACT

High resolving power ion mobility (IM) allows for accurate characterization of complex mixtures in high-throughput IM mass spectrometry (IM-MS) experiments. We previously demonstrated that pure component IM-MS data can be extracted from IM unresolved post-IM/collision-induced dissociation (CID) MS data using automated ion mobility deconvolution (AIMD) software [Matthew Brantley, Behrooz Zekavat, Brett Harper, Rachel Mason, and Touradj Solouki, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom., 2014, 25, 1810-1819]. In our previous reports, we utilized a quadrupole ion filter for m/z-isolation of IM unresolved monoisotopic species prior to post-IM/CID MS. Here, we utilize a broadband IM-MS deconvolution strategy to remove the m/z-isolation requirement for successful deconvolution of IM unresolved peaks. Broadband data collection has throughput and multiplexing advantages; hence, elimination of the ion isolation step reduces experimental run times and thus expands the applicability of AIMD to high-throughput bottom-up proteomics. We demonstrate broadband IM-MS deconvolution of two separate and unrelated pairs of IM unresolved isomers (viz., a pair of isomeric hexapeptides and a pair of isomeric trisaccharides) in a simulated complex mixture. Moreover, we show that broadband IM-MS deconvolution improves high-throughput bottom-up characterization of a proteolytic digest of rat brain tissue. To our knowledge, this manuscript is the first to report successful deconvolution of pure component IM and MS data from an IM-assisted data-independent analysis (DIA) or HDMSE dataset.

8.
Chem Cent J ; 12(1): 27, 2018 Mar 13.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29536204

ABSTRACT

A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was validated for the determination of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the FDA list of 93 harmful or potentially harmful constituents of mainstream cigarette smoke (MCS). Target analytes were extracted from total particulate matter using accelerated solvent extraction with a toluene/ethanol solvent mixture. Matrix artefacts were removed by two-step solid-phase extraction process. Three different GC-MS systems [GC-MS (single quadrupole), GC-MS/MS (triple quadrupole) and GC-HRMS (high resolution, magnetic sector)] using the same separation conditions were compared for the analysis of MCS of 3R4F Kentucky reference cigarettes generated under ISO and intense smoking regimes. The high mass resolution (m/∆m ≥ 10,000) and associated selectivity of detection by GC-HRMS provided the highest quality data for the target PAHs in MCS. Owing to the HR data acquisition mode enabling measurement of accurate mass, limits of quantification for PAHs were 5 to 15-fold lower for GC-HRMS than for GC-MS/MS and GC-MS. The presented study illustrates that the optimised sample preparation strategy followed by GC-HRMS analysis provides a fit-for-purpose and robust analytical approach allowing measurement of PAHs at (ultra)low concentrations in MCS. Furthermore, the study illustrates the importance and benefits of robust sample preparation and clean-up to compensate for limited selectivity when low-resolution MS is used.

9.
Anal Chim Acta ; 941: 49-60, 2016 Oct 19.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27692378

ABSTRACT

Peak broadening in ion mobility (IM) is a relatively predictable process and abnormally broad peaks can be indicative of the presence of unresolved species. Here, we introduce a new ion mobility peak fitting (IM_FIT) software package for automated and systematic determination of traveling wave ion mobility (TWIM) unresolved species. To identify IM unresolved species, the IM_FIT software generates a trend line by plotting ions' mobility peak widths as a function of their arrival times. Utilizing user-defined thresholds, IM_FIT allows for automated and rapid detection of ions that deviate from the peak width trend line. To demonstrate the advantages of IM_FIT for automated detection of IM unresolved species, IM-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) data from a sample mixture containing polypropylene glycol and multiple peptides were analyzed. A total of 14 out of the 34 observed singly-charged IM peaks above 5% relative abundance (i.e., signal-to-noise ratios above ∼200) were tagged as potentially co-eluting ions by IM_FIT. Subsequently, the 14 IM peaks tagged as potentially unresolved (presumably, peaks corresponding to co-eluting compounds), were further analyzed by automated IM deconvolution (AIMD), liquid chromatography-IM-MS (LC-IM-MS), and/or ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry. Using the aforementioned techniques, more than 85% of the tagged IM peaks (12 out of 14) were confirmed to contain co-eluting ions. As an additional new finding, IM_FIT facilitated the discovery of an unexpected sequence-scrambled y-type fragment ion.


