This week the team at The HPS Podcast are taking a mid-semester break!

To celebrate we are reposting one of our favourite episodes from Season 1 featuring Professor Greg Radick, a leading historian of biology at the University of Leeds.

In the podcast Greg discusses the use of counterfactuals in history of science - the term we use for asking ‘What if?’ questions about history - and their potential to subvert our conventional thinking.

In Greg’s research, a central counterfactual question is: “What might biology be like now if a different side had triumphed in early debates on genetics?”

For example, might we be a little less deterministic about genetic inheritance and a little more embracing of contextual effects on human development?

By asking such seemingly simple ‘what if’ questions, fruitful new lines of investigation and alternative perspectives can open up.

A transcript of the interview can be found here: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/episode-5-transcript

Related links

• Profile: Professor Gregory Radick | University of Leeds
• Website: Gregory Radick | Personal Site
• Book: Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology
• Article: Teach students the biology of their time | Nature

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast with your current hosts, Samara Greenwood and Carmelina Contarino. You can find more about us on our blog, website, bluesky, twitter, instagram and facebook feeds. This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. www.hpsunimelb.org