And the winner is...Ms Kathryn Tabb

Ms Kathryn Tabb

Just announced...Ms Kathryn Tabb is the winner of the £1000 prize offered by the Darwin Correspondence Project essay contest.


Darwin Correspondence Project

2008 essay prize winner

The Darwin Correspondence Project is delighted to announce that the winner of its first Templeton essay prize in Darwin and religion is Kathryn Tabb, for her essay Darwin on Orchis Bank. Ms Tabb is a graduate of the University of Chicago, and is enrolled in a PhD programme at the University of Pittsburg, where she will begin studies in the history and philosophy of biology this autumn. She has just completed an MPhil at the University of Cambridge.

Entries for the prize were received from six different countries, from high school, undergraduate and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines. The Project wishes to thank the John Templeton Foundation for funding the essay prize, and all the entrants for their submissions. Another round of prizes will be awarded in 2009, the details of which will be announced in September 2008.

The essay will be published here when available.

"Gates scholar takes Darwin Correspondence Project essay prize"

July 21st, 2008

University of Cambridge

An MPhil student at Cambridge University's Department of the History and Philosophy of Science has won a £1000 prize in an essay competition connecting Darwin’s work with debates on science and religion.

Kathryn Tabb, a graduate of the University of Chicago who came over to Cambridge as a Gates Scholar, picked up the prize for an essay examining the implications of Darwin's work on orchids.

"Darwin at Orchis Bank" saw off competition from entrants in six different countries working in fields as diverse as theology, creative writing and biology.

The essay considered his work on orchid morphology and pollination and its implications for the question of design in nature, drawing parallels and contrasts with contemporary ideas of 'intelligent design'. Darwin's research was discussed at length in correspondence with noted Harvard botanist Asa Gray, an ardent Presbyterian.

Dr Paul White, who organised the competition, said: "It is very gratifying for us on the Darwin Correspondence Project to see a student engaging with these historical materials with such thoughtfulness and enthusiasm, and exploring its modern relevance."

Competition entrants were encouraged to study Darwin's letters closely and to explore their relevance to contemporary discussions, as well of those with the 19th century.

The competition, which was open to students from all disciplines and stages of education, forms part of an initiative on Darwin and religion started by the Correspondence Project in 2007.

Its long term goal is to create a web resource to bring together material from Darwin's correspondence relevant to questions on science and religion with modern commentaries by leading authorities on the various areas of the debate. Kathryn's essay will be published on the Project's website as part of this effort.

Funding for the award was provided by the John Templeton Foundation, established in 1987 by philanthropist Sir John Templeton to fund work in the natural sciences, philosophy and theology, solutions to poverty and education.

The Darwin Correspondence Project, which is based at the University Library, is dedicated to locating and publishing Darwin's letters. To date, it has located around 14,500 letters exchanged by Darwin and more than 2000 correspondents, and has made the complete texts of nearly 6000 of these available in print or online.

The Gates Scholarships were established in October 2000, through a $210 million gift to the University of Cambridge from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The benefaction creates in perpetuity an international scholarship programme for foreign students to study at Cambridge.


University of Cambridge

Gates Cambridge Scholarships

Ms Kathryn Tabb

Hometown and State: New York City, NY

Current/most recent university: University of Chicago

Degree & Subject at Cambridge: MPhil in History Phil & Sociol of Sci, Techno'gy & Medicine

My name is Kathryn Tabb; I was born in New York City and attended St. Ann's School in Brooklyn. In 2006 I graduated from the University of Chicago with a concentration in History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science (HPS), an interdisciplinary program that allowed variegated studies across the spectrum of my interests. While at Chicago, inspired by a visit to Mexico with a service committee in 2002, I began teaching at an adult education program for recent immigrants. I was hired as Assistant Director in the summer of 2004. My academic work culminated in a prize-winning philosophical and historiographical investigation of the teleology at work in evolutionary theory, and I am currently applying what I learned through this project to a radical and fascinating branch of my discipline - the philosophy of psychiatry and clinical psychology. In so doing my intention is to re-conceptualize contemporary treatment and diagnostic practices in these fields. The outstanding engagement of the Cambridge HPS faculty with both the philosophy of biology and the human sciences makes it the perfect place to bridge my two interests. In pursuing a Ph.D. I aim to obtain a professorship in the philosophy of biology, psychology, or an allied field.

