William Lynch

William Lynch

Professor

313-577-2525 (fax)

William.Lynch@wayne.edu

3161 Faculty/Administration Building

Media

Department

History

William Lynch

Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, 1996

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

  • Science and Technology Studies

  • Environmental History

  • History of Evolutionary Science

Research

  • The new sciences of cultural evolution
  • The science and politics of chemical and radiological hazards in the twentieth century
  • Dissent and diversity in science

Education

  • Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, 1996
  • M.A., Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, 1993
  • M.S., Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech, 1989
  • B.S., Physics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1987

Awards and grants

 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, 2022

Selected publications

Minority Report: Dissent and Diversity in Science. Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society series. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.

“Behind the Screens: Post-truth, Populism, and the Circulation of Elites,” Analyse & Kritik 43 (2), (2021): 367–393.

“Method and Control: Naturalizing Scientific Culture in Bacon’s Novum organum,” Epistemology & Philosophy of Science 58 (3), (2021): 69-77.

“Between Kin Selection and Cultural Relativism: Cultural Evolution and the Origin of Inequality,” Perspectives on Science 27 (2) (2019): 278-315.

“The Domestication of Animals and the Roots of the Anthropocene,” Journal of the History of Biology 52 (1) (2019): 201-217.
“Imre Lakatos and the Inexhaustible Atom: The Hidden Marxist Roots of History and Philosophy of Science,” Epistemology & Philosophy of Science, 55 (3), 2018, 25-34.

“After the Gold Rush: Cleaning Up after Steve Fuller’s Theosis,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 48 (5), 2018, 505–523.

"Cultural Evolution and Social Epistemology: A Darwinian Alternative to Steve Fuller’s Theodicy of Science." Social Epistemology, 31 (2), 2017, 224-34.

“Second-Guessing Scientists and Engineers: Post Hoc Criticism and the Reform of Practice in Green Chemistry and Engineering,” Science and Engineering Ethics, 21 (5), 2015, 1217-40.

“Thresholds of Change: Why Didn’t Green Chemistry Happen Sooner,” Technology’s Stories, Society for the History of Science, 3 (1): April 2015, http://www.technologystories.org.

Citation index

684 citations (Google Scholar)

Courses taught by William Lynch

Winter Term 2024 (current)

Fall Term 2023

Winter Term 2023

Fall Term 2022

Winter Term 2022