Doctoral Dissertation Research: Genetic Studies of Sex Determination in the 20th Century

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The PIs propose a study of the history of the genetics of sex determination, the development of male and female organisms. It will focus on the first sixty years of the twentieth century. For most of this period, sexual difference was understood principally in terms of hormones rather than genes. The project will focus instead on genetics and in doing so try to answer the following questions. First, why were scientists interested in seeking a genetic basis for sex and how have their concepts of sex changed over time? How did geneticists contend with other biologists, particularly endocrinologists, in explaining the emergence of sexual difference, and how did researchers try to reconcile the different explanations for sexual difference? Second, were such disciplinary and epistemological fault-lines consequential in broader understandings of sex and sexuality? Did the existence of divergent perspectives destabilize biological deterministic accounts of sexual difference? Third, how has knowledge about genetic sex determination circulated between scientists and non-scientists, and what were the social and political effects of such knowledge?Intellectual Merit: Tracing the problem of sex determination as it changed over time is a novel approach to telling the history of genetics that will provide new insights into how the production of scientific knowledge is not always dependent upon theory. Rather, scientists can rely upon a common problem to organize a diverse array of materials, organisms, and technologies and allow the problem itself to evolve with this array. The project will contribute to a greater understanding of the constructions of scientific disciplines and authority since it will examine the maneuvers made by geneticists during a time when they gained increasing scientific legitimacy, even though they did not enjoy complete hegemony over a problem on which their discipline had been partially founded. Finally, the project will demonstrate the dynamic relationship between studies of genetic sex determination and broader concepts of sexual difference and biological determinism: hence, this study necessarily integrates the histories of biology and of gender and sexuality.Broader Impact: This dissertation will address an issue which continues to be pressing and relevant to modern society: the circulation of knowledge between scientists and the public. Likewise, it will provide insights into how a historically significant science funding program operated, and how science and the institutions which fund scientific research might organize themselves for mutual advantage. Further, the project will reveal the history behind current understandings of genetic sexual difference, a topic that is still hotly debated. Finally, the project will explore the place of politics in science, and the social and ethical consequences of genetic knowledge, especially when that knowledge is applied to the realms of law and medicine.Funds for this project were provided by a joint venture of the BIO and SBE directorates known as "Impacts of Biology on Society," which is administered via the STS program.