Christopher P Toumey
Biographic Data
| ID | 133917 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher P Toumey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher P |
| FAMILY NAME | Toumey |
| SIGNATURE | TOUMEY C P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Expeditions to Na-no-tech
Rationalization, Creationism and the Mechanics of Contradiction
Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life
this unsettling look at science in America's democratic culture, Christopher Toumey shows how readily the critics of elite science have hijacked scientific authority for their own purposes [and] lucidly illustrates the ways in which science has taken on multiple and contested meanings.--Ronald L. Numbers, William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin Medical School A fascinating and clearly written anal…
Conjuring Medical Science: The 1986 Referendum on Aids/HIV Policy in California
Medical science occupies a peculiar status in American life. On the one hand, people often view medical science as a privileged and authoritative body of knowledge that transcends other kinds of knowledge. On the other handy medical-scientific authority can be easily conjured from the popular symbols of science, e.g., credentials, technical terms, and white lab coats. This problem can be converted into an anthropological question of meanings and …
Conjuring science in the case of cold fusion
Most media accounts of cold fusion described that experience as a conflict among scientists, e.g., chemists versus physicists. It is worth seeing, however, how nonscientists perceived the scientific issues and supporting evidence surrounding cold fusion. From Clifford Geertz's anthropology of meanings-and-symbols, plus Jean Baudrillard's sociology of hyperreality, I derive a general theory that common public symbols of science can be separated fr…
God's Own Scientists: Creationists in a Secular World
Toumey focuses the tools of his discipline on a group whose distance from the twentieth-century American mainstream is measured not in decades or miles but rather in existential understandings about reality. Toumey studies both the national scientific creationism movement and the operation of a local creationist study group in his state's Research Triangle in the mid-1980s, seeking to understand the underlying beliefs--about morality, the Bible, …
Evolution and Secular Humanism
Journal Article Evolution and Secular Humanism Get access Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P Toumey is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 His book, God's Own Scientists Creationists in a Secular World, will be published by Rutgers University Press in 1994 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Ac…
The Moral Character of Mad Scientists: A Cultural Critique of Science
The mad scientist stories of fiction and film are exercises in antirationalism, particularly its Gothic horror variant. As such, they convey the argument that rationalist secular science is dangerous, and their principal device for doing so is to invest the evil of science in the personality of the scientist. To understand this cultural critique of science, it is necessary to understand how the symbols of the scientist's personality are manipulat…
Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority
Much of modern creationist thought is obviously generated by fundamentalist theology, but there is another major influence at work — namely, the cultural-historical dynamics of the social role of scientific authority in American life. This paper describes a variety of modern creationist positions on the merits and credibility of scientific authority, and then analyzes that situation in terms of the history of three cultural models of science that…
Jemmy Button
Jemmy Button was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego who inadvertently inspired four generations of nineteenth-century English missionaries to risk their earthly lives to save his eternal soul. These earnest evangelicals made five expeditions to Jemmy's South American homeland to make Christians of him and his countrymen. One of these ventures was an embarrassing fiasco, another ended in death by starvation, and a third led to a treacherous massacre. T…
A Counterpoint on Northern Ireland
Another View of the Ulster Tragedy
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Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life
this unsettling look at science in America's democratic culture, Christopher Toumey shows how readily the critics of elite science have hijacked scientific authority for their own purposes [and] lucidly illustrates the ways in which science has taken on multiple and contested meanings.--Ronald L. Numbers, William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin Medical School A fascinating and clearly written anal…
The Moral Character of Mad Scientists: A Cultural Critique of Science
The mad scientist stories of fiction and film are exercises in antirationalism, particularly its Gothic horror variant. As such, they convey the argument that rationalist secular science is dangerous, and their principal device for doing so is to invest the evil of science in the personality of the scientist. To understand this cultural critique of science, it is necessary to understand how the symbols of the scientist's personality are manipulat…
Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority
