Throwback Thursday - Greg Radick on 'Counterfactual History of Science'

This week the team at The HPS Podcast are taking a mid-semester break!

To celebrate we are reposting one of our favourite episodes from Season 1 featuring Professor Greg Radick, a leading historian of biology at the University of Leeds.

In the podcast Greg discusses the use of counterfactuals in history of science - the term we use for asking ‘What if?’ questions about history - and their potential to subvert our conventional thinking.
In Greg’s research, a central counterfactual question is: “What might biology be like now if a different side had triumphed in early debates on genetics?”

For example, might we be a little less deterministic about genetic inheritance and a little more embracing of contextual effects on human development?

By asking such seemingly simple ‘what if’ questions, fruitful new lines of investigation and alternative perspectives can open up.

A transcript of the interview can be found here (hpsunimelb.org/post/episode-5-transcript): hpsunimelb.org/post/episode-5-transcript

Related links
• Profile: Professor Gregory Radick | University of Leeds (ahc.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/114/professor…)
• Website: Gregory Radick | Personal Site (gregoryradick.com/about)
• Book: Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology (press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo…)
• Article: Teach students the biology of their time | Nature (nature.com/articles/533293a)
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This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne (arts.unimelb.edu.au/school-of-historical-and-p…) and the Hansen Little Public Humanities Grant (scholarships.unimelb.edu.au/awards/hansen-litt….) scheme.
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