"Alumna anticipates Cambridge studies on Gates scholarship"

by

Julia Morse

University of Chicago Chronicle

After being named a 2007 Gates-Cambridge scholar, 2006 College alumna Kathryn Tabb will be studying next fall at Cambridge University—exactly where she wants to be.

"It is one of the best programs in the world for my field of study," Tabb said of the graduate program in History and Philosophy of Science. "It's such a specific interest that there are few departments specifically dedicated to it. I’m excited to be in a community of people who share my interests within history and philosophy."

While enrolled at Chicago, Tabb found additional career inspiration while on a social service trip to Mexico in 2002, after which she began teaching at an adult education program for recent immigrants in Chicago.

Tabb is currently focusing on what she called a "radical and fascinating branch of my discipline—the philosophy of psychiatry and clinical psychology."

She said, "In so doing, my intention is to re-conceptualize contemporary treatment and diagnostic practices in these fields."

Tabb received an A.B. in History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science and Medicine from Chicago. She said she is looking forward to taking the knowledge she gained during her undergraduate career into her graduate career. "Like Chicago, Cambridge is a vibrant educational community, and I can’t wait to be there," she said. Tabb is one of three 2006 Chicago graduates to receive the Gates Cambridge scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Alumni Anyu Fang and Karen McClendon, also won the scholarships.



£1000 essay prize

Hawking--England or Canada...makes no difference

This appears to be "much ado about nothing". I am not sure of the purpose of this whole story. Sure, Hawking is annoyed about the state of the sciences in England but some of that has been rectified. Hawking has obtained iconic status, like Einstein, and little else save the co-authorship of a book with his daughter. Hawking hasn't contributed much in quite a long time and has been Lucasian Chair at Cambridge doling out sporadic lectures and basically polishing the academic esteem of Cambridge University.

Here are two articles: CBCnews and the Canadian National Post.

"Stephen Hawking is staying put, Cambridge says"

July 16th, 2008

CBCnews

The University of Cambridge has poured cold water on reports its most famous physicist might be coming to Canada to work, saying Wednesday Stephen Hawking "has no plans" to leave.

A report in the Daily Telegraph in the U.K. said Hawking was contemplating joining his colleague Neil Turok at Waterloo, Ont.'s Perimeter Institute. The South African-born cosmologist Turok, 49, is leaving Cambridge to take over the role of executive director at the institute, which was founded in 2000 by Research in Motion co-founder Mike Lazaridis and is devoted to the study of theoretical physics.

Cambridge's statement called the report "unfounded speculation."

But Turok, who will start a five-year term at Perimeter on Oct. 1, said when he was hired that his colleague Hawking had an open invitation to join Perimeter for a few months. Hawking is expected to visit the institute in the fall.

Perimeter spokesman John Matlock said Wednesday the report of Hawking's possible arrival has been exaggerated. Last month Matlock said there have been discussions with Hawking about visiting the institute for a few months but nothing had been decided.

Turok left Cambridge in part because of his frustration over government funding, particularly his inability to secure a commitment to expand Cambridge's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology and rename it after Hawking, who has also expressed his displeasure over funding cuts to research.

Cambridge said in its statement that Hawking was looking forward to continuing to work at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

"Stephen's hope is that this will soon be established as the world's leading centre for research in theoretical cosmology and indeed that, in due course, will expand into a large permanent institute for research into fundamental physics," the university said.

'A move isn't imminent,' says assistant

Hawking's graduate assistant Sam Blackburn had told the Telegraph on Tuesday, "I think Professor Hawking is mulling it over but a move isn't imminent."

"He would not make plans to permanently move to a place he hasn't visited yet, but he is open to it," he said.

Turok told the Telegraph that Hawking plans to visit in 2009 and "we would certainly welcome him coming for longer."

