The Role of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population

Lorimer, Frank; Grabill, Wilson H.; Valaoras, Vasilios G.

doi:10.2307/3349466

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The credibility contest that was taking place within the arenas of legitimate scientific debate, through peer-reviewed publication, was carried into the political and science policy arena so crucial to processes of discipline building and boundary construction. Pearl secured financial support from the MMF through the Chairman of the Fund's Advisory Council, his ally William Welch, a colleague at Johns Hopkins University and vice-president of the IUSIPP [Lorimer (1971): 87]. He also managed to convince both the national organizations for the coordination of the natural and social sciences, the National Research Council (NRC) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), to lend intellectual and material resources to the emerging Union.…”

Section: Controversial Biology: Funding Problems At the Iusippmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the challenge made to Pearl and his biologically determinist allies, coupled with the challenge made by Franz Boas to the Nazi biologists at the Paris conference, in the eyes of demographers the history of the Union, and of population study more broadly, was divided into two phases -the scientific and the non-scientific. While the 'old Union' had been 'hampered by its nationalistic structure and the political vicissitudes of the interwar period', the Paris conference, in placing science above politics, 'was a happy and illustrious affair' [Lorimer (1971): 89-90].…”

Section: Biology As Ideology: the Rise Of Totalitarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most significant disciplinary histories by demographers include Glass (1957a), Hauser & Duncan (1959), Kiser (1971Kiser ( , 1981, Lorimer (1971), Lunde (1981), Notestein (1971Notestein ( , 1981Notestein ( , 1982, and Spengler & Duncan (1956a). 7.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Carving up Population Science

Ramsden¹

2002

Soc Stud Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using the analytical framework of boundary-work, I examine how the cultural space of demography, its borders and its territories, were constructed and reconstructed as scientists continuously struggled to maintain, increase, and defend the cognitive authority of science and particular interpretations of reality. While the emerging field of population united both biologists and social scientists in the early 20th century, the controversy over the biologist Raymond Pearl’s logistic curve in the inter-war period became one of the defining features in the development of the population sciences in the United States. Pearl’s use of the logistic curve reflected his biologically determinist vision of human progress and the definition and function of science within that process. Pearl’s critics, the majority numbered among the social sciences, opposed such an imperialistic vision. With the weakening of Pearl’s influence, American demography was clearly defined as a social science. In disciplinary histories, Pearl’s defeat is attributed to scientific progress and the collapse of credibility for the eugenics movement. Thus a history of a scientific progression from biological determinism to social empiricism is combined with a shift from population ideology to population science. Yet the attack on the biological lawsin the 1930s had as much to do with differing opinions as how to best regulate a population according to eugenic standards, as it was a struggle between a biologically determinist eugenics and a social science of reform.

show abstract

Section: Controversial Biology: Funding Problems At the Iusippmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biology As Ideology: the Rise Of Totalitarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%