Subject(s)
Mass Spectrometry , Statistics as Topic/methods , Automation , Software , User-Computer Interface
10.
Hist Psychol ; 19(2): 141-153, 2016 May.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27100927

ABSTRACT

Launched in 2010, the Google Books Ngram Viewer offers a novel means of tracing cultural change over time. This digital tool offers exciting possibilities for cultural psychology by rendering questions about variation across historical time more quantitative. Psychologists have begun to use the viewer to bolster theories about a historical shift in the United States from a more collectivist to individualist form of selfhood and society. I raise 4 methodological cautions about the Ngram Viewer's use among psychologists: (a) the extent to which print culture can be taken to represent culture as a whole, (b) the difference between viewing the past in terms of trends versus events, (c) assumptions about the stability of a word's meaning over time, and (d) inconsistencies in the scales and ranges used to measure change over time. The aim is to foster discussion about the standards of evidence needed for incorporating historical big data into empirical research.


Subject(s)
Culture , Ethnopsychology/history , Vocabulary , Books , Ethnopsychology/methods , History, 16th Century , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Internet , Libraries, Digital/statistics & numerical data , United States
11.
Hist Psychol ; 18(3): 223-37, 2015 Aug.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26375152

ABSTRACT

In our introduction to this special issue on the histories of feminism, gender, sexuality, and the psy-disciplines, we propose the tripartite framework of "feminism and/in/as psychology" to conceptualize the dynamics of their conjoined trajectories and relationship to gender and sexuality from the late 19th through the late 20th centuries. "Feminism and psychology" highlights the tensions between a political movement and a scientific discipline and the efforts of participants in each to problematize the other. "Feminism in psychology" refers to those historical moments when self-identified feminists intervened in psychology to alter its content, methodologies, and populations. We propose, as have others, that these interventions predate the 1970s, the period most commonly associated with the "founding" of feminist psychology. Finally, "feminism as psychology/psychology as feminism" explores the shared ground between psychology and feminism-the conceptual, methodological, and (more rarely) epistemological moments when psychology and feminism made common cause. We suggest that the traffic between feminism and psychology has been persistent, continuous, and productive, despite taking different historically and geographically contingent forms.


Subject(s)
Feminism/history , Gender Identity , Politics , Psychology/history , Science/history , Sexuality/history , Female , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans
12.
Analyst ; 140(20): 6886-96, 2015 Oct 21.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26222599

ABSTRACT

Existing instrumental resolving power limitations in ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) often restrict adequate characterization of unresolved or co-eluting chemical isomers. Recently, we introduced a novel chemometric deconvolution approach that utilized post-IM collision-induced dissociation (CID) mass spectrometry (MS) data to extract "pure" IM profiles and construct CID mass spectra of individual components from a mixture containing two IM-overlapped components [J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom., 2012, 23, 1873-1884]. In this manuscript we extend the capabilities of the IM-MS deconvolution methodology and demonstrate the utility of energy resolved IM deconvolution for successful characterization of ternary and quaternary isomer mixtures with overlapping IM profiles. Furthermore, we show that the success of IM-MS deconvolution is a collision-energy dependent process where different isomers can be identified at various ion fragmentation collision-energies. Details on how to identify a single collision-energy or suitable collision-energy ranges for successful characterization of isomer mixtures are discussed. To confirm the validity of the proposed approach, deconvoluted IM and MS spectra from IM overlapped analyte mixtures are compared to IM and MS data from individually run mixture components. Criteria for "successful" deconvolution of overlapping IM profiles and extraction of their corresponding pure mass spectra are discussed.

