Science in the public sphere How biologists sought to improve American society Archived article from Jan 26, 2001 By Phyllis Gottlieb   In 1914, Martha Washington, the last passenger pigeon in the world, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Ironically, Martha had spent her best years among the "valuable birds" owned by eminent zoologist and University of Chicago Professor Charles O. Whitman, the man responsible for creating a vibrant summer community of biologists at Woods Hole on Cape Cod, Mass. Although biologists at the turn of the last century did not do enough to save the passenger pigeon from extinction, these men had a progressive, humanist vision of the country that was more often right than wrong, says Philip Pauly. Photo by Nick Romanenko Every June, Whitman crated his birds and brought them to the seashore, and each fall he returned them to his backyard in Chicago. The birds, however, failed to reproduce. Perhaps it was a lack of protein in their diet or their transport halfway across the country during what may have been their nesting season or just the fact that the birds' reproductive successes were never among Whitman's highest priorities. Whatever the cause, the passenger pigeon became extinct in sight of the greatest community of biologists ever assembled in the United States. Even without imposing 21st-century sensibilities on a failure of nearly a century ago, the tale of Martha raises a host of questions about scientists' responsibilities for and involvement in the larger environmental and social issues of their day. These questions intrigued Philip J. Pauly, associate professor of history on the New Brunswick campus. His latest book, "Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey" (Princeton University Press), provides a useful and fascinating framework for understanding how biologists both influenced and were influenced by the surrounding culture. Beginning with the efforts of Meriwether Lewis to collect native zoological and botanical specimens during his exploration of the Louisiana Purchase territories, the book traces the development of biology from the early 19th century through the mid-20th. Pauly delves into the early influence of Harvard researchers, the "golden age" of government science --including the creation of the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Agriculture -- and the growth of biology as an academic subject first at the university level and then in high schools across the country. The book explores periods of both conflict and cooperation among various agencies, personalities and ideologies as botanists, zoologists and entomologists over the course of a century and a half struggled to define the discipline. Along the way, Pauly provides insights into the minds and actions of those who shaped the discipline, including Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz at Harvard, Spencer F. Baird at the Smithsonian, Whitman at Woods Hole, William Emerson Ritter at the Scripps Institution, Charles B. Davenport at Cold Spring Harbor and, finally, Alfred Kinsey at the Institute for Sex Research. As he explored the lives of these famous men, Pauly was struck by how many of them saw their work within a larger, philosophical context. "One of the things I'm most intrigued by is taking the word 'culture' and returning it to its 19th-century meaning as the intersection of the biological and the technical, as in agriculture and horticulture. In the 1800s, the term, rooted in a biological core, encompassed everything from the immediately technical up through the vision of scientists educating human beings and making them, literally, more intelligent organisms. "The history of American biologists tends to be a critical one," Pauly continues, "with many of these white, male scientists perceived as being racists and sexists and full of class prejudice. And they certainly were, and there were a lot of mistakes made. These were obviously flawed, limited people who were men of their time. "But when you pull it all together and take a longer view, there's a strong argument that these scientists had a progressive, liberal, secular humanist vision of society. They had a conviction that biology provided a foundation for improving American life. And they were people who were more often on the right side than the wrong side and had a vision and a set of beliefs that were better rather than worse." Take, for instance, the work of just two to these men: Spencer Baird and William Ritter. Baird, a zoologist, arrived at the Smithsonian from Dickinson College in 1850. He was, Pauly says, "a character out of Mark Twain, although he looks as if he came off a Smith Brothers cough drop box." Baird was particularly good at making friends in high places. While exchanging hunting and fishing stories with congressmen, he convinced them to fund the National Museum in Washington. The museum, dedicated to amassing a zoological collection from all of North America, would both educate and enlighten the public, he proclaimed. He also created the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Initially charged with examining the cause of declining fish populations in New England, the commission under Baird's leadership quickly obtained funding for a 130-foot steamship and for both port facilities and a laboratory in Woods Hole. As head of the Smithsonian, Baird persuaded Congress to fund a long-discussed building and then built the biggest structure he could afford. "This was a man who knew how to pull the levers of power for the betterment of science and the betterment of the country," says Pauly. Ritter, a generation later, was also admirable, although for different attributes. He began his career as a Wisconsin farmer and local schoolteacher and only completed his bachelor's degree in 1887 at age 31. But he had a vision for biology. In 1903 he created the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, attracting the interest of La Jolla newspaper magnate Edward W. Scripps and his sister Ellen. With Ellen's financing, Ritter became the founding director of the Scripps Institution and began propounding a broad philosophical vision of science, biology and evolution, eventually becoming one of the leading scientists involved in the Scopes trial. Scripps and Ritter "took seriously the fact that people were animals, and they were convinced that all human activities -- including voting, newspaper publishing, and scientific investigation -- ought to be comprehensible within a properly conceived science of biology," Pauly writes. The two men created a news agency to disseminate science information to the nation's presses, firm in their belief that the way to improve democracy was to make Americans more intelligent about science. Of Ritter, Pauly says, "This is someone who started out as a backwoods Wisconsin farmer and who pulled himself up to become a scientific leader -- very self-aware, shrewd, idealistic and basically right." Pauly, who teaches undergraduate courses in the history of science and the history of exploration, ends his book before World War II and the discovery of DNA. The past half century, he says, would require another volume, one he is content to leave to others. Instead, he has returned to an incident embedded in "Biologists and the Promise of American Life" -- the fate of the first batch of cherry trees Tokyo officials sent to their sister city, Washington, D.C., in 1910. Found to be infested with foreign pests and diseases, the entire shipment was burned, although a second batch was ultimately planted in the nation's capital, becoming the city's most famous ornamentals. What such an incident says about this country's ecological independence and the ways a nation tries to take control of its own environmental destiny is a subject Pauly is only beginning to explore.

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