Luna B. Leopold was a hydrologist and fluvial geomorphologist who headed the Water Resource Division of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1957 to 1966 and was one of the leaders of the postwar quantitative revolution in geomorphology. Like other quantitative geomorphologists of his generation, he turned to numbers partly to strengthen his professional authority in policy debates, particularly those concerning a looming ‘water crisis’ in the United States. This paper traces the traces the evolution of Leopold's thought from the 1950s to the 1970s, when he turned from seeking universal empirical regularities in river processes to arguing that fluvial systems were inherently indeterminate and unpredictable. While this position was largely rejected by Leopold's scientific colleagues, it was embraced by members of the emerging environmental movement, for whom Leopold's stochastic understanding of rivers provided a seemingly authoritative rationale for the position that complete control and prediction of river systems would always remain out of reach. More broadly, this case shows how quantitative imprecision and uncertainty can sometimes be advantageous for experts seeking to establish authority in a contested policy domain.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė;
(2023)
The Will to Predict: Orchestrating the Future Through Science
(/isis/citation/CBB176352940/)
Article
Pietro Daniel Omodeo;
(2022)
Hydrogeological Knowledge from Below: Water Expertise as a Republican Common in Early-Modern Venice
(/isis/citation/CBB920159518/)
Article
Lauren Richter;
Alissa Cordner;
Phil Brown;
(October 2018)
Non-stick science: Sixty years of research and (in)action on fluorinated compounds
(/isis/citation/CBB792947339/)
Article
Reuss, Martin;
(2002)
Probability analysis and the search for hydrologic order in the United States, 1885--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001180771/)
Article
Chew, Matthew K.;
(2009)
The Monstering of Tamarisk: How Scientists Made a Plant into a Problem
(/isis/citation/CBB000932215/)
Book
Colten, Craig E.;
(2014)
Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance
(/isis/citation/CBB001422404/)
Article
Schweber, Libby;
(2002)
Wartime Research and the Quantification of American Sociology. The View from “The American Soldier”
(/isis/citation/CBB000751012/)
Chapter
Tousignant, Noemi;
(2014)
A Quantity of Suffering: Measuring Pain as Emotion in the Mid-Twentieth Century United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001202328/)
Article
Daniel Macfarlane;
(2019)
As nearly as may be: estimating ice and water on the Niagara and St. Lawrence Rivers
(/isis/citation/CBB009474339/)
Article
Fridenson, Patrick;
(2012)
L’histoire de l’incertitude technique et ses enjeux
(/isis/citation/CBB001200688/)
Book
Jamie L. Pietruska;
(2017)
Looking Forward: Prediction and Uncertainty in Modern America
(/isis/citation/CBB992930313/)
Chapter
Vetter, Jeremy;
(2012)
Field Life in the American West: Surveys, Networks, Stations, and Quarries
(/isis/citation/CBB001210267/)
Book
Mariel Borowitz;
(2024)
Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data
(/isis/citation/CBB331556800/)
Article
Gross, Rachel S.;
(April 2019)
Layering for a Cold War: The M-1943 Combat System, Military Testing, and Clothing as Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB312384599/)
Article
Frank Uekötter;
(2021)
The revolt of the chemists: Biofuels, agricultural overproduction, and the chemurgy movement in New Deal America
(/isis/citation/CBB468234022/)
Book
Ronald W. Schatz;
(2021)
The labor board crew : Remaking worker-employer relations from Pearl Harbor to the Reagan era
(/isis/citation/CBB570030891/)
Article
Ferruccio Ricciardi;
(2016)
"Le baiser du prince." Transfert technique et savoirs dormants en milieu d’entreprise (États-Unis/Italie, années 1950-1960); "Princes Kiss": Technology Transfer and Dormant Knowledge in the World of Enterprise (USA - Italy, The 1950s-1960s)
(/isis/citation/CBB961682862/)
Book
Edward Slavishak;
(2018)
Proving Ground: Expertise and Appalachian Landscapes
(/isis/citation/CBB366779621/)
Book
Ai Hisano;
(2019)
Visualizing Taste: How business changed the look of what you eat
(/isis/citation/CBB048688000/)
Article
Jonathan M. Galka;
(2022)
Liguus Landscapes: Amateur Liggers, Professional Malacology, and the Social Lives of Snail Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB114617481/)
Be the first to comment!