In 2011 the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology established the David L. Hull Prize to commemorate the life and legacy of David Hull, who exemplified both a high standard of interdisciplinary scholarship and exemplary service that helped to build bridges among our disciplines. This biennial prize honors extraordinary scholarship and service promoting connections among the communities represented by our Society.
For this purpose, the 2019 David L. Hull Prize Committee, comprised of Nick Hopwood, Roberta Millstein, Michel Morange, Thomas Pradeu, and Ana Barahona (Chair), launched a call for the prize in November 2018. The Committee emphasized that nominees may be at any career stage, and strongly suggested that members took into account diversity when considering nominations. The deadline for nominations was January 15, 2019. On behalf of the Society, we awarded this year’s prize to Dr Jonathan Hodge, senior honorary member of the Leeds Centre for History and Philosophy of Science.
Jonathan Hodge has been known for supporting and encouraging the youngest members of our guild. Moreover, he has diligently fostered ties of peer-to-peer communication. His estimable capacity for self-criticism has led him to constantly search for new perspectives from which he can continue learning or that may provoke him to reconsider his points. His creative talent, insight, and his ability to elucidate relationships between scientific postulates and their context show his great intellectual capacity.
In the early 1960s he completed his undergraduate studies in Zoology at the University of Cambridge, UK. Later, he obtained a Master’s degree in History of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Finally, in 1970 he received his Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University under the tutelage of Ernst Mayr and Everett Mendelsohn. Between 1969 and 1974 he taught at the Universities of Texas, Toronto, California (Berkeley), and Pittsburgh. From 1974 to 2005 he was based in the Division of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Leeds. Currently, he is a senior honorary member of the Leeds Centre for History and Philosophy of Science.
Turning to his contributions in the history, historiography, and philosophy of evolutionary biology, we can say that Jon Hodge’s work covers more than forty years, including multiple publications on Darwin and Darwinism, on key personages such as Buffon and Lamarck, and on early genetics and the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. He is well known for his analyses of the work of Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright, as well as for philosophical pieces on modern evolutionary biology where he has reflected on topics such as race, order, purpose, and their connection with biological thought.
Without a doubt, Hodge’s extensive work includes extraordinary intellectual achievements and the fostering of interdisciplinary communication and connections. His scholarship is characterized by its emphasis on the link between history and philosophy, and the relationship of intellectual history to its social context. Hodge guides us through long-term historical processes, to discover the roots of modern scientific practice, not as an inevitable result of the passing of time but as a product of its cultural relations, mainly within Western thought, and in that sense invites us to deepen our understanding of the history of science, with a particular emphasis on the importance of ontology. The latter is a clear example of the profound relationship that Hodge perceives between the philosophy and the history of science.
In the specific case of Darwin and the history of Darwinism, Hodge sheds light on Darwin’s theorizing, especially in the notebooks of his London years and during the voyage of the Beagle. Hodge has taken special care in rejecting theories that relate the Industrial Revolution and Darwin’s thought too straightforwardly, spinning in a much finer way the socio-economic context of his family from the eighteenth century, in a way that stands out from the conventional reading of Darwin and his work. Let us simply consider here the extraordinary work that, together with Greg Radick, was the Cambridge Companion to Darwin, a masterful collection of essays on the historical, biological, and ideological aspects of the Darwinian revolution, which has undoubtedly allowed us to have new ways of understanding a subject so widely discussed.
Finally, we would like to close by reaffirming the similarities between David L. Hull and Jonathan Hodge, not only in their study subjects but also in their teaching skills and their kindness, generosity, and commitment. The work of both invites us every day to see the history of science as a field full of opportunities to make new theoretical and empirical contributions.
Ana Barahona, Chair of the 2019 David L. Hull Prize Committee