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Daniel J. Kevles (born 2 March 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American historian of science best known for his books on American physics and eugenics and for a wide-ranging body of scholarship on science and technology in modern societies. He is Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Emeritus at Yale University and J. O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology.
In 2001 Kevles received the George Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, awarded for "a lifetime of scholarly achievement". In 1999 his book The Baltimore Case was awarded the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize for best book in the history of science directed to a wide public. Kevles is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Society of American Historians.
In 2000 the mathematician Serge Lang waged an unsuccessful campaign to prevent Kevles from being granted tenure at Yale, asserting that Kevles' book The Baltimore Case was too sympathetic to David Baltimore.Tim R.A. Cooper,"Yale to tenure two science history stars; Professors to boost ailing humanities program" ( Yale Daily News, 20 Jan. 2000, pp. 1, 4)T.R.A. Cooper & Charles Forelle, "Tenure offer draws fire from Lang; Kevles in town, likely to accept history of science position" ( Yale Daily News, 31 Jan. 2000, pp. 1, 3)John Chin,"Battle of professors: Lang irate, Kevles indifferent" ( Yale Herald, 11 Feb. 2000)Michael Miarmi,"Serge Lang is fighting a losing battle" (Opinion) ( Yale Herald, 11 Feb. 2000); Matthew Matera, "Kevles settles in after last year's controversy"( Yale Daily News, 27 Oct. 2000). Although criticized publicly by Lang and several other scientists,Criticisms for The Baltimore Case
the book was also praised by others for meticulous scholarship and detailed reporting.Praises for The Baltimore Case
His books include The Physicists (1978), See also a history of the American physics community, In the Name of Eugenics (1985), currently the standard text on the history of eugenics in the United States and Britain, and The Baltimore Case (1998),Kevles, Daniel J. The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.; 1998). See also a study of accusations of scientific fraud. He is also a co-author of the textbook Inventing America: A History of the United States (2002; 2nd edition 2006)Maier, P., Smith, M. R., Keyssar, A. and Kevles, D. J. (2006) Inventing America: A History of the United States, second edition. New York: W. W. Norton. and co-editor with Leroy Hood of The Code of Codes (1992),Kevles, Daniel J., and Hood, Leroy E. (1992). 9780674136458, Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674136458 a set of essays that explore scientific and social issues surrounding the Human Genome Project. Recently he has been working on a history of the uses of intellectual property in living organisms from the eighteenth century to the present and a co-authored history of the National Academy of Sciences.See mention of project, See also short essays by the co-authors,
Throughout his career, Kevles has brought the history of science and technology to a broad audience through his contributions to general readership publications. These have included pieces in The New Yorker, The New York Times,E.g., ; The New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement,E.g., ; Scientific American, and The Huffington Post, among others. The serialized version of his book In the Name of Eugenics, published in The New Yorker in 1984, received the 1985 Page One Award for excellence in science reporting.Olby, Robert, and R. C. Lewontin. Isis 77, no. 2 (1986): 311-19. .
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