Much of modern creationist thought is obviously generated by fundamentalist theology, but there is another major influence at work — namely, the cultural-historical dynamics of the social role of scientific authority in American life. This paper describes a variety of modern creationist positions on the merits and credibility of scientific authority, and then analyzes that situation in terms of the history of three cultural models of science that…
Evolution and Secular Humanism
Journal Article Evolution and Secular Humanism Get access Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P Toumey is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 His book, God's Own Scientists Creationists in a Secular World, will be published by Rutgers University Press in 1994 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Ac…
Jemmy Button
Jemmy Button was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego who inadvertently inspired four generations of nineteenth-century English missionaries to risk their earthly lives to save his eternal soul. These earnest evangelicals made five expeditions to Jemmy's South American homeland to make Christians of him and his countrymen. One of these ventures was an embarrassing fiasco, another ended in death by starvation, and a third led to a treacherous massacre. T…
Feedback
Another View of the Ulster Tragedy
A Counterpoint on Northern Ireland
Jemmy Button
Jemmy Button was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego who inadvertently inspired four generations of nineteenth-century English missionaries to risk their earthly lives to save his eternal soul. These earnest evangelicals made five expeditions to Jemmy's South American homeland to make Christians of him and his countrymen. One of these ventures was an embarrassing fiasco, another ended in death by starvation, and a third led to a treacherous massacre. T…
Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority
Much of modern creationist thought is obviously generated by fundamentalist theology, but there is another major influence at work — namely, the cultural-historical dynamics of the social role of scientific authority in American life. This paper describes a variety of modern creationist positions on the merits and credibility of scientific authority, and then analyzes that situation in terms of the history of three cultural models of science that…
The Moral Character of Mad Scientists: A Cultural Critique of Science
The mad scientist stories of fiction and film are exercises in antirationalism, particularly its Gothic horror variant. As such, they convey the argument that rationalist secular science is dangerous, and their principal device for doing so is to invest the evil of science in the personality of the scientist. To understand this cultural critique of science, it is necessary to understand how the symbols of the scientist's personality are manipulat…
Evolution and Secular Humanism
Journal Article Evolution and Secular Humanism Get access Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P. Toumey Christopher P Toumey is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 His book, God's Own Scientists Creationists in a Secular World, will be published by Rutgers University Press in 1994 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Ac…
God's Own Scientists: Creationists in a Secular World
Toumey focuses the tools of his discipline on a group whose distance from the twentieth-century American mainstream is measured not in decades or miles but rather in existential understandings about reality. Toumey studies both the national scientific creationism movement and the operation of a local creationist study group in his state's Research Triangle in the mid-1980s, seeking to understand the underlying beliefs--about morality, the Bible, …
Conjuring science in the case of cold fusion
Most media accounts of cold fusion described that experience as a conflict among scientists, e.g., chemists versus physicists. It is worth seeing, however, how nonscientists perceived the scientific issues and supporting evidence surrounding cold fusion. From Clifford Geertz's anthropology of meanings-and-symbols, plus Jean Baudrillard's sociology of hyperreality, I derive a general theory that common public symbols of science can be separated fr…
Conjuring Medical Science: The 1986 Referendum on Aids/HIV Policy in California
Medical science occupies a peculiar status in American life. On the one hand, people often view medical science as a privileged and authoritative body of knowledge that transcends other kinds of knowledge. On the other handy medical-scientific authority can be easily conjured from the popular symbols of science, e.g., credentials, technical terms, and white lab coats. This problem can be converted into an anthropological question of meanings and …
Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life
this unsettling look at science in America's democratic culture, Christopher Toumey shows how readily the critics of elite science have hijacked scientific authority for their own purposes [and] lucidly illustrates the ways in which science has taken on multiple and contested meanings.--Ronald L. Numbers, William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, University of Wisconsin Medical School A fascinating and clearly written anal…
Rationalization, Creationism and the Mechanics of Contradiction
Expeditions to Na-no-tech
Sociology (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Creationism (4 works) · Evolution and Science Education (4 works) · History (4 works) · Citation (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Law (3 works)