13.
Isis ; 106(1): 121-49, 2015 Mar.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26027310

ABSTRACT

In our current moment, there is considerable interest in networks, in how people and things are connected. This essay outlines one approach that brings together insights from actor-network theory, social network analysis, and digital history to interpret past scientific activity. Multispecies network analysis (MNA) is a means of understanding the historical interactions among scientists, institutions, and preferred experimental animals. A reexamination of studies of sexual behavior funded by the Committee for Research in Problems of Sex between the 1920s and the 1940s demonstrates the applicability of MNA to clarifying the relations that sustained this area of psychology. The measures of weighted degree and betweenness can highlight which nodes (whether organisms or institutions) were particularly "central" to this network. Rats featured as the animals most widely studied during this period, but the analysis also reveals distinct institutional and disciplinary cultures where different species were favored as either surrogates for humans or representatives of more general biological groups.


Subject(s)
Biomedical Research/history , Models, Psychological , Psychology/history , Sexual Behavior, Animal , Animals , History, 20th Century , Humans , Models, Animal , Models, Theoretical , Rats , Research Support as Topic/history , Sexual Behavior , Social Support , United States
15.
Hist Psychol ; 15(3): 217-27, 2012 Aug.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23397912

ABSTRACT

The laboratory rat is an important, if neglected, actor in the history of sexuality. From the 1920s and 1940s, a series of reports emerged from American psychology laboratories detailing instances of spontaneous "reversals" in sexual behavior within their rat colonies. Frank Beach, then at the American Museum of Natural History, developed a model for the "nature" of sexuality that stressed that all organisms had the neurological capacity to perform behavior of either sex. Beach enrolled his emerging specialty, behavioral endocrinology, in support of Alfred Kinsey's controversial findings. Both scientists highlighted the multitude of potential sexual outlets pursued by organisms and the prevalence of nonprocreative sexual behaviors. This article draws on elements of queer theory to elucidate how the landscape of the comparative psychologist's rat colony with its organisms, apparatus, practices, and rituals served an integral function in the redefinition of sex in the 20th century. Queer theory calls into question easy proclamations about what counts as natural or normal by drawing attention to the presumed binaries that frequently govern the classification of sex. The maintenance of the colony required the careful management of sex with its obstruction devices, hypersexualized indicator animals, segregation cages, and castrated rats injected with hormones. Moreover, Beach's own writings indicate how his own domestic life became entangled with the sex lives of the rats. An irony animates this Rockefeller-funded sexology: Research funded to elucidate the mechanisms underlying heterosexuality came to question its innateness and universality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

16.
Hist Human Sci ; 24(2): 138-54, 2011.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-21809510

ABSTRACT

This article offers a historical analysis of the relationship between the practice of participant-observation among American sociologists and Erving Goffman's dramaturgical model of the self. He was a social scientist who privileged ethnography in the field over the laboratory experiment, the survey questionnaire, or the mental test. His goal was a natural history of communication among humans. Rather than rely upon standardizing technologies for measurement, Goffman tried to obtain accurate recordings of human behavior through secretive observations. During the 1950s, he conducted three major studies as a participant-observer, disguised from those studied through insincere performances. As originally presented, his dramaturgical theory did not draw upon the theater as the governing metaphor, but rather the confidence game. It is suggested that Goffman's writings exemplify what Gerd Gigerenzer calls the tools-to-theories heuristic. Goffman's depiction of the confidence man's behavior closely mirrored how he and his fellow sociologists described the practice of participant-observation. Both were represented as embedded and attentive yet coolly detached observers skilled at playing different roles as the situation necessitated. The similarities between his own professional behavior and the activities of the confidence man may have suggested to Goffman the latter as a model for human nature.


