ABSTRACT
We scientific biographers confront an irony. We try to create a contextualised biography that shows how the subject’s science is related to other personal, cultural and social forces in his or her life – things like religion, education, politics, social status, health, race and ethnicity, and sex (marriage, sexual preference, gender issues). And yet these are precisely the things that scientists themselves are forbidden to consider when rewarding their colleagues with tenure and promotion, prestigious appointments, society offices, prizes and all the other forms of reward. It is ironical that we want to write biographies about just those things that scientists in real life are supposed to avoid in judging their peers. Fortunately, we write biographies about dead people, which reduces the problem of political correctness, but there still seems to be a disconnect between what we biographers consider important and what the scientists themselves consider important.
