“Cochineal Growing in Eighteenth-Century Mexico”

Deirdre Moore (Harvard University)

In 1776, the Dominican friar Joaquín Vasco, located in Oaxaca state, Mexico, noted that the whole process of raising domesticated cochineal insects was fraught with “a thousand contingencies”. Long before the arrival of the Spanish, domesticated cochineal in Mexico had evolved to become dependent on humans to alter and protect its environment. Indigenous inhabitants had developed an intricate set of practices, highly dependent on local geography, to ensure its survival so they might use its dye. The ‘contingencies’ mentioned by Fr. Joaquín included a multitude of insect parasites of cochineal, climatic conditions, soil quality, cactus diseases and the complex set of technologies/craft practices employed by indigenous people to grow cochineal in the different micro-climates of the Oaxacan landscape in southern Mexico. Unlike its hardier wild cousin, the cochineal sylvestre, the cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus) is a highly domesticated insect dependent on humans in the Mexican landscape. It cannot survive in the wild in this area for long periods of time. This paper explains how one of the most lucrative industries in colonial New Spain came to be left in the hands of native cochineal growers. In addition, unlike their natural philosophical contemporaries in 17th and 18th century Europe, cochineal growers appear to have understood insect generation in detail. Furthermore, cochineal growing involves a close insect-plant relationship - the insect co-evolved with a semi-domesticated cactus. Bound up in this history of cochineal growing are questions about the legitimacy of local science, indigenous knowledge and the anthropology of science and technology.

“Neither Wild nor Tame: Feral Animals in the History of Biology”

Abraham Gibson (Arizona State University)

This paper will examine the unique role that feral animals have played in the history of the biological sciences. Defined as animals who were once domesticated, or had domesticated ancestors, but now live in the wild, feral animals have inspired a scientific legacy quite distinct from their closest wild and domestic cousins. My paper will show that biologists have studied feral animals as discrete objects of scientific analysis for hundreds of years, and that their opinions have changed in dramatic fashion. Comte de Buffon cited feral animals as evidence of North America’s degeneration in the late eighteenth century, and Thomas Jefferson protested that America’s feral animals were no more degenerate than those in Europe. Charles Darwin famously cited domestic animals as evidence in favor of natural selection, but few historians realize that he also cited feral animals. In fact, Darwin’s countryman, Alfred Russell Wallace, also cited feral animals when he independently articulated the exact same principle. As concern for global biodiversity intensified during the twentieth century, many biologists quit celebrating feral animals as exemplars of evolution and began disparaging them as “invasive” pests who ought to be destroyed. Most biologists continue to advocate for (or consent to) the annihilation of feral populations around the globe, though some scientists now champion the protection of some feral populations for varying reasons. The paper will close with by reviewing the status, significance, and meaning of feral animals in several different fields of contemporary biology, including genetics, invasion biology, and reproductive biology, among others.

“Hot and Smoking Dogs: Toward a New Study of Addiction”

Brad Bolman (Harvard University)

To understand the cause of cancer in uranium miners, researchers at Hanford taught beagles to smoke. The “dogs were addicted. They’d fight you for a cigarette. You’d open the cage and they’d jump right in your arm and stick their head in the mask. You know, put the cigarette in and light it up, boys!” The dogs were comparatively lucky: their compatriots inhaled asbestos and radon.

Robert Proctor argues that inhalation experiments were popular “with the industry … because it turns out to be quite hard to give mice, rabbits, or even dogs lung cancer simply by exposing them to tobacco smoke.” If the dogs did not get lung cancer, they were nevertheless suffering obvious cases of addiction. Two packs a day could make even a beagle into a chain smoker.

Despite a few public scandals, the smoking beagles have largely eluded the story of Big Tobacco and cigarettes. “What is tobacco?” asks Jacques Derrida. “Apparently it is the object of a pure and luxurious consumption.” This paper analyzes why so many dogs began participating in this luxurious consumption during the twentieth century, focusing on the pleasures of running and participating in inhalation studies. It situates these studies within a world of Cold War animal models and reflects upon the paradoxical sacrifice of animal life that the war against smoking required.

“Misbehaving Ants and the Radical Challenge to Wilson’s Sociobiology”

Ryan Ketcham (Indiana University)

In 1975, The Sociobiology Study Group identified Edward O. Wilson’s characterizations of adaptive human behavior in his book, Sociobiology, as methodologically flawed and socially dangerous. Wilson dismissed their concerns as ideological as opposed to scientific, appealing to their preoccupation with human beings to demonstrate their bias. Wilson had been praised for his work on invertebrate sociobiology, but his treatment of human sociobiology made him the target of incendiary rhetoric and physical assault, attacks which have been crucial to Wilson’s general portrayal of his critics as unreasonable radicals. Yet the political arguments advanced by The Sociobiology Study Group were dependent upon their scientific critique. Their concerns about Wilson’s reliance on anthropomorphic metaphors and biological determinism were broadly applicable, and sensitivity to them has fostered major advancements in myrmecology, Wilson’s area of expertise. Beginning in the 1980s, animal behaviorist and MacArthur Awardee Deborah Gordon challenged Wilson’s proposal that the social behavior of ant colonies is best understood in the culturally-loaded terms of ‘division of labor’ between ‘castes’ of ants morphologically adapted to specialize in their tasks. Gordon has shown that ants switch tasks, and are better modeled as nodes in interaction networks not biologically determined by ‘caste’ membership. Wilson has not met Gordon’s challenge, although his key terms have since been re-interpreted by his apologists in creative ways. This controversy within myrmecology is a critical part of the history of the sociobiology debates, but has been neglected by Ullica Segerstrale, the recognized historian of record for the development and defense of sociobiology.