Institutionalizing molecular biology in post-war Europe: a comparative study
Institutionalizing molecular biology in post-war Europe: a comparative study
复制标题
战后欧洲的分子生物学制度化：一项比较研究
DOI：
10.1016/s1369-8486(02)00016-x
复制
发表时间：
2002
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
B. Strasser
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Strasser
分子生物学的知识起源通常可以追溯到20世纪30年代。相比之下，分子生物学直到1960年左右才成为社会现实。为了理解它是如何指定一个研究人员社区和一个专业身份的，我研究了第一个分子生物学研究所的创建，这发生在1960年左右，在四个欧洲国家：德国，英国，法国和瑞士。本文介绍了这些研究所的创建是如何与战后经济重建的结果联系在一起的。然后，它比较了这些不同的机构项目的推动者如何界定其学科的目标，反思其历史，并建议如何组织研究。我展示了他们如何在20世纪50年代新兴的国家科学政策话语中仔细定位他们的新学科，并将其与当前的科学现代性愿景相结合。特别是，我将讨论他们如何阐明分子生物学的意义方面的五个共同的主题：物理学在原子时代的作用，基础研究和医学应用之间的关系，“美国化”的科学研究，科学的价值在重建国家身份，并推动跨学科研究。因此，本文表明，除了地方和国家的帐户，有一个欧洲的分子生物学史。
The intellectual origins of molecular biology are usually traced back to the 1930s. By contrast, molecular biology acquired a social reality only around 1960. To understand how it came to designate a community of researchers and a professional identity, I examine the creation of the first institutes of molecular biology, which took place around 1960, in four European countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. This paper shows how the creation of these institutes was linked to the results of post-war economic reconstruction. Then, it compares how the promoters of these different institutional projects delimited the goals of their discipline, reflected on its history, and suggested how research should be organised. I show how they carefully positioned their new discipline within the emerging national science policy discourse of the 1950s, and aligned it with the current vision of scientific modernity. In particular, I discuss how they articulated the meaning of molecular biology with respect to five common themes: the role of physics in the atomic age, the relations between fundamental research and medical applications, the ‘Americanisation’ of scientific research, the value of science in the reconstruction of national identities, and the drive towards interdisciplinary research. This paper thus demonstrates that beyond the local and national accounts there is a European history of molecular biology.