Technoscientific control of nature: The ultimate paradox.

The current interlinked environmental and socioeconomic global crises constitute the gravest threat to humanity's well-being, indeed survival, today. Studies of the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of the various elements of these crises-including accelerating environmental degradation, unfettered capitalist technoscientific/industrial expansion, overpopulation, and overconsumption-are plentiful. Also well-known is the influence of Francis Bacon's writings, particularly The Advancement of Learning (1605), Novum Organon (1620), and the utopian New Atlantis (1627), on the development of empiricism and the modern scientific method as well as the reform and organization of scientific research. Bacon's significance for the founding of the Royal Society of London (1660) and for the plan and structure of the Encyclopedie (1751-1772), coupled with his oft-cited aphoristic injunctions to study nature to control/dominate it, are staples in the lore and justification of technoscience. I argue that the enduring appeal of so-called Baconianism derives, in part, from a fundamental misappropriation of certain of Bacon's original ideas. Specifically, the complex ethical and religious framework within which Bacon situated his vision of scientific and technological development was discarded (or ignored) so that, by the early decades of the 18th century, Baconianism had come to be understood almost exclusively for its utilitarian role in society. This deracinated version became the familiar trope of technoscience's unlimited potential to transform nature (including human nature and behavior) in the service of an ideology of industrial/consumerist expansion since then. Linkage between the history of science/technology and addictive consumerism, apparent by the close of the 19th century, has been insufficiently examined. Such addictive consumerist behavior and continued virtually unregulated industrialization and production, were effectively removed from ethical scrutiny and a high degree of material acquisition and personal/societal rapaciousness became the norm rather than the exception in most countries. I suggest that further historical deconstruction of this denuded Baconianism will yield important insights in the search for viable solutions to the present global socioenvironmental crises.

Resister's logic: the anti-vaccination arguments of Alfred Russel Wallace and their role in the debates over compulsory vaccination in England, 1870-1907.

In the 1880s, Alfred Russel Wallace, the celebrated co-discoverer of natural selection, launched himself into the centre of a politicised and polarised debate over the unpopular compulsory vaccination laws in England. Wallace never wavered in his belief that smallpox vaccination was useless and likely dangerous. Six years before his death, the anti-vaccinationists successfully secured a conscience clause that effectively dismantled the compulsory vaccination laws. Several other important Victorian scientists joined Wallace in the fight to repeal compulsory vaccination arguing that widely held views on the effectiveness of vaccination and evidence for immunity were inconclusive in the light of (then) contemporary standards of evidence. This article situates Wallace's anti-vaccination logic within the broader matrix of sociopolitical and cultural reform movements of the late Victorian era. Additionally it provides the first detailed analysis of his critique of vaccination science, in particular the role statistics played in his arguments. In this period, both pro-vaccinationists and anti-vaccinationists invested great efforts in collating and analysing statistical data sets that either supported or refuted the claims of vaccination's effectiveness. While each side presented 'controlled' case studies to support their assertions, without an unambiguous test to measure or demonstrate vaccination's effectiveness, the anti-vaccinationists continued to mount credible statistical critiques of vaccination science.