Medical History and Bioethics
| Office: | 1300 University Ave. Room 1532 Madison, WI 53706-1532 |
| Phone: | (608) 262-3701 |
| Fax: | (608) 265-0486 |
| Email: | rnumbers@med.wisc.edu |
Ronald L. Numbers
He has written or edited more than two dozen books, including, most recently, Darwinism Comes to America (Harvard University Press, 1998), Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender (Cambridge University Press, 1999), coedited with John Stenhouse, When Science and Christianity Meet (University of Chicago Press, 2003), coedited with David Lindberg; and Science and Christianity in Pulpit and Pew (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). For five years (1989-1993) he edited Isis, the flagship journal of the history of science. He is writing a history of science in America (for Basic Books), editing a series of monographs on the history of medicine, science, and religion for the Johns Hopkins University Press, and coediting, with David Lindberg, the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science.
A former Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the International Academy of the History of Science. He is a past president of both the History of Science Society and the American Society of Church History. In 2005 he was elected to a four-year term as president of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science/Division of History of Science and Technology.
Education
Ph.D. in History (History of Science), 1969, University of California, BerkeleyM.A. in History, 1965, Florida State University
B.A. in Mathematics and Physics, 1963, Southern Missionary College (now Southern Adventist University)
Professional Experience
Chair, Department of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999-2003Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997-present
William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991-present
Professor of the History of Medicine and History of Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1979-present
Chair, Department of the History of Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1977-1981
Associate Professor of the History of Medicine and the History of Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976-1979
Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine and the History of Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974-1976
Assistant Professor of Humanities, School of Medicine, Loma Linda University, 1970-1974
Assistant Professor of History, Andrews University, 1969-1970
Honors and Awards
Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Fellowship in the History of Medicine and the Biological Sciences, 1973-74John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1983-84.
Albert C. Outler Prize, American Society of Church History, 1992.
Corresponding Member, International Academy of the History of Science, 1993.
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995.
Sarton Lecturer, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1995.
John M. Templeton Foundation Prize for a course on science and religion (with David C. Lindberg), 1995-96.
Garrison Lecturer, American Association for the History of Medicine, 1997.
Florida State University 1999 Graduate of Distinction.
CTNS Prize for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Natural Sciences, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, 1999.
Benjamin Rush Award, American Psychiatric Association, 2000.
Founding Member, International Society for Science and Religion, 2002.
Fellowships and Grants
National Science Foundation grant-in-aid, 1965-66.Predoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution, Summer, 1968.
Research Grant, Walter E. MacPherson Society, Summer, 1972.
Research Grants, University of Wisconsin Graduate School, 1975-77, 1980, 1983-84, 1986-87.
American Council of Learned Societies, Travel Grants, 1977, 1988.
Fellowship, Institute on Human Values in Medicine, Summer, 1977.
N.I.H. Research Grant, Spring, 1981.
Vern and Barbara J. Carner Foundation, conference grant, Spring, 1981 (co-recipient).
Anonymous Fund, Humanistic Foundation, and Knapp Bequest, University of Wisconsin, combined conference grant, Spring, 1981 (co-recipient).
National Science Foundation Scholar's Award, 1984.
Lutheran General Hospital (Park Ridge, Illinois), editorial grant, Fall, 1984.
Wisconsin Humanities Committee/NEH Grant for "Ida Scudder: An American Legacy in India, "1992-93.
National Science Foundation, grant for a conference on "Responding to Darwin: New Perspectives on the Darwinian Revolution,"Dunedin, New Zealand, 12-16 May 1994.
Evjue Foundation and Brittingham Foundation grants for a conference on "Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science,"Madison, Wisconsin, 26-29 April 2001.
Publications
Books and Edited Volumes
Science and Christianity in Pulpit and Pew (New York: Oxford University Press, in press).
When Science and Christianity Meet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Edited with David C. Lindberg.
The Oxford Companion to United States History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Edited with Paul Boyer (editor in chief) and others.
Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Edited with John Stenhouse.
Darwinism Comes to America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Recipient of the CTNS Prize for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Natural Sciences, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
The Scientific Enterprise in America: Readings from Isis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Edited with Charles E. Rosenberg.Creationism in Twentieth-Century America: A Ten-Volume Anthology of Documents, 1903-1961 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995). Edited.
The Creationists (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). Reprinted by University of California Press, 1993. Recipient of the Albert C. Outler Prize from the American Society of Church History.Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989). Edited with Todd L. Savitt.
The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Reprinted by University of Tennessee Press, 1993. Edited with Jonathan M. Butler.
Medicine in the New World: New Spain, New France and New England (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). Edited.
Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions (New York: Macmillan, 1986). Edited with Darrel W. Amundsen. Reprinted by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
God and Nature: A History of the Encounter between Christianity and Science (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986). Edited with David C. Lindberg. Italian translation, 1994. Japanese translation, 1994.
Compulsory Health Insurance: The Continuing American Debate (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1982). Edited.
Wisconsin Medicine: Historical Perspectives (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981). Edited with Judith Walzer Leavitt.
The Education of American Physicians: Historical Essays (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980). Edited.
Almost Persuaded: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912-1920 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978; 2nd ed., revised, 1985; 3rd ed., revised, 1997). Edited with Judith Walzer Leavitt.Creation by Natural Law: Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis in American Thought (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1977).
Medicine Without Doctors: Home Health Care in American History (New York: Science History Publications, 1977). Edited with G.B. Risse and J.W. Leavitt.
Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (New York: Harper and Row, 1976). Reprinted in a revised, enlarged edition under the title Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White and the Origins of Seventh-day Adventist Health Reform (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992).
Articles Published in the Last 10 Years
"The Specter of Socialized Medicine: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance,"in Compulsory Health Insurance: The Continuing American Debate, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 3-24. Also in Understanding Universal Health Programs: Issues and Options, ed. David A. Kindig and Robert B. Sullivan (Ann Arbor, MI: Health Administration Press, 1992), pp. 18-2."The Creationists,"in God and Nature: A History of the Encounter between Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 391-423. Also in Zygon, 22 (1987), 133-164; But Is It Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy, ed. Michael Ruse (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), pp. 227-256; Modern American Protantism and Its World, ed. Martin E. Marty, 14 vols. (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1993), 10:248-80; Man and Creation: Perspectives on Science and Theology, ed. Michael Bauman (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 1993), pp. 31-73: and An Evolving Dialogue: Scientific, Historical, Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on Evolution, ed. James B. Miller (Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1998), pp. 281-316.
"The Fall and Rise of the American Medical Profession,"in The Professions in American History, ed. Nathan O. Hatch (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 51-72. Also in Sickness and Health in America, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (2nd ed. rev.; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 185-196; and, abridged, in Major Problems in the History of American Medicine and Public Health, ed. John Harley Warner and Janet A. Tighe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), pp. 298-303.
"Creation, Evolution, and Holy Ghost Religion: Wesleyan-Holiness Responses to Darwinism,"Religion and American Culture, 2 (Summer, 1992), 127-158.
"Science as a Profession,"in The Encyclopedia of Social History, ed. Mary K. Cayton, Elliott Gorn, and Peter Williams (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992), pp. 2285-95.
"American Medicine Comes of Age,"in Thirsty Elephant: The Story of Paradise Valley Hospital, ed. Wayne R. Judd and Jonathan M. Butler (Riverside, CA: La Sierra University Press, 1994), pp. 19-34.
"Evolutionary Theory,"in Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century, ed. Stanley I. Kutler, 4 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996), 2: 859-76. With Gregg Mitman.
"C. S. Lewis on Creation and Evolution: The Acworth Letters, 1944-1960,"Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48 (March, 1996): 28-33. With Gary B. Ferngren.
