David Kaiser is the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Drawing Theories Apart, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and How the Hippies Saved Physics. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts. W. Patrick McCray is professor in the department of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Visioneers and Keep Watching the Skies. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.
"In the late 1960s and 1970s, the mind-expanding modus operandi of
the counterculture spread into the realm of science, and shit got
wonderfully weird. Neurophysiologist John Lilly tried to talk with
dolphins. Physicist Peter Phillips launched a parapsychology lab at
Washington University. Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill became an
evangelist for space colonies.Groovy Science is a new book of
essays about this heady time!"-- "Boing Boing"
"In their edited volume Groovy Science, Kaiser and McCray show that
in the 'long 1970s', the young, in creating a counterculture,
didn't so much reject science as recreate it. Each essay is a case
history on how the hippies repurposed science and made it cool. For
the academic historian, Groovy Science establishes the "deep mark
on American culture" made by the countercultural innovators. For
the non-historian, the book reads as if it were infected by the
hippies' democratic intent: no jargon, few convoluted sentences,
clear arguments and a sense of delight."-- "Nature"
"Kaiser and McCray offer up a kaleidoscope of talking dolphins,
manual-toting midwives, plastic surfboards, hip physicists,
self-taught cheesemakers, and unlikely gurus whose connections to
technical knowledge were not only uncanny, but also essential.
Groovy Science reveals that the heart of the American
counterculture was scientific as well as psychedelic. It is an
important book and a great read."-- "Angela N. H. Creager,
Princeton University"
"Long-haired surfers catching waves on handcrafted shortboards at
Laguna Beach. Women practicing home births as a form of "spiritual
midwifery" on the famous Tennessee commune, The Farm. Psychologist
Timothy Leary, "the most dangerous man in America," imploring us to
"turn on, tune in, and drop out." These are quintessential images
of American counterculture. But Groovy Science will make the reader
see them in a surprising new way: as significant scenes of
encounter between counterculture and science. By yoking together
the words 'groovy' and 'science, ' editors Kaiser and McCray refute
three durable notions about science in the 1970s: that the
counterculture was antiscience, that science was languishing in a
rather moribund phase during this period, and that mainstream
researchers lived and worked apart from the counterculture that
seemed to spurn them. Instead, the 12 essays that make up Groovy
Science demonstrate that people and groups strongly ensconced in
the counterculture also embraced science, albeit in untraditional
and creative ways."-- "Science"
"When science met the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s,
unusual things happened. The medical researcher John Lilly studied
whether dolphins could learn human language. Would-be astronomer
Immanuel Velikovsky made widely read claims that a comet had caused
biblical disasters. Artisanal food makers founded organic farms,
designers built communes with sustainable housing, and materials
scientists even revolutionized surfboard manufacturing. All this
and more is featured in Groovy Science, a new book from the
University of Chicago Press featuring essays from 17 scholars about
science's countercultural turn."-- "MIT News"
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