Part of Perimeter's attractiveness is its access to funding: last month Lazaridis donated an additional $50 million to the institute, bringing his total contribution to the centre for theoretical physics to $150 million.

Hawking, best known for his book A Brief History of Time, is one of the few physicists in the world who has achieved celebrity status outside his field, having made guest appearances on episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. The scientist, who uses a wheelchair, has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Hawking is currently the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a prestigious title once held by Sir Isaac Newton and computer pioneer Charles Babbage.

"Comment: Find the next Stephen Hawking"

July 18th, 2008

National Post

Earlier this week, a story in The Daily Telegraph suggested that the legendary physicist Stephen Hawking -- who occupies the sacred Lucasian Chair at Cambridge where Newton, Babbage, and Dirac once perched -- is so infuriated over Labour government cuts to basic research funding in Britain that he is considering a transatlantic move to the new Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. For a brief moment, one couldn't help feeling excited for Canada.

OK, sure, having a sympathetic friend slip over to the pub with a journalist to plant a frightening rumour is a standard piece of gamesmanship for any media-savvy celebrity, academic or otherwise. No one in science, after all, is more sophisticated about media than Hawking. And, OK, sure, maybe his stature in the profession is just a tiny bit exaggerated in popular culture as a consequence of his poignant struggle with degenerative disease. (Honestly, it has been a little hard to swallow the repeated
comparisons with Einstein, and the research community must have often ground its teeth quietly to hear him lionized uncritically as the most significant living figure in physics, with Murray Gell-Mann still hanging around -- along with, until 2005, Hans Bethe.) Still, one would have to have the patriotic instincts of a fungus not to experience a sudden intake of breath at the idea of Stephen Hawking coming here. And it is doubly thrilling to imagine that it could happen as a consequence of the success of Canadian tech champion Research in Motion, whose co-founder Mike Lazaridis is providing much of the funding for the Perimeter Institute.

Sadly, spokesmen close to Mr. Hawking poured cold water on the idea yesterday, insisting that there are no plans for a move to Canada (although it can be argued that these latter denials are, for all that, barely more authoritative than the highly torqued original Telegraph story). Still, the brief spasm of nationalist euphoria is instructive. Now that the hubbub has receded, it's worth asking: What would we really be getting anyway if Mr. Hawking migrated to our shores?

Waterloo is already one of the great sites for physics pilgrimage on the continent. Mr. Hawking's presence at the Perimeter Institute certainly would solidify that reputation, start the institute off with an attention-getting coup and inspire young people from sea to sea. On the other hand, it is easy to forget -- on account of his long-standing infirmity, which has imparted to him a certain grim timelessness -- that the great man is 68 years of age. Frankly, even the most dynamic and youthful physicists have generally put their best work behind them by that time (in many cases, decades behind them). And presumably there are strict limits on the amount of mentoring Mr. Hawking can do (communication being much more difficult for him than it often appears to be when he is giving prepared remarks).

If Mr. Hawking does not, or cannot, come to Waterloo, it may perhaps be a blessing in disguise. The classical model for shops such as the Perimeter Institute is the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), adjacent to Princeton University, where Einstein, Godel and other monumental figures found refuge from the self-destruction of European civilization in the 1930s and '40s. The IAS has been much-imitated, and some truly immortal work has been done there (particularly by John von Neumann). But on the whole, the institute has not, perhaps, lived up to the promise of the radiant names on its founding charter.

It is all very well to give accomplished scientists some space and funding, leave them be and expect genius to come pouring out. And sometimes it happens, though seemingly no more often than it does when we expect them to lecture to the occasional undergraduate and write up grant applications in exchange for a nice living.

What Canada really wants, and what the focus of our research efforts should be, is to locate the world's next Stephen Hawking, not to feather the bed of the one we've got already. Unfortunately, it is hard to know where he might come from. There are no hard-and-fast rules. Trying to find him will be unglamourous, compared to gathering at the feet of his formidable predecessor. It will probably involve thousands of university administrators and department heads placing bets on many students and aspiring thinkers, most of whom will never become more than humble spear-carriers for the tradition of pure research. But if that one bright light can be found and nurtured, it will have been more than worth it.



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