"The Significance of Regions in American Medical History,"in Disease and Medical Care in the Mountain West: Essays on Region, History, and Practice, ed. Martha L. Hildreth and Bruce T. Moran (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1998), pp. 1-17, 111-15.
"Darwinism in the American South,"in Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and John Stenhouse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 123-43. With Lester D. Stephens.
"Creating Creationism: Meanings and Uses since the Age of Agassiz", in Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, ed. David N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart, and Mark A Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 234-43. Also printed in Facts & Faith 9 (No. 4, 1995): 8-9; 10 (No.1, 1996): 8-9; (No. 2, 1996): 12-13.
"Darwinism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design,"in The Evolution-Creation Controversy II: Perspectives on Science, Religion, and Geological Education, ed. Walter L. Manger, The Paleontological Society, Papers 5 (1999): 83-103. Reprinted in Scientists Confront Creationism, ed. Laurie R. Godfrey and Andrew J. Petto (New York: W. W. Norton, in press).
"'The Most Important Biblical Discovery of Our Time': William Henry Green and the Demise of Ussher's Chronology,"Church History 69 (2000): 257-76.
"Charles Hodge and the Beauties and Deformities of Science,"in Charles Hodge Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of His Life and Work, ed. John W. Stewart and James H. Moorhead (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 77-101.
"Antievolutionism in the Antipodes: From Protesting Evolution to Promoting Creationism in New Zealand,"British Journal for the History of Science 33 (2000): 335-350. With John Stenhouse. Reprinted in The Cultures of Creationism: Comparative Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon, ed. Simon Coleman and Leslie Carlin (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, in press).
"Medical Science before Scientific Medicine: Reflections on the History of Medical Geography,"in Medical Geography in Historical Perspective, ed. Nicolaas A. Rupke (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 219-22.
"The Scientific Idea,"in Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001), 3:141-49. With Daniel P. Thurs.
“Creationists and Their Critics in Australia: An Autonomous Culture or ‘the USA with Kangaroos,’’ Historical Records of Australian Science 14 (June 2002): 1-12. Reprinted in The Cultures of Creationism: Comparative Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon, ed. Simon Coleman and Leslie Carlin (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, in press).
"Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs,"in When Science and Christianity Meet, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
"Sex, Science, and Salvation: The Sexual Advice of Ellen G. White and John Harvey Kellogg,"in Right Living: An Anglo-American Tradition of Self-Help Medicine and Hygiene, ed. Charles E. Rosenberg (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).
"Ironic Heresy: How Young-Earth Creationists Came to Embrace Rapid Microevolution by Means of Natural Selection,"in Darwinian Heresies, ed. Abigail J. Lustig, Robert J. Richards, and Michael Ruse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press).
“Reading the Book of Nature through American Lenses,” in The Book of Nature: Continuity and Change in European and American Attitudes towards the Natural World, ed. Klaas van Berkel et al. (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, in press).
Current Research Projects/Interests
Science and the Americans: A History (for Basic Books).Science and Religion around the World, edited with John Hedley Brooke (for Oxford University Press).
Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths in Science and Religion, edited (for Harvard University Press).
A biography of John Harvey Kellogg (for Harvard University Press).
The Cambridge History of Science, 8 vols., edited with David C. Lindberg (for Cambridge University Press).
Modern Science in National and International Context, vol. 8 of the Cambridge History of Science, edited with David N. Livingstone (for Cambridge University Press).
Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science, edited with Peter Harrison and Michael H. Shank.
Religious Pluralism in Modern America, edited with Charles Cohen.
Essays on biology and society, edited with Denis Alexander.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate
- 331-Science, Religion and Medicine
- 394-Science in America
- 504-Society and Health Care in American History [ syllabus]
- 575-Clinical Medicine Since 1750
Graduate
- History of Science 720: Historiography and Methods
- 720: Historical Perspectives in Medicine
- 901: Graduate Studies in Medical History
- 902: Research Seminar in Medical History
- 915: Science in America
- 921: Science in International and National Context
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