Lionel Mandrake

Lionel Mandrake's Journal

September 4, 2015

RIP William Provine

William B. Provine has died. He had been a professor of history and of biology at Cornell University. The website of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) includes the following statement about Provine:

In a memoir published in Isis in 1999, he explained that in his view, a student working on the history of biology "should be as familiar with the science as any doctoral student"; for his own part, he added, "I am very happy to move between history and science."

Read more: http://ncse.com/news/2015/09/william-b-provine-dies-0016624

Provine was no mere "externalist" historian of science. He wrote the kind of history that interests scientists as well as historians. Would that there were more like him.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Hometown: The Left Coast
Home country: USA
Current location: electrical wires
Member since: Sun Jul 1, 2007, 06:47 PM
Number of posts: 4,076

About Lionel Mandrake

I study, play the piano, play chess and go, and enjoy the company of my wife, children, grandchildren, other relatives, and friends. I am a perennial student at a school where they let me attend classes and use the library for free (because I'm old). My serious reading includes math, science, history, and biography. I enjoy science fiction and mysteries, which my wife and I refer to as "mind rot". And now on to politics. I hated Nixon and Reagan. I think W is a war criminal and was easily the worst president in US history until Trump came along. Trump and Sessions should be tried for having separated small children from their parents, which was a crime against humanity. I will support any candidate who is a "dove". I support "plan B" without prescription for girls of all ages. I support free abortion on demand, without delay, and without the requirement to notify anyone, for all women and girls who want it. I think it's time to repeal the Bush/Trump tax cuts for corporations and the very rich.