Record Details

Seeing the Oceans in the Shadow of Bergen Values

ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

Field Value
Title Seeing the Oceans in the Shadow of Bergen Values
Names Hamblin, Jacob Darwin (creator)
Date Issued 2014-06 (iso8601)
Note This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is copyrighted by the History of Science Society and published by the University of Chicago Press. It can be found at: http://www.jstor.org/page/journal/isis/about.html.
Abstract Although oceanographers such as Roger Revelle are typically associated with key indicators
of anthropogenic change, he and other scientists at midcentury had very different
scientific priorities and ways of seeing the oceans. How can we join the narrative of the
triumph of mathematical, dynamic oceanography with the environmental narrative? Dynamic
methods entailed a broad set of values that touched the professional lives of marine
scientists in a variety of disciplines all over the world, for better or for worse. The present
essay highlights three aspects of “Bergen values” in need of greater exploration by
scholars. First, how did the dominance of Scandinavian outlooks influence scientific
questions across the broad spectrum of oceanography? Second, did oceanographers’
particular means of making the oceans legible through instrumentation challenge their
ability to perceive the oceans differently? Third, given the immense quantity of data, was
the historical legacy of the dynamic oceanographers more descriptive than they imagined?
Genre Article
Identifier Hamblin, J. D. (2014). Seeing the Oceans in the Shadow of Bergen Values. Isis, 105(2), 352-363. doi:10.1086/676573

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