Daniel Kevles

Who is Daniel Kevles?

Daniel J. Kevles is an American historian of science. He is currently the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University and an Adjunct Professor of Journalism at Columbia University. He was previously a professor of the humanities at the California Institute of Technology, where he also served as faculty chair, from 1964 to 2001.

His research interests have been primarily on the history of science in America, the interactions between science and society, and environmentalism. He is best known for his survey works, which generalize large amounts of historical information into readable and coherent narratives. His books include The Physicists, a history of the American physics community, In the Name of Eugenics, currently the standard text on the history of eugenics in the United States, and The Baltimore Case, a study of accusations of scientific fraud.

The mathematician Serge Lang subsequently waged an unsuccessful campaign to prevent Kevles from being granted tenure at Yale, claiming that Kevles' book was too sympathetic to David Baltimore. Although sharply criticized by Lang and some others as well, it was generally praised for meticulous scholarship and detailed reporting.