Seminars and Panels
This paper focuses on Masuo Kodani, a Japanese American geneticist best known for his work in the human chromosome story and for his work with human geneticist James V. Neel. It follows his tumultuous career beginning at the University of California, Berkeley and his subsequent incarceration at Manzanar War Relocation Center and at Tule Lake where he, along with a cluster of incarcerated Japanese American scientists, horticulturalists and nursery owners, engaged in a little-known wartime study on guayule, a source of latex, a valuable wartime commodity. The paper follows his subsequent appointment to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in Japan, the American agency sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC) and funded by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that conducted research on the survivors of the atomic blasts. It explores at length his dual identity as intermediary between the survivors, and American officials and scientists collecting genetic data. His research and pivotal role in the organization of the Genetics Division is explored in the context of US-Japanese relations that drew on a number of "Nisei" or second generation Japanese Americans many of whom had similarly been interned and who functioned as intermediaries in the organization. The paper concludes with an assessment of Asian minorities in twentieth century in general and Japanese American minorities in particular.
About Professor Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis
Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis is Dunlevie Honors Term Professor in the Honors Program and Professor of the History of Science in the Departments of Biology and the Departments of History at the University of Florida. Her research interests include the history of evolutionary biology, biological anthropology, botany, and genetics in the United States. She is the author of Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology (Princeton, 1996) and has been a recipient of a number of grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society. In 1990-92, she was Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University and in 2001 she was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science where she is currently serving on the executive of the society. She has been a recipient of range of awards including the Hazen Educational Award from the History of Science Society, and a Visiting Scholar for Phi Beta Kappa to some nine American colleges and universities and has been awarded six college and university level awards at UF becoming in 2009 the 16th Distinguished Alumni Professor at UF. She has published extensively with articles and reviews appearing in both science and history journals including: Isis, Osiris, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Journal of the History of Biology, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, American Journal of Botany, Social Epistemology, and Taxon along with Current Anthropology, Science, Nature and the Quarterly Review of Biology. She is currently under contract with the University of Chicago Press for a book exploring minorities in science and the history of genetics in America titled The Black Pearl: Masuo Kodani, Genetics in America, and the Japanese American Experience.
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- Behavioral Concepts and the Sciences of Human Behavior
H. Longino Apr 21, 2017 - Insane Asylums and Genetics: How Human Heredity Became a Data Science
T. Porter Feb 17, 2017 - The Nature of Pride: The Emotional Origins of Social Rank
J. Tracy Jan 23, 2017
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Public Ethics, Politics and Sociobiology
M. P. Sheldon Mar 11, 2016 -
Classifying People by Color: How Racial Categories Change Over Time
A. A. Martinez Feb 29, 2016 -
The Origin of Social Impulse: E.O. Wilson's Recent and Controversial Rejection of Kin Selection in Historical Context
A. Gibson Dec 4, 2015
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Public Ethics, Politics and Sociobiology
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Special Event: Lone Star History of Science Meeting Writing the Origin with Burned Fingers: Darwin's Penance for the "Sin of Speculation"A. Sponsel Apr 3, 2015 - Welfare, Work, and Witness: Why Clinical Research Can Survive the Death of a Healthy Human Subject
L. Stark Apr 3, 2015 - The Distinctive Significance of Systemic Risk
A. James Mar 6, 2015 - The Devil's Heritage: Masuo Kodani, the "Nisei Problem," and Social Stratification at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan (1946-1954)
V.B. Smocovitis Jan 28, 2015 - Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact
B. Uzzi Dec 8, 2014 - Psychology of Science and Technology
M. Gorman Nov 17, 2014 - How Economics Shapes Science
P. Stephan Sep 10, 2014
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J. H. Jones Apr 16, 2014 - Ethical Paradoxes of
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J. Wang Feb 17, 2014 - Using Creative Non-Fiction in Teaching Research Ethics
C.M. Klugman Dec 2, 2013 - Does Neuroscience Undermine Responsibility?
W. Sinnott-Armstrong Nov 15, 2013 - Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism
J. Hamblin Oct 18, 2013
- The Decision to Put David Vetter in the Bubble
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- Lead Wars: the Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children
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A.M. Petersen Dec 3, 2012 - Keeping Secrets: Scientists' strategic management of militarization, 1945-1980
S. Lindee Nov 12, 2012 - Evolutionary Theory as Methodological Anesthesia: Methodological and Philosophical Lessons from Evolutionary Psychology
R.N. Boyd Oct 19, 2012 - Panel on Peer-Review Issues
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- Can technology enable cities to cope with the economic winter?
A. Hampapur Sep 21, 2012
- Lead Wars: the Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children
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- Engineering Success and Failure on 9/11
S.K.A. Pfatteicher Apr 27, 2012 - Regulating Ionizing Radiation: Flawed Standard, Flawed Ethics
K.S. Frechette Mar 5, 2012 - Do fish feel pain?
C. Allen Jan 25, 2012 - The Ethics of Relevancy
J. Levine Dec 13, 2011 - ORI Cases and How to Protect Yourself from Research Misconduct in Your Labratory
A.R. Price Nov 7, 2011
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