Practice and politics in Japanese science: Hitoshi Kihara and the formation of a genetics discipline.
详细信息
- 作者：Iida ; Kaori.
- 学历：Doctor
- 年：2012
- 导师：Kingsland,Sharon,eadvisorKargon,Robertecommittee memberMcCarty,Richardecommittee memberKim,Dong-Wonecommittee memberTodes,Danielecommittee member
- 毕业院校：The Johns Hopkins University
- Department：History of Science and Technology.
- ISBN：9781267912978
- CBH：3536070
- Country：USA
- 语种：English
- FileSize：16220487
- Pages：345
文摘
Hitoshi Kihara 1893-1986) led the development of genetics in Japan and was internationally known for his wheat studies. His career from the 1920s to 1950s illustrates the intellectual approach that Japanese biologists brought to genetics,the institutional growth that supported the development of the discipline in Japan,and the socio-political context that affected the disciplines development. This period includes three distinct stages when the political context of science was very different: the prewar period 1920-1936) when travel abroad and communication with foreign scientists was normal,the wartime period 1937-1945) of isolation from the West,and the postwar period of reconstruction under the U.S. occupation. Japanese struggles for authority and for a unique Japanese identity in science are considered as Japans relations with other nations shifted and as the discipline of genetics within Japan matured. Kiharas career illustrates the importance of agricultural problems for the growth of Japanese plant genetics. The distinction between pure and applied science was blurred: research at Kiharas Institute for Biological Research founded in Kyoto in 1942) covered a wide range of organisms,many of agricultural importance. The Japanese style of genetic research was multidisciplinary and sympathetic to the "dynamic" approach advocated by Richard Goldschmidt,with attention given to environmental effects and to the role of the cytoplasm as well as to nuclear genes. This approach resembled Jonathan Harwoods description of the "comprehensive" style adopted by German geneticists and also Nikolai Vavilovs contemporary vision of a "science of breeding." Analysis of the Lysenko debate which unfolded in Japan in the 1940s and 1950s in the context of postwar reconstruction sheds light on Japanese struggles for scientific authority. In the postwar period,Kiharas role in the founding of the National Institute of Genetics 1949),his analysis of the origins of domestic wheat,his creation of the Wheat Information Service,and his role in bringing an international genetics conference to Japan in 1956 illustrate the maturation of Japanese genetics and the efforts by Japanese biologists to articulate their own values in a West-centered scientific world.