Journal of the History of Biology

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Journal of the History of Biology

description International scientific history journal
Area of ​​Expertise History of biology
language English
publishing company Springer Science + Business Media , Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Headquarters Berlin, Heidelberg
First edition 1968
founder Everett Mendelsohn
Frequency of publication quarterly
editor Karen A. Rader and Marsha L. Richmond
Web link www.springer.com/history/journal/10739
Article archive link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/10739
ISSN (print) 0022-5010
ISSN (online) 1573-0387
CODEN JHBIA9

The Journal of the History of Biology is an English-language , peer-reviewed scientific journal for the history of biology that has been published since 1968 . It is edited by the American science historians Karen A. Rader and Marsha L. Richmond and is published quarterly by Springer Science + Business Media .

Goal setting

The Journal of the History of Biology publishes work on the history of biology , including its relationships with philosophy and sociology. Although there is no fixed time frame, most of the essays published deal with topics from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Throughout the journal's history, the editors have endeavored to nurture early career young academics and to support foreign language authors. Both concerns have been and are being pursued with an effort that goes well beyond an ordinary peer review. In addition to newcomers, the authors always included outstanding and well-known representatives of biology, the philosophy of science and the history of science. Contributions by Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould appeared in the first year .

history

The first edition of the then biannual Journal of the History of Biology appeared in 1968 by Harvard University Press . The first editor was the biologist and science historian Everett Mendelsohn , who held this position for more than 30 years and after a few years was supported by Shirley Roe, initially as an assistant and from 1989 as co-editor. In 1999, Garland E. Allen became editor, with Jane Maienschein as co-editor. Paul Lawrence Farber followed in 2006 and Michael R. Dietrich was editor from 2012 to 2017. In 2018, Dietrich was replaced by Karen A. Rader and Marsha L. Richmond .

In 1974 Harvard University Press gave up the publication of magazines. The Journal of the History of Biology has since been published by D. Reidel Publishing Company in Dordrecht and, after several corporate mergers, first by Wolters Kluwer and since 2004 by Springer Science + Business Media .

Since 2017, the Journal of the History of Biology has been awarding the Everett Mendelson Prize annually for an article published within the last three complete years of the journal. Rachel Mason Dentinger won the first prize for her 2016 essay Patterns of Infection and Patterns of Evolution: How a Malaria Parasite Brought '' Monkeys and Man '' Closer Together in the 1960s .

criticism

On the occasion of the first issue of the Journal of the History of Biology , the American medical historian Theodore M. Brown pointed out in an otherwise extremely positive review in the American Scientist that not a single article dealt with the early 19th century. In a review published in 1990, the Canadian science historian John Farley sharply criticized the journal. He noted that the Journal of the History of Biology had been in excess of Charles Darwin and Darwinism since its first editions . A third of the contributions and the entire year 1982, the 100th year of Darwin's death, came from this subject area and an increasing proportion of the contributions appear to be devoted only to the dialogue between Darwin researchers. Only one post on marine biology and one on ethology appeared during the 1980s , and authors of papers related to medicine would publish elsewhere. The Botany and Ecology had been neglected for a long time, and the Journal of the History of Biology continue writing in the history of biological concepts and turning the history of science have missed sociological contexts.

For the publication of the fiftieth year, a group of scientists from Arizona State University carried out an extensive analysis of all articles published in the Journal of the History of Biology , which included an examination of the geographical, taxonomic and thematic focuses. From a geographical point of view, the origin of the authors and - as far as possible - the content-related relationship of the articles to individual countries were examined. It was shown that the number of countries of origin of the authors increased significantly from the first with nine countries to the fifth and last decade with 24 countries of origin. Nonetheless, throughout the observation period, the vast majority of articles were by authors from the United States and the United Kingdom, and only a very small number of authors from Asia, Australia, and Africa. The examination of the contents and their relation to individual countries gave a similar picture. The United Kingdom dominated content over the entire period studied, closely followed by the United States. Only in the recent past has other European countries been given greater consideration, while biological research is still severely underrepresented in continents other than Europe and North America.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Everett Mendelsohn: Reflections on 50 Years of the Journal of the History of Biology . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 4, pp. 691-693, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-017-9492-9 .
  2. ^ Garland E. Allen and Jane Maienschein: JHB as a Collaborative Effort . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 3, pp. 469-471, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-017-9480-0 .
  3. ^ Michael R. Dietrich: The Journal of the History of Biology at 50 . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 1, pp. 1–2, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-016-9463-6 .
  4. ^ Michael R. Dietrich: Looking Toward the Next Fifty Years at the Journal of the History of Biology . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 4, pp. 689-690, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-017-9498-3 .
  5. ^ Karen A. Rader and Marsha L. Richmond: Inaugural Editorial . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2018, Volume 51, No. 1, pp. 1–3, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-017-9503-x .
  6. ^ Michael R. Dietrich: The First Everett Mendelsohn Prize . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 1, pp. 3–4, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-016-9464-5 .
  7. ↑ Rachel Mason Dentinger: Patterns of Infection and Patterns of Evolution: How a Malaria Parasite Brought `` Monkeys and Man '' Closer Together in the 1960s . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2016, Volume 49, No. 2, pp. 359-395, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-015-9421-8 .
  8. ^ Theodore M. Brown: Journal of the History of Biology by E. Mendelsohn . In: American Scientist 1968, Volume 56, No. 4, pp. 478A-479A, JSTOR 27828387 .
  9. ↑ John Farley: Journal of the History of Biology by Everett Mendelsohn; Studies in History of Biology by William Coleman; Camille Limoges . In: Isis 1990, Vol. 81, No. 2, pp. 303-304, doi: 10.1086 / 355357 .
  10. ^ BR Erick Peirson: Quantitative Perspectives on Fifty Years of the Journal of the History of Biology . In: Journal of the History of Biology 2017, Volume 50, No. 4, pp. 695-751, doi: 10.1007 / s10739-017-9499-2 , pp. 699-707.