Subject(s)
Anthropology, Cultural , Observation , Population Groups , Social Behavior , Sociology , Anthropology, Cultural/education , Anthropology, Cultural/history , History, 20th Century , Human Characteristics , Humans , Population Groups/ethnology , Population Groups/history , Research/education , Research/history , Social Behavior/history , Social Sciences/education , Social Sciences/history , Sociology/education , Sociology/history
17.
Hist Psychol ; 11(3): 145-163, 2008 Aug.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-19048974

ABSTRACT

Amy E. Tanner pursued a series of ventures on the margins of the discipline of psychology from 1895 through the 1910s. As a midwesterner and a woman, she found herself denied opportunities at both research universities and elite women's colleges, spending the most visible phase of her career as G. Stanley Hall's assistant at Clark University. A narrative of Tanner's life furnishes more than a glimpse at the challenges faced by women scholars in the past. As an investigator engaged with the debate over the mental variability of the sexes, an active class passer in the name of social reform, and a spiritualist debunker, her broad interests illuminate how broadly the proper scope of the new psychology could be constituted. Throughout her writing, Tanner offered an embedded, situated account of knowledge production.


Subject(s)
Psychology/history , Female , Gender Identity , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Massachusetts , United States , Universities/history , Women, Working/history
18.
J Hist Behav Sci ; 43(4): 379-99, 2007.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-17912710

ABSTRACT

Starting in the 1870s, American jurists deciding cases of trademark infringement began advancing arguments that the ordinary purchaser was an unwary one, easily deceived by imitations. Embedded within their legal decisions was a vision of the typical consumers' habitual behavior and cognitive ability. In response to legal critics who argued that the presumed psychology of the consumer was unevenly deployed, applied psychologists developed laboratory-based experiments and scales for determining the likelihood that the "average" purchaser would be confused. Although these psychologists failed in their goal of securing regular legal patronage, this commercial context and the resulting experiments were constitutive of the delineation of "recognition" as a distinct mental process. Furthermore, this case study complicates the scholarly consensus about the role of standardization and personal responsibility in the liberal administration of mass society.


Subject(s)
Commerce , Community Participation/psychology , Consumer Behavior/economics , Government Regulation , Psychology, Applied , Social Control, Formal , Community Participation/legislation & jurisprudence , Health Services Research , Humans , Jurisprudence , United States
19.
J Hist Behav Sci ; 43(2): 159-75, 2007.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-17421028

ABSTRACT

This article reconstructs the recurring themes in the career of Joseph Jastrow, both inside and outside the laboratory. His psychology of deception provides the bridge between his experimental and popular pursuits. Furthermore, Jastrow's career illustrates the complex ways in which scientific psychology and pragmatist philosophy operated within the constraints of a moral economy deeply marked by notions of "race." Psychological investigations of deception were grafted onto two of the human sciences' leading tools: the evolutionary narrative and the statistical analysis of populations. Such associations abetted the racialization of the acts of deceiving and being deceived. These connections also were used to craft moral lessons about how individuals ought to behave in relationship to the aggregate population and natural selection's endowment.


Subject(s)
Deception , Eugenics/history , Psychology/history , Racial Groups/psychology , Behavioral Research/history , History, 20th Century , Humans , Morals , Observation , Philosophy/history , Prejudice , Psychology/ethics , Racial Groups/genetics , United States
20.
Isis ; 97(4): 659-77, 2006 Dec.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-17367004

ABSTRACT

This essay presents a historical epistemology of the nineteenth-century controversy concerning a scientific hoax, the Cardiff giant. My focus is on the shifting meanings given to the giant, which were based on epistemologies derived from scientific authority, religious belief, and market relations. In 1869 a farmer in Cardiff, New York, claimed to have discovered the fossilized remains of a prehistoric, perhaps biblical, giant on his property. While some scientists stressed the need to cooperate with commercial showmen, enthusiasm for the giant incited the ire of others, who sought to debunk it and the culture that sustained it. Drawing on local newspaper reports, memoirs, nineteenth-century exposés, and publicity materials associated with the giant's display, I link the episode to the history of popular and scientific observation. The giant was a particularly troubling spectacle because as an object of inquiry it blurred the modern boundaries separating nature, society, and religion.


Subject(s)
Culture , Deception , Fossils , Gigantism/history , Religion and Science , Scientific Misconduct/history , History, 20th Century , Humans , New York
SELECTION OF CITATIONS
SEARCH